Decimal Time

[rickman]

Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened by
about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.

I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of changes
in society. We presently have a large number of convenient time increments
which would not be so convenient in the new system.

First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no convenient unit
about the same length of time as the hour. The closest would be the
quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The deci-hour would be pretty
convenient about 4% shorter than a quarter hour. The old half hour would
now be about a fifth of a new hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which
might become confused with a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a gallon
which has since become 750 ml in metric.

The inconvenience would come from the need to totally recalibrate every type
of measurement we use that considers time... speed limits, work days, time
zones... Would we extend this change to measurements of angles which often
are done in degrees, minutes, seconds?

How would we adjust the work day? Do we go to 3 hour work days which would
be about 7.2 old hours? Shift work would have to split hours to get three
shifts while some businesses that use two 12 old hour shifts would hum along
just fine with 5 new hour shifts. Many businesses opening at 9 AM would now
open at 4:00 (I assume we would just count 0 to 9 hours rather than the
annoying AM/PM thing), folks would take a lunch break at 5:00 and banks
would close around 6:00 while retail would remain open until 9:00 or 9:50
(hmmm, that is still about the same).

The minutes gets pretty whacked gaining 26.4 old seconds. So "give me a
minute" becomes a quarter more weighty of a request. The original pulse was
conceived to match the human pulse so our normal pulse rate will become 86
bpm instead of 60 bpm.

In science the changes would be enormous. With a redefinition of the second
every time related measurement would have to change including many in EE
such as capacitance/charge/current, heck, the definition of the
gravitational constant and even the speed of light would have to change.
Every text book would change and every instrument. This would create so
much confusion that we really would need new names for the second, minute
and hour.

This could go on all day (the one measurement that doesn't change) with a
huge list of changes we will have to make and the many adaptations we as a
society would need to accommodate. Then, in the end, we would still have
leap years.

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

[Tom Biasi]

Anyone old enough may remember when the USA tried to go metric. The
people just would not go for it and it was abandoned.

[rickman]

I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't recall
much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at other levels. We
had a partnership with Canada to change together and had a multi-step
program. We completed the first two or three steps and quit. That's why
metric is taught today in schools, it was part of step two or three. When
we had to take a step that would actually change something (I think it was
highway signs) we told Canada to go on without us and we'd catch up later...
*much* later.

I can't believe that even today we still use English units in many
engineering fields. Mechanical engineers often use inches and feet. God
knows what civil engineers use, probably rods. It was just recently that I
learned the acre comes from 160 square rods.

Actually I just looked it up and the acre was defined as 1 chain by 1
furlong while a rod is a quarter of a chain. A chain is 0.1 furlong, so
they are all a related system of measurement.

[Tom Biasi]

Well you and I remember differently. I was involved in the teaching of
the metric system to the people of the USA. There was great resistance
and money for the project soon got thin. When I studied engineering in
the 70's we used the metric system exclusively. We didn't call it SI, it
was just the way the scientific community did it.

[rickman]

Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 11:13 PM:
>
> Well you and I remember differently. I was involved in the teaching of the
> metric system to the people of the USA. There was great resistance and money
> for the project soon got thin. When I studied engineering in the 70's we
> used the metric system exclusively. We didn't call it SI, it was just the
> way the scientific community did it.

What teaching were you involved in? I assume it was companies asking you to
educate employees? That is not related to the government. It also has
nothing to do with the "resistance" from the average person. No one was
overly enthusiastic about it since it was a big change, but people were
willing to go with the flow. Mostly they just didn't understand it as there
had been only notification that it would happen and the education was only
in the schools. I believe it was industry that resisted the change much to
our detriment over the decades.

I don't know what you mean about metric not being "SI". I didn't know
diddly about metric until I was in college (before the conversion program
started) and was taught the SI system. I believe prior to SI there was a
metric system that had a few units that were different from today's SI by
some powers of 10. CGS and dynes come to mind.

[Look165]

It is worthless.

The animal bodies are regulated by the 24h system.

And it would be necessary to redefine the reference second which is now
related to the cesiuaam atom.It is the international reference like the
meter also related to this atom



rickman a écrit :

[pf...@aol.com]

Mpffffff... what is unique about time-keeping as-practiced? It is base-12. Meaning that its 24-hour days are nicely divisible by more prime numbers than if it were base-10. It also goes nicely with 360 degrees, and such. It is something that entire world agrees to - one of the very few things.

Esperanto, anyone?

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[ABLE1]

On 8/31/2017 10:00 PM, rickman wrote:

If I may interject:
A lot of years ago I was at a party. I was with a small group of people
and I brought up the topic of Metric Time. I said it as if I really
knew about it and that it was reported on the nightly news by Tom Brokaw
the night before. I said the certain part of Canada had all ready
switched over.

I said it as a joke but did not say that it was. Everyone was 'oh and
'aw about it and swallowed hook, line and sinker. I walked away from
the group and moved else were, snickering all the way.

About 15 minutes later, I got a tap on the shoulder. I turned and faced
a guy that was in that previous group. He had a serious look of
embarrassment and irritation. He said "Metric Time?? Really??" I just
smiled and said "Got Cha". And we had a good laugh.

Actually still laughing today. Since this post put me back to the a very
funny moment in time.

Thanks for the memories.

Les

[Tim R]

During the time of the pyramids and pharaohs, the Egyptian calendar had 5 days "out of time" at the beginning of the year, then 12 months of 30 days each.

That still makes more sense than what we do now.

[Taxed and Spent]

On 9/1/2017 5:55 AM, Tim R wrote:
> During the time of the pyramids and pharaohs, the Egyptian calendar had 5 days "out of time" at the beginning of the year, then 12 months of 30 days each.
>
> That still makes more sense than what we do now.
>

If we did that now, the politicians will call those tax-free days, with
the remainder being taxed at 100%.

[pf...@aol.com]

> If we did that now, the politicians will call those tax-free days, with
> the remainder being taxed at 100%.

Something like the 0 and 00 on American Roulette wheels?

Keep in mind that the 'modern' calendar was the creation of a religious institution to keep the calendar from 'slipping' and entirely for religious purposes. Islam uses a lunar calendar and slips by about 10 days each year. This is most significant during Ramadan, when fasting is from sunrise to sunset. Makes things a bit hard the further north (or south) one goes when Ramadan falls in the local summer time. But, several other groups, including Buddhists and others use calendars apart from the Gregorian calendar - no surprise there at all.

[Tom Biasi]

I gave you my experience and you disagree. That's it.
Here is a cut from a Wiki article of which seems to be my experience also.

"The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement a
carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric system
over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to
coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the
United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United
States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination,
and public education. The public education component led to public
awareness of the metric system, but the public response included
resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule."

[rickman]

Look165 wrote on 9/1/2017 4:28 AM:
> It is worthless.
>
> The animal bodies are regulated by the 24h system.

Not sure what you are talking about. Animal rhythms are related to a daily
cycle, it has nothing to do with "hours".

> And it would be necessary to redefine the reference second which is now
> related to the cesiuaam atom.It is the international reference like the
> meter also related to this atom

The second is defined as vibrations of the cesium atom in the same way the
yard is defined in feet. If we wish to change the definition of the yard to
four feet we do that and are done. Likewise we can change the definition of
the second in the same way to a different number of vibrations of the cesium
atom.

Has anyone pointed out that top posting is hard to reply to?

[rickman]

pf...@aol.com wrote on 9/1/2017 7:08 AM:
> Mpffffff... what is unique about time-keeping as-practiced? It is base-12. Meaning that its 24-hour days are nicely divisible by more prime numbers than if it were base-10. It also goes nicely with 360 degrees, and such. It is something that entire world agrees to - one of the very few things.
>
> Esperanto, anyone?

Instead of redefining time measures, we should use base 12 for our day to
day computations? That might actually be less work.

[rickman]

You didn't answer the question about what teaching you did exactly. I don't
know what "That's it" means.

I will rephrase my statement. The resistance to metric was less than the
resistance we have to our current President. No one marched in the streets.
No one filed actions with the Supreme Court. Yeah, people were people and
we had some editorials and a few indicated they had no reason to change,
such as the machine shop I worked with at the time. But they eventually
acquired metric capability anyway.

The "apathy" was the largest component of the response to changing to the
metric system by far. If the government had stayed the course we would have
been converted long ago and all the pain would be behind us.

I wonder why the wikipedia quote doesn't mention the fact that we did the
conversion in cooperation with Canada? Because wikipedia sucks and often is
not 100% accurate. Never use them for any disputed point without looking at
the references.

From the Popular Science web site, "A Gallup poll at the time showed that
45 percent of Americans opposed the switch." That means less than half!

Here is a better reference... from NIST.

https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/pml/wmd/metric/1136a.pdf

While the Congressional study recommended a coordinated conversion over a
ten year period, Congress made the actual conversion voluntary. Consistent
with the "apathy" part of your statement above, the efforts of the Metric
Board were much ignored and the board was dissolved.

Today metric is a much larger part of our lives and I believe a conversion
would not be resisted and in fact, welcomed by a much larger percentage of
the population. Anyone who works on cars has both types of tools.
Measuring sticks and tapes often are marked in both systems. Goods on store
shelves are already marked in both systems. We are presently primed for the
conversion.

There is some irony in a personal anecdote. I was a contractor with the
Federal government and had to fill out forms justifying buying something
that wasn't measured in metric. The crusty old government employee who
oversaw purchasing didn't want to risk his pension so *everything* we bought
had to have this document. I ordered a board that *was* metric so I didn't
fill in the form and my PR was rejected. When I explained to him the board
was metric he didn't believe you could buy anything in the US that *was*
metric!!! This was in the 90's.

[pf...@aol.com]

On Friday, September 1, 2017 at 10:36:59 AM UTC-4, rickman wrote:
=

> Instead of redefining time measures, we should use base 12 for our day to
> day computations? That might actually be less work.

That would instantly remove (at least) 35% of Americans from the computational pool. Without 12 fingers, they would be entirely lost.

[rickman]

I posted this here because I figured the most resistance would come from a
community that has a large interest in keeping things the same. So far no
one has said much about the impact on repair.

[pf...@aol.com]

On Friday, September 1, 2017 at 11:33:03 AM UTC-4, rickman wrote:

> I posted this here because I figured the most resistance would come from a
> community that has a large interest in keeping things the same. So far no
> one has said much about the impact on repair.

Hence the indirect reference to that 35% of Americans who are unable to compute without their fingers. Not only do they want things to stay the same, but they would very much like to roll back the clock by about a century, or two.

[Tom Biasi]

To answer your question I taught classes to the public under guidelines
from the United States Metric Board (USMB) in 1975.
I don't see why you needed to bring in the President, I don't wish a
political discussion.

[rickman]

I have no idea what you are talking about. Where did I mention the President?

[Tom Biasi]

On 9/1/2017 1:57 PM, rickman wrote:

Here:

[Robert Roland]

On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 22:00:33 -0400, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>We presently have a large number of convenient time increments
>which would not be so convenient in the new system.

The human animal has a very strong preference to continue to do what
it is used to. It probably has a psychological name and also an
evolutionary significance. In some cases, it may be a good thing, but
in other cases, it hampers our progress tremendously.

Your post demonstrates this perfectly. You are trying to invent
something new, but you keep getting stuck in your old ways, the ways
that you are so used to.

Here in Norway, we used to read numbers between 20 and 100 with the
tens before the ones, like the Danes and Germans still do. So, 24
would read as "four and twenty". 23,795 would read as "three and
twenty thousand seven hundred and five and ninety". Imagine the number
of mistakes that were made when trying to write down a number that
someone spoke. As the phone system made its introduction, the need to
write down long numbers increased, so the problem became more
apparent.

In 1951, the government decided that we would end the insanity and
convert to the system that the Swedes and English use, where the
digits are read in the same order they are written. Since then, the
school children have been thought the new system, and the state
broadcaster has used the new system exclusively (except quite a few
slip-ups, of course).

There is a clear trend, where the old method is more prevalent among
older people. Even still, people who were born twenty years after the
change was officially made, still often use the old way today.

As you can see, changes take huge amounts of time. Even a small,
simple change like that, after more than 60 years, we are probably not
even half way there.

One morning in the early fifties, a military officer spoke to his
battalion: "As of today, we no longer say four and twenty, but two and
forty". He was simply so set in his ways that he was unable to break
free of them, even when he tried.

As I mentioned in another post, we keep the second, the day and the
year. Hours, minutes weeks, months all get thrown away. We may need to
introduce a couple of new units, but that will work itself out
automatically.
--
RoRo

[Robert Roland]

On Fri, 1 Sep 2017 10:28:49 +0200, Look165 <loo...@numericable.fr>
wrote:

>The animal bodies are regulated by the 24h system.

No animal has any concept of what an hour is. If we humans decide to
divide the day into 173 in stead of 24, the animals wouldn't even
notice any difference.

Of course, the cows expect to be milked at the same time every day,
but they don't care if the farmer calls it 6 o'clock or 32.4 o'didly.
--
RoRo

[Mike Coon]

In article <4ffjqc95c83i9np89...@4ax.com>, fa...@ddress.no
says...

>
> Of course, the cows expect to be milked at the same time every day,
> but they don't care if the farmer calls it 6 o'clock or 32.4 o'didly.

And probably on solar time, too. Except that cows get used to the drift
if the farmer insists on using clock time...

Mike.

[rickman]

Lol! Discussion ended and I didn't even have to mention Nazis. ;)

[rickman]

You still haven't explained how any of this will be better than what we have
now.

[Look165]

The sun comes back nearly every 24h !

Animals , like us, live based on circadian rythm.


rickman a écrit :

[Look165]

Have you been thinking of the induced cost (around 1000 billion $)

Who would pay ?

And practically :

Clocks and watches replacement (What about Big Ben and others ? )

Reprogramming BIOS or human time clocking on PC.

TV and radio station should fix up the problem.

Redefine a reference second.

Enterprises should have to update their payment bulletin.

Redefine geographic meridians

And what about the travels (planes, boats... ? ).

...

rickman a écrit :

[Mike Coon]

In article <oodonq$m0c$1...@gioia.aioe.org>, loo...@numericable.fr says...

>
> Clocks and watches replacement (What about Big Ben and others ? )

Big Ben would be a deferred problem: it has just been stopped for 4
years for maintenance!

Mike.

[Clifford Heath]

On 01/09/17 22:55, Tim R wrote:
> During the time of the pyramids and pharaohs, the Egyptian calendar had 5 days "out of time" at the beginning of the year, then 12 months of 30 days each.
>
> That still makes more sense than what we do now.

5 day week, 7 week month, ten months in the year,
a week and a day (two on leap years) for New Year.
11% more free time, assuming we still have a 2 day
weekend. Or more, if the robots are doing all the
work anyhow.

Boom!

[rickman]

So what does that have to do with hours, minutes and seconds??? You do know
there are 24 hours in a day, right? Changing the length of the hour won't
change the length of the day.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 22:36:09 -0400, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't recall
>much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at other levels.

Yep. At the time (about 1975), I was working for a company that tried
to switch to metric. This was aided by having the drafting manager
and mechanical designer also serving on the metric conversion council
(or whatever it was called). At one point, we started sending metric
fabrication drawings to various vendors. They were immediately
returned. The problem wasn't understanding the new metric way of
doing things, it was that they would need to replace all their English
lead screws, measurement instruments, gauges blocks, programming, etc
before they could cut metal. They also claimed that they needed
considerable staff training to handle the change (because someone
tried to simultaneously switch to true position dimentioning). We
would need to wait until the shops converted before we could orders
parts in metric.

So, we went back to English units and waited for the "inevitable"
conversion that never happened. It seems that most of the other
customers followed the same pattern. They tried metric, failed, and
went back to English. So, we asked the various fab shops why the
delay? They answered that since everyone seemed to be going back to
using English measurements, they must have run into some problem with
metric. Therefore, the fab shop saw no reason to convert. After
getting approximately the same story from ALL our vendors, we gave up
in disgust.

"Why hasn't the U.S. adopted the metric system?"
<http://www.popsci.com/why-hasnt-us-adopted-metric-system>

The idea of decimal time has been around for centuries:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time>
The big problem is that time, astronomical, and navigational units
that are based on nautical miles, degrees, minutes, seconds, will end
up with some rather odd looking numbers. Right now, 1 degree is equal
to 60 nautical miles at the equator. It's too hot right now to think
about what decimal time would do to all those. Of course, we could
make things look better by switching from 360 degrees per circle, to
400 gradians per circle:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian>
When in doubt, change everything.

Everything that deals with time will need to be tweaked. That's going
to be a problem since we have many ways to keep accurate time:
<http://leapsecond.com/java/gpsclock.htm>
Notice the difference in seconds. Some smartphone vendors are still
having problems keeping accurate time:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/GPS-vs-UTC.jpg>
More ways to keep time, all of which will need to be decimalized or
maybe decimated:
<http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/systime.html>

This is what happened when most everyone assumed that NASA was totally
metric, but wasn't:
<http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/>
I suspect that a decimal time change will have similar transition
problems.

Why don't you just declare that the ratio of the circumference to the
diameter of a circle is exactly 3.0 instead of 3.14159...? I think it
would be easier than changing to decimal time.


--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[Robert Roland]

On Fri, 1 Sep 2017 11:10:38 -0400, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>he didn't believe you could buy anything in the US that *was*
>metric!!!

The whole world measures car wheel diameter in inches. There is,
however, one country where you can (or at leasy could) buy car wheels
in millimeter sizes. Wanna guess which country?
--
RoRo

[Robert Roland]

On Sat, 2 Sep 2017 01:03:44 -0400, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>You still haven't explained how any of this will be better than what we have
>now.

We are dividing and multiplying by 10, which is much easier to
understand and to do calculation with.
--
RoRo

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Fri, 1 Sep 2017 05:55:52 -0700 (PDT), Tim R <timot...@aol.com>

wrote:

>During the time of the pyramids and pharaohs, the Egyptian calendar
>had 5 days "out of time" at the beginning of the year, then 12 months
>of 30 days each.
>
>That still makes more sense than what we do now.

Then there is the Hebrew lunar calendar:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar>
which adds an extra leap month in 7 out of every 19 years (3, 6, 8,
11, 14, 17, and 19):
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar#Leap_months>
Being able to handle such an ugly calenadar might explain why Jews are
quite good at finance. Can you imagine what a loan amortization
schedule looks like under such a calendar?

[rickman]

Jeff Liebermann wrote on 9/2/2017 3:03 PM:
>
> Why don't you just declare that the ratio of the circumference to the
> diameter of a circle is exactly 3.0 instead of 3.14159...? I think it
> would be easier than changing to decimal time.

I'm for it. How will you get the circle to agree?

[rickman]

You need to do a bit more than say, "it will all work out". Sounds like a
steaming pile of crap to me. The calendar will be crap no matter what you
do because there is no connection between the day and the year. We are
using a crap system because there is no such thing as a good one. Units
less than a day are invented and can be changed at will. But we don't have
the will.

[Jeff Liebermann]

On Sat, 2 Sep 2017 18:10:00 -0400, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Jeff Liebermann wrote on 9/2/2017 3:03 PM:
>>
>> Why don't you just declare that the ratio of the circumference to the
>> diameter of a circle is exactly 3.0 instead of 3.14159...? I think it
>> would be easier than changing to decimal time.

>I'm for it.

Excellent.

>How will you get the circle to agree?

Not a problem. Just put a flat spot (chord) somewhere on the
circumference. That will shorten the circumference sufficiently so
that the ratio equals exactly 3.0. Please feel free to name such a
flattened circle in my honor. The newly established Bureau of
Decimation should then declare that the official US circle will have a
flat spot.

[Clifford Heath]

On 01/09/17 12:36, rickman wrote:
> Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 10:16 PM:

>> On 8/31/2017 10:00 PM, rickman wrote:
>>> Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened by
>>> about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.
>>>

>>> I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of
>>> changes
>>> in society. We presently have a large number of convenient time

>>> increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.
>>>

>>> First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no convenient
>>> unit about the same length of time as the hour. The closest would be
>>> the
>>> quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The deci-hour would be
>>> pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a quarter hour. The old half
>>> hour
>>> would now be about a fifth of a new hour, so we could call it a "fifth"
>>> which might become confused with a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth
>>> of a
>>> gallon which has since become 750 ml in metric.
>>>
>>> The inconvenience would come from the need to totally recalibrate every
>>> type of measurement we use that considers time... speed limits, work
>>> days,
>>> time zones... Would we extend this change to measurements of angles
>>> which
>>> often are done in degrees, minutes, seconds?
>>>
>>> How would we adjust the work day? Do we go to 3 hour work days which
>>> would be about 7.2 old hours? Shift work would have to split hours
>>> to get
>>> three shifts while some businesses that use two 12 old hour shifts would
>>> hum along just fine with 5 new hour shifts. Many businesses opening
>>> at 9
>>> AM would now open at 4:00 (I assume we would just count 0 to 9 hours
>>> rather than the annoying AM/PM thing), folks would take a lunch break at
>>> 5:00 and banks would close around 6:00 while retail would remain open
>>> until 9:00 or 9:50 (hmmm, that is still about the same).
>>>
>>> The minutes gets pretty whacked gaining 26.4 old seconds. So "give me a
>>> minute" becomes a quarter more weighty of a request. The original pulse
>>> was conceived to match the human pulse so our normal pulse rate will
>>> become 86 bpm instead of 60 bpm.
>>>
>>> In science the changes would be enormous. With a redefinition of the
>>> second every time related measurement would have to change including
>>> many
>>> in EE such as capacitance/charge/current, heck, the definition of the
>>> gravitational constant and even the speed of light would have to change.
>>> Every text book would change and every instrument. This would create so
>>> much confusion that we really would need new names for the second,
>>> minute
>>> and hour.
>>>
>>> This could go on all day (the one measurement that doesn't change)
>>> with a
>>> huge list of changes we will have to make and the many adaptations we
>>> as a
>>> society would need to accommodate. Then, in the end, we would still
>>> have
>>> leap years.
>>>
>> Anyone old enough may remember when the USA tried to go metric. The
>> people just would not go for it and it was abandoned.

>
> I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't recall
> much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at other levels.

We had little resistance here in Australia too, and plenty of people
who would "not have gone with it". But it was mandated; all aspects of
industry and commerce were evaluated and placed on a time-line. By
a certain date, all green-grocers were required to display prices in
both pounds and kilograms. Some time later, prices had to be charged
by the kilogram. Some time after that, it became illegal to display
prices in pounds. Etc... and so for every part of life, on a schedule
that was planned ahead to assist people in learning the new system.
It was not just recommended as "a good idea".

My understanding is that "the land of the free"(*) failed because they
did not make it mandatory.

Clifford Heath

[Mike Coon]

In article <ku5mqctnoo5ofl9qt...@4ax.com>, fa...@ddress.no
says...

>
> We are dividing and multiplying by 10, which is much easier to
> understand and to do calculation with.

Years ago I went down to the office post room to buy a few stamps. They
were, IIRC, 19 pence at the time. Thinking the young girl at the counter
would tear off a 3x3 block for me I asked for 9 stamps. Her face fell
with panic at the prospect of asking me for the money! So I took pity on
her and changed my request for ten stamps. That didn't help her...

Mike.

[rickman]

Jeff Liebermann wrote on 9/2/2017 7:35 PM:
> On Sat, 2 Sep 2017 18:10:00 -0400, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Jeff Liebermann wrote on 9/2/2017 3:03 PM:
>>>
>>> Why don't you just declare that the ratio of the circumference to the
>>> diameter of a circle is exactly 3.0 instead of 3.14159...? I think it
>>> would be easier than changing to decimal time.
>
>> I'm for it.
>
> Excellent.
>
>> How will you get the circle to agree?
>
> Not a problem. Just put a flat spot (chord) somewhere on the
> circumference. That will shorten the circumference sufficiently so
> that the ratio equals exactly 3.0. Please feel free to name such a
> flattened circle in my honor. The newly established Bureau of
> Decimation should then declare that the official US circle will have a
> flat spot.

I think that circle is already in use. I've seen shafts that shape and once
in awhile I see tires that shape. Heck, I saw one the other day that was on
a wheelbarrow. The story was that it was filled with polyurethane foam
instead of air and sat too long while curing. lol

[rickman]

Yes, everything here is "free, for a small fee".

[Jon Elson]

rickman wrote:

> Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened by
> about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.
>

A large number of physical units are based on the second, especially in
electrical engineering. Watts and Coulombs come to mind immediately, how
about frequency and inductors/capacitors. it would screw up everything.

In Physics, how about acceleration?

In mechanics, how about RPM?

Jon

[rickman]

Yep, that's what happens when a unit is changed. Same with converting from
English units to metric, many constants change.

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:
> Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened
> by about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.
>

> I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of
> changes in society. We presently have a large number of convenient
> time increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.
>
> First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no
> convenient unit about the same length of time as the hour. The
> closest would be the quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The
> deci-hour would be pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a
> quarter hour. The old half hour would now be about a fifth of a new
> hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which might become confused with
> a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a gallon

So that's where that term comes from! I've heard it in American movies / TV
and read it in books but couldn't work out how a bottle that wasn't much
more than a pint (~600ml) got the name 'a fifth'. I forgot about the Merkin
gallon being less than a real gallon. In fact it's almost exactly 'a fifth'
short!

> which has since become 750 ml in metric.

Nah that is what the rest of the world called a 26oz bottle before metric.
Of course in the US that would be closer to 25 fluid ounces. <shakes head>
US water must be heavier.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

[rickman]

~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 12:55 AM:
> Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:
>> Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened
>> by about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.
>>
>> I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of
>> changes in society. We presently have a large number of convenient
>> time increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.
>>
>> First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no
>> convenient unit about the same length of time as the hour. The
>> closest would be the quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The
>> deci-hour would be pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a
>> quarter hour. The old half hour would now be about a fifth of a new
>> hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which might become confused with
>> a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a gallon
>
> So that's where that term comes from! I've heard it in American movies / TV
> and read it in books but couldn't work out how a bottle that wasn't much
> more than a pint (~600ml) got the name 'a fifth'. I forgot about the Merkin
> gallon being less than a real gallon. In fact it's almost exactly 'a fifth'
> short!
>
>> which has since become 750 ml in metric.
>
> Nah that is what the rest of the world called a 26oz bottle before metric.
> Of course in the US that would be closer to 25 fluid ounces. <shakes head>
> US water must be heavier.

A pint's a pound the world around!

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:

> Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 10:16 PM:

>> On 8/31/2017 10:00 PM, rickman wrote:
>>> Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is
>>> shortened by about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10
>>> hr/day. I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot
>>> of
>>> changes in society. We presently have a large number of convenient
>>> time increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.
>>>
>>> First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no
>>> convenient unit about the same length of time as the hour. The
>>> closest would be the quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The
>>> deci-hour would be pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a
>>> quarter hour. The old half hour would now be about a fifth of a
>>> new hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which might become confused

> levels. We had a partnership with Canada to change together and had
> a multi-step program. We completed the first two or three steps and
> quit. That's why metric is taught today in schools, it was part of
> step two or three. When we had to take a step that would actually
> change something (I think it was highway signs) we told Canada to go
> on without us and we'd catch up later... *much* later.
>
> I can't believe that even today we still use English units in many

"English Units"?

Like an American gallon?

--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

> engineering fields. Mechanical engineers often use inches and feet. God
> knows what civil engineers use, probably rods. It was just
> recently that I learned the acre comes from 160 square rods.
>
> Actually I just looked it up and the acre was defined as 1 chain by 1
> furlong while a rod is a quarter of a chain. A chain is 0.1 furlong,
> so they are all a related system of measurement.

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet Tom Biasi wrote:
> On 9/1/2017 3:57 AM, rickman wrote:
>> Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 11:13 PM:
>>>
>>> Well you and I remember differently. I was involved in the teaching
>>> of the
>>> metric system to the people of the USA. There was great resistance
>>> and money
>>> for the project soon got thin. When I studied engineering in the
>>> 70's we used the metric system exclusively. We didn't call it SI,
>>> it was just the way the scientific community did it.
>>
>> What teaching were you involved in? I assume it was companies asking
>> you to educate employees? That is not related to the government. It
>> also has nothing to do with the "resistance" from the average person.
>> No one was overly enthusiastic about it since it was a big change,
>> but people were willing to go with the flow. Mostly they just didn't
>> understand it as there had been only notification that it would
>> happen and the education was only in the schools. I believe it was
>> industry that resisted the change much to our detriment over the
>> decades. I don't know what you mean about metric not being "SI". I didn't
>> know
>> diddly about metric until I was in college (before the conversion
>> program started) and was taught the SI system. I believe prior to SI
>> there was a metric system that had a few units that were different
>> from today's SI by some powers of 10. CGS and dynes come to mind.
>>
> I gave you my experience and you disagree. That's it.
> Here is a cut from a Wiki article of which seems to be my experience
> also.
> "The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement a
> carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric system
> over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to
> coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the
> United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United
> States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination,
> and public education. The public education component led to public
> awareness of the metric system, but the public response included
> resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule."

"Voluntary conversion" is doomed to failure due to inertia so it's a failure
of the legislators not the public. It should have been made compulsory as it
was in most other countries which changed over.

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 22:36:09 -0400, rickman <gnu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't
>> recall much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at
>> other levels.
>
> Yep. At the time (about 1975), I was working for a company that tried
> to switch to metric. This was aided by having the drafting manager
> and mechanical designer also serving on the metric conversion council
> (or whatever it was called). At one point, we started sending metric
> fabrication drawings to various vendors. They were immediately
> returned. The problem wasn't understanding the new metric way of
> doing things, it was that they would need to replace all their English
> lead screws, measurement instruments, gauges blocks, programming, etc
> before they could cut metal. They also claimed that they needed
> considerable staff training to handle the change (because someone
> tried to simultaneously switch to true position dimentioning). We
> would need to wait until the shops converted before we could orders
> parts in metric.
>
> So, we went back to English units and waited for the "inevitable"
> conversion that never happened. It seems that most of the other
> customers followed the same pattern. They tried metric, failed, and
> went back to English.

Ok second guy in this thread to use the term "English units". Am I to assume
it's an Americanism then? In England, Australia and New Zealand (the
countries I've lived in) non-metric units are reffered to as "imperial".

--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

[~misfit~]

The top-posting should have given you the clue you needed there....

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet Jeff Liebermann wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Sep 2017 05:55:52 -0700 (PDT), Tim R <timot...@aol.com>
> wrote:
>
>> During the time of the pyramids and pharaohs, the Egyptian calendar
>> had 5 days "out of time" at the beginning of the year, then 12 months
>> of 30 days each.
>>
>> That still makes more sense than what we do now.
>
> Then there is the Hebrew lunar calendar:
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar>
> which adds an extra leap month in 7 out of every 19 years (3, 6, 8,
> 11, 14, 17, and 19):
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar#Leap_months>
> Being able to handle such an ugly calenadar might explain why Jews are
> quite good at finance. Can you imagine what a loan amortization
> schedule looks like under such a calendar?

No, jews are good at finance because the catholic church banned christians
from usury - lending money and charging interest. As money became more and
more important it became necessary for there to be financiers but christians
weren't going to risk lending their money free of charge. So jews were
invited into most catholic / christian countries to be the financiers as
they had no such rule in *their* holy book. Without jews stepping in to
finance large projects we'd still be in the dark ages.

Yet how do we thank them? By making thinly-veiled anti-semetic jokes in
electronics repair groups (and probably other places as well).

[pf...@aol.com]

On Friday, September 1, 2017 at 10:35:42 AM UTC-4, rickman wrote:
> Look165 wrote on 9/1/2017 4:28 AM:
> > It is worthless.
> >
> > The animal bodies are regulated by the 24h system.
>
> Not sure what you are talking about. Animal rhythms are related to a daily
> cycle, it has nothing to do with "hours".

Further to this, Circadian Rhythm is very approximate, that is, it adjusts with the seasons, day/night length, temperature, in some cases the phases of the moon, and more. Try setting train schedules from a process that may alter by tens of minutes on any given day.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

[Mike Coon]

In article <ebcb2871-13da-4e5e...@googlegroups.com>,
pf...@aol.com says...

>
> Further to this, Circadian Rhythm is very approximate, that is, it
adjusts with the seasons, day/night length, temperature, in some cases
the phases of the moon, and more. Try setting train schedules from a
process that may alter by tens of minutes on any given day.

You could have pointed out that is what the "circa" means!

Mike.

[Clifford Heath]

The legislators were true to the American ideal of liberty.
This was a failure that ideal, not of the legislature.
All ideals fail at the edges; that's why we call them ideals.

[rickman]

Imperial units are not quite the same. An imperial gallon is larger than
the gallon used in the US. I don't know if there are other differences, I'm
pretty sure the inch, foot and yard are the same. I'm not sure if a
fortnight is the same on both sides of the Atlantic... ;)

We use the term "English units" because like many of our customs, laws and
general ways of life, they came to us by way of England.

[rickman]

This country can be pretty idiotic about "compulsory" issues. The federal
government has a regulation that children must wear life vests in federally
controlled waters. The State of Virginia has a similar law, but it only
applies to the waterways that are regulated by the Coast Guard (federal
laws). So the law is no additional regulation, it simply allows the state
authorities to enforce it. Meanwhile it is perfectly legal in the state
controlled waters to not put a life vest on your children. Allegedly this
is because the legislators get tremendous push back when they pass laws that
add new regulations.

How fooking stupid is that?! *Everyone* should have to wear a life vest any
time they are in a boat underway. Just this past July 4th weekend someone
died when he fell overboard while not wearing a life vest. They do nothing
for you if you don't wear them. Cutting a tree down with your six year old
next to you would be considered child endangerment even though there is no
specific law against it. By the same reasoning allowing children to ride in
a boat without a life vest should be child endangerment regardless of the
law. But we legislate according to the push back from fears of "over
regulation".

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <oouoe6$t4r$2...@dont-email.me>, gnu...@gmail.com says...

>
> This country can be pretty idiotic about "compulsory" issues. The federal
> government has a regulation that children must wear life vests in federally
> controlled waters. The State of Virginia has a similar law, but it only
> applies to the waterways that are regulated by the Coast Guard (federal
> laws). So the law is no additional regulation, it simply allows the state
> authorities to enforce it. Meanwhile it is perfectly legal in the state
> controlled waters to not put a life vest on your children. Allegedly this
> is because the legislators get tremendous push back when they pass laws that
> add new regulations.
>
> How fooking stupid is that?! *Everyone* should have to wear a life vest any
> time they are in a boat underway. Just this past July 4th weekend someone
> died when he fell overboard while not wearing a life vest. They do nothing
> for you if you don't wear them. Cutting a tree down with your six year old
> next to you would be considered child endangerment even though there is no
> specific law against it. By the same reasoning allowing children to ride in
> a boat without a life vest should be child endangerment regardless of the
> law. But we legislate according to the push back from fears of "over
> regulation".

I can see laws like the life vest for children and seat belts or safety
seats for children.

What I would really like is for the insurance companies to get togetner
with the law makers and not pay off to the people over 21 that do not
follow those laws. I do not care if some one of reasonable age falls
off the boat without the life vest and drowns. Just don't expect his
life insurance to pay off. Or is someone gets hurt in a car crash
without the seat belt, just do not pay off for medical bills or to get
his car repaired.

[~misfit~]

In the rest of the world is 4.54 litres. Only in the US is 'gallon'
different (approximately 3.75 litres?).

> I don't know if there are other
> differences, I'm pretty sure the inch, foot and yard are the same. I'm not
> sure if a fortnight is the same on both sides of the
> Atlantic... ;)
> We use the term "English units" because like many of our customs,
> laws and general ways of life, they came to us by way of England.

Likewise in Australia and New Zealand we owe a lot of our heritage to
England - however we don't call the units "English". It just seemed odd to
me <shrug>

[~misfit~]

Very fooking stupid. ;) Are seat belts compulsory yet? It seems an odd mix.

[rickman]

Of course seat belts are compulsory. Where do you live that they aren't?

[rickman]

Really? If that is the oddest thing you find about the US then I am very
happy.

I've explained how some of our units are *not* Imperial. What would you
have us call them?

[Sjouke Burry]

Silly?

[rickman]

Ok, the US uses Silly units which we mostly inherited from the English.

[rickman]

Actually there are times when the US gallon is the same as an English gallon.

http://www.metric-conversions.org/volume/us-liquid-gallons-to-uk-gallons.htm

The US gallon is the result of the British taxes on the US. They overly
taxed us without allowing us any representation in the government so we
rebelled. At that time the gallon was defined by the weight of what was
being measured. There was a corn gallon, a wheat gallon, a beer gallon ect.
In 1820 England decided to abandon the many gallon approach and go with a
single gallon defined by the volume of 10 pounds of water at 62 °F in air.

Good thing we didn't adopt the Imperial gallon, it keeps changing. It was
changed as late as 1985. What good is a standard that changes?

[~misfit~]

I didn't say they aren't here, I remember that not long ago they weren't in
the US. Are they compulsory in the back seats too?

[rickman]

http://bfy.tw/DuT3

[~misfit~]

So that's a no then. How backwards. They've been compulsory here for quite a
while with no silly age restriction complications (as well as children
needing to be in approved 'car seat' survival cells to a certain age).

(BTW if you were smart you'd be a smart arse. You should have included 'rear
seats' in the search parameters. I'll go back to my policy of not clicking
obfuscated URLs - which for some odd reason I didn't think would be needed
here.)

[rickman]

Not sure what you are reading. Traffic laws are state issues in the US
although there is a certain amount of "coordination" by the Federal
government. I don't know of any states which doesn't require seat belts to
be worn by everyone in a vehicle. I'm not familiar with *all* of the 50
states. What did you find that says otherwise?

[bruce2...@gmail.com]

Bigoted trolls will always be around. Just avoid them. Just ignore them.

[pf...@aol.com]

On Friday, September 8, 2017 at 3:19:11 PM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:

>
> What I would really like is for the insurance companies to get togetner
> with the law makers and not pay off to the people over 21 that do not
> follow those laws. I do not care if some one of reasonable age falls
> off the boat without the life vest and drowns. Just don't expect his
> life insurance to pay off. Or is someone gets hurt in a car crash
> without the seat belt, just do not pay off for medical bills or to get
> his car repaired.

Some pretty serious issues here if this is to be enforced.

a) Automakers must be then, 100% liable *forever* for the functionality of the seat belts and safety devices. So, latches that fail, belts that wear and break, and airbags that do not go off - none of which are user-serviceable - must fall back on the manufacturer.
b) Seat belt and safety device deployment must then be recorded in the automotive 'brain' such that this will indicate at the crash-investigation stage. Similar to an aircraft flight data recorder. Many of these even now record speed and other conditions if there is a crash, some will even notify emergency services.

Which, of course, will naturally lead to insurance companies demanding 'good driver' monitors on their insured that continuously relay speed/braking/timing/and much more to the company so that they may determine 'risk' based on actual driving behavior. Some offer this option right now.

Is that what you really want?

[Percival P. Cassidy]

A US gallon is smaller than an Imperial gallon because the US pint has
the wrong number of fluid ounces (16 instead of 20).

> We use the term "English units" because like many of our customs, laws
> and general ways of life, they came to us by way of England.

When it comes to tools such as wrenches, I see the term "Standard" often
used in the USA -- maybe just short for the whole "SAE" term, the last
two of whose letters I don't recall the meaning.

Perce

[Percival P. Cassidy]

On 09/07/2017 01:16 AM, rickman wrote:

>> Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:
>>> Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened
>>> by about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.
>>>
>>> I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of
>>> changes in society.  We presently have a large number of convenient
>>> time increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.
>>>
>>> First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no
>>> convenient unit about the same length of time as the hour.  The
>>> closest would be the quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The
>>> deci-hour would be pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a
>>> quarter hour.  The old half hour would now be about a fifth of a new
>>> hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which might become confused with
>>> a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a gallon
>>

>> So that's where that term comes from! I've heard it in American movies
>> / TV
>> and read it in books but couldn't work out how a bottle that wasn't much
>> more than a pint (~600ml) got the name 'a fifth'. I forgot about the
>> Merkin
>> gallon being less than a real gallon. In fact it's almost exactly 'a
>> fifth'
>> short!

>>
>>> which has since become 750 ml in metric.
>>

>> Nah that is what the rest of the world called a 26oz bottle before
>> metric.
>> Of course in the US that would be closer to 25 fluid ounces. <shakes
>> head>
>> US water must be heavier.
>
> A pint's a pound the world around!

No, it isn't. Even if we stick to the undersized US pints of 16 fl.oz.
instead of 20 fl. oz., the weight of something with a volume of one pint
varies considerably depending on what the substance is. Even if we're
talking about cooking and trying to convert recipes with quantities by
weight to cup measurements, a cup of sugar and a cup of flour probably
will not weigh the same, and the weight of the flour will depend on how
densely it's packed -- could be as little as 5 oz. rather than the 8 oz.
that the "pint's a pound the world around" formula indicates.

Perce

[pf...@aol.com]

On Tuesday, September 19, 2017 at 1:50:18 PM UTC-4, Percival P. Cassidy wrote:

> When it comes to tools such as wrenches, I see the term "Standard" often
> used in the USA -- maybe just short for the whole "SAE" term, the last
> two of whose letters I don't recall the meaning.

S ociety of A utomotive E ngineers

N ational S cience F oundation

N ational P ipe T aper

A merican S ociety for T esting M aterial

N ational F ire P rotection As sociation

N ational E lectrical C ode

N ational S tandard P lumbing C ode

A merican S ociety of H eating, R efrigerating and A ir-Conditioning E ngineers

There are many.

[pf...@aol.com]

Forgot: A merican W ire G auge

[rickman]

You have eyes, but can not see.

[~misfit~]

At school I was taught 'A pint of water weighs a pound-and-a-quarter'. Then
again that was in England.