News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on All clocks are 30 seconds late. Parent comment

Re:All clocks are 30 seconds late by doubled112 on Monday January 06, 2025 @01:50PM (#42613880)
Also vaguely related, I've come to realize some people find metric measurements easier than feet and inches.

I find the fractions simpler. Need a half of that half? Just double the denominator.

My wife would seemingly rather keep counting .1 centimeters.

The same applies with clocks. It's easier for me to rough out how long I have if I just chop the face into fractions vs mental arithmetic, as brutal as that sounds. What do you mean this guy can't divide 30 in half?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All clocks are 30 seconds late by BlueTemplar on Monday January 06, 2025 @02:11PM (#42614214)
Romans were using both : "metric/decimal" for numbers, but "imperial/dozenal" for fractions :

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus

(Base 12x5=60 was of course used by their Babylonian predecessors.)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All clocks are 30 seconds late by dredmorbius on Monday January 06, 2025 @10:32PM (#42618873)
If only we were a species with six fingers per hand.
[ Parent | on HN ]