What standards would you change?
Radovan Garabik
> Assume access to a non-paradoxical time travel machine.
>
> You might want to go back to a point where you can substitute
> something logical for what actually came into widespread use (after
> you become obscenely wealthy, of course).
>
> I've heard EEs saying it should have been a 200V@200cps electrical
> grid, others want all books bound at the top rather than on the side,
> and I doubt that few people would object to introducing the metric
> system 2000 years ago.
>
> Personally, I'd have made it a ten hour day, with ten waits in an
> hour, ten minutes in a wait, ten moments in a minute, ten seconds in a
> moment, etc.
>
too complicated - too many units
something like french revolution hours is not bad - 20 hours per day
(2x10 for day and night), 100 minutes, 100 seconds.
But anyway, it would be MUCH better to switch to duodecimal system
anyway.
>
> What would you change and why?
I'll show Novial to Schleyer and Zamenhof. Or maybe Interlingua, to
increase the chance of international acceptance.
And we would not have to communicate in English (yuck!).
Crossposted to alt.language.artificial, soc.history.what-if
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
| Radovan Garabík http://melkor.dnp.fmph.uniba.sk/~garabik/ |
| __..--^^^--..__ garabik @ kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk |
-----------------------------------------------------------
Antivirus alert: file .signature infected by signature virus.
Hi! I'm a signature virus! Copy me into your signature file to help me spread!
Bryan Derksen
<gar...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>too complicated - too many units
>something like french revolution hours is not bad - 20 hours per day
>(2x10 for day and night), 100 minutes, 100 seconds.
Still too many units, IMO. I'd go all the way to the Swatch system;
divide the day into 1000 "beats", each 1 minute and 24.6 seconds long.
You can use centibeats for counting second-like intervals, and
dekabeats or hectobeats for hour-like ones.
http://www.swatch.com/internettime/home.php
>But anyway, it would be MUCH better to switch to duodecimal system
>anyway.
Hexadecimal. :)
>> What would you change and why?
It'd be nice to push XML's development (or something similar that
doesn't take as much space) as far into the past as possible, perhaps
as an adjunct to the ASCII standard; a standardized way of describing
the semantics of data files would make so many things much easier.
Perhaps try to make ASCII more Unicode-ready while I'm at it. It'll be
tricky balancing future expandability with the limitations of early
computers.
How about measuring all temperatures in kelvins? :)
Erik Max Francis
> Still too many units, IMO. I'd go all the way to the Swatch system;
> divide the day into 1000 "beats", each 1 minute and 24.6 seconds long.
> You can use centibeats for counting second-like intervals, and
> dekabeats or hectobeats for hour-like ones.
That's the standard metric approach to dividing up a day; Swatch didn't
invent it, they just chose to define it with @000 being their time
rather than GMT. The day is divided into decidays, centidays,
millidays, and so on.
--
__ Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
/ \ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
\__/ Patiently, I'm still / Holding out until
-- Sandra St. Victor
Bernardz
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>
> > Still too many units, IMO. I'd go all the way to the Swatch system;
> > divide the day into 1000 "beats", each 1 minute and 24.6 seconds long.
> > You can use centibeats for counting second-like intervals, and
> > dekabeats or hectobeats for hour-like ones.
>
> That's the standard metric approach to dividing up a day; Swatch didn't
> invent it, they just chose to define it with @000 being their time
> rather than GMT. The day is divided into decidays, centidays,
> millidays, and so on.
>
>
If someone is proposing changes to time what about the calendar.
The standard year is 365 days divided by 7 you get 52 weeks and one day.
Because of this one day extra we need every year a new calender as the
days of the week change to the date.
Well what if we had one day a year set aside as a special holiday which
is not a week day. Note on a leap year we would need two such days.
We could have now a permanent calendar
--
It is scarily when you consider that kooky conspiracy theorist actually
vote.
Observations of Bernard - No 57
Keith Morrison
>>Still too many units, IMO. I'd go all the way to the Swatch system;
>>divide the day into 1000 "beats", each 1 minute and 24.6 seconds long.
>>You can use centibeats for counting second-like intervals, and
>>dekabeats or hectobeats for hour-like ones.
>
> That's the standard metric approach to dividing up a day; Swatch didn't
> invent it, they just chose to define it with @000 being their time
> rather than GMT. The day is divided into decidays, centidays,
> millidays, and so on.
Julian dating. 0 was noon Universal time, 1 Jan 4713 BCE.
It's now about 1830 UT, April 1, 2004, as I;m writing this, which
is a Julian Date of 2453097.27083 (18:30:00 UT, to be exact).
Note also that something similar was used (very inconsistantly)
in the latter Star Trek series regarding the Stardate. A year
had 1000 units, so "Stardate 51000.0" was 51 years after some
reference date.
--
Keith
Jack Linthicum
> In article <406BE948...@alcyone.com>, m...@alcyone.com says...
> > Bryan Derksen wrote:
> >
> > > Still too many units, IMO. I'd go all the way to the Swatch system;
> > > divide the day into 1000 "beats", each 1 minute and 24.6 seconds long.
> > > You can use centibeats for counting second-like intervals, and
> > > dekabeats or hectobeats for hour-like ones.
> >
> > That's the standard metric approach to dividing up a day; Swatch didn't
> > invent it, they just chose to define it with @000 being their time
> > rather than GMT. The day is divided into decidays, centidays,
> > millidays, and so on.
> >
> >
>
> If someone is proposing changes to time what about the calendar.
>
> The standard year is 365 days divided by 7 you get 52 weeks and one day.
>
> Because of this one day extra we need every year a new calender as the
> days of the week change to the date.
>
> Well what if we had one day a year set aside as a special holiday which
> is not a week day. Note on a leap year we would need two such days.
>
> We could have now a permanent calendar
What for? Virtually every business gives away a new calendar every
year, for those who are more artistically inclined the book stores
sell calendars with every theme from religion to your favorite
explosive device. I write on my calendar, I do not want to attend the
same funeral every year, it is a quirk of mine I picked up from
undertaker grandfather and uncle. If we rectify the little things like
February and its lack of days what are we going to do about those
clumsy religious holidays that depend on phases of the moon or the
complete lunar calendar. We have computers and radio stations to tell
us what day it is.
Erik Max Francis
> Note also that something similar was used (very inconsistantly)
> in the latter Star Trek series regarding the Stardate. A year
> had 1000 units, so "Stardate 51000.0" was 51 years after some
> reference date.
It changed throughout the different series, so the definition wasn't
that clean or consistent.
--
__ Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
/ \ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
\__/ Wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
-- Alexander Pope
G. Waleed Kavalec
"Erik Max Francis" <m...@alcyone.com> wrote in message
news:406C960B...@alcyone.com...
> Keith Morrison wrote:
>
> > Note also that something similar was used (very inconsistantly)
> > in the latter Star Trek series regarding the Stardate. A year
> > had 1000 units, so "Stardate 51000.0" was 51 years after some
> > reference date.
>
> It changed throughout the different series, so the definition wasn't
> that clean or consistent.
Gene Rodenberry once "explained" on some interview that star-dates had to
take location relative to the galactic center into account.
It was a good out. ;-)
Dana Nutter
I vote for the metric approach to time ( 0.0 = midnight, 0.5 =
noon, 0.9999999999 = just before midnight). There would be no
such thing as "daylight savings" which serves no purpose. The
calendar would be based upon true lunar months of 28 days, each
beginning with a new moon broken into quarters (weeks). Years
would not be synchronized with the moon cycles, but tracked
separately with each year beginning on the Winter solstice (aka
Yule, Christmas, etc.).
For example: 2004.125.875 = 9PM (21:00)on the 125th day past
the 2004th solstice since {whatever reference point}.
Calendar holidays would be: Solstice (Summer and Winter),
Equinox (Spring and Fall). Each full moon would also be a
holiday.
Dana Nutter
> It'd be nice to push XML's development (or something similar that
> doesn't take as much space) as far into the past as possible, perhaps
> as an adjunct to the ASCII standard; a standardized way of describing
> the semantics of data files would make so many things much easier.
> Perhaps try to make ASCII more Unicode-ready while I'm at it. It'll be
> tricky balancing future expandability with the limitations of early
> computers.
>
Earller deployment of Unicoded/UTF-8 to replace ASCII and other
localized codepages would have been nice, many products are
using it now, but most still ignore it. While we're on the
subject. The push for Unix and/or Linux instead of DOS/Windows
and other toy OS's.
> How about measuring all temperatures in kelvins? :)
Scientific, but not practical for Earthly purposes. Imagine
getting your daily weather report in Kelvin where the numerical
differences would be very minor. I'd definitely rather have
centigrade/celsius than fahrenheit though. I'd push earlier
deployment of the metric system in general. Are there any other
holdouts left except the U.S which now has an unusual mix?
Dana Nutter
> I'll show Novial to Schleyer and Zamenhof. Or maybe Interlingua, to
> increase the chance of international acceptance.
I'd take SASXSEK back once completed. Whether is would catch on
or not ... ? Well, that brings back the debate about whether
any conlang has a chance of widespread acceptance.
> And we would not have to communicate in English (yuck!).
Why does everyone like to pick on English? Am I in the
minority here by saying I like English, although some dialects I
don't like.
nyra
>
> Bernardz <Berna...@REMOVEhotmail.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.1ad6b240eb771472989a3f@news>...
> > In article <406BE948...@alcyone.com>, m...@alcyone.com says...
> > > Bryan Derksen wrote:
> > >
> > > > Still too many units, IMO. I'd go all the way to the Swatch system;
> > > > divide the day into 1000 "beats", each 1 minute and 24.6 seconds long.
> > > > You can use centibeats for counting second-like intervals, and
> > > > dekabeats or hectobeats for hour-like ones.
> > >
> > > That's the standard metric approach to dividing up a day; Swatch didn't
> > > invent it, they just chose to define it with @000 being their time
> > > rather than GMT. The day is divided into decidays, centidays,
> > > millidays, and so on.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > If someone is proposing changes to time what about the calendar.
> >
> > The standard year is 365 days divided by 7 you get 52 weeks and one day.
> >
> > Because of this one day extra we need every year a new calender as the
> > days of the week change to the date.
The days of the week also change from month to month. To make the
calendar more rational, i think the french revolution calendar (12
months of 30 days each; 3 "decades" of ten days each per month; 5 or 6
extra days outside of the month/decade count) was a very viable
approach; one could fiddle with the individual parameters, but i think
a month-equivalent shouldn't be shorter than 20 days (18 months per
year) or longer than 60 (6 per year); and the number of days in the
"normal" year - without the extra days - should be easily
subdividible, which rules out 364, which has the unwieldy 13 as prime
factor.
> > Well what if we had one day a year set aside as a special holiday which
> > is not a week day. Note on a leap year we would need two such days.
> >
> > We could have now a permanent calendar
>
> What for? Virtually every business gives away a new calendar every
> year, for those who are more artistically inclined the book stores
> sell calendars with every theme from religion to your favorite
> explosive device.
With a variation on the revolution calendar, the week day of every day
in every month in every year would be instantly obvious (if it's the
16th of a "month", it's always the 6th day of the decade). The
practical value wouldn't be immense, but it'd be there.
> If we rectify the little things like
> February and its lack of days what are we going to do about those
> clumsy religious holidays that depend on phases of the moon or the
> complete lunar calendar.
You won't get to tell the churches when to celebrate easter, they'll
use their own religious calendar for these purposes. The islamic
calendar is completely asynchronous to ours[1], and orthodox churches
still calculate religious holidays after the julian calendar instead
of the gregorian. I don't see why western christianity should have a
problem with a discrepancy between the "secular" and "ritual"
calendar.
[1] iirc they manage to fit 34 years into 33 solar years.
I would like to see a non-geocentric system of measurements; of
course, what to base such a system on? Measurements of the hydrogen
atom? And a system of time measurement which doesn't care about Earth
would necessarily be relegated to a mostly symbolical status, as
humans' life rhythm depends on day/night cycles - introducing a
"stardate day" of 18 earth hours just wouldn't work for many people.
--
Omnis clocha clochabilis, in clocherio clochando, clochans
clochativo clochare facit clochabiliter clochantes.
F. Rabelais, Gargantua
Paul O. BARTLETT
> [most trimmed]
> I'd push earlier
> deployment of the metric system in general. Are there any other
> holdouts left except the U.S which now has an unusual mix?
The last I ever read, the only nations not requiring metric were
the USA, Bhutan, and Liberia. The last, when it's not engaged in
civil war, tends to follow the USA. What Bhutan may have done in the
meantime, I don't know. Many people are not aware that the metric
system has been completely, 100% legal for use in the USA for well
over a century. It just isn't required.
--
Paul Bartlett
bartlett "at" smart "dot" net
PGP key info in message headers
Radovan Garabik
it was difficult to learn and its pronunciation and syntax is not
really suited for an IAL (though its spelling and lack of morphology is).
Anyway, had Esperanto/Interlingua/anything won, we would be moaning
about how unnecesary difficult it is and how Interlingua/Novial/anything2
would be better suited for the task.
gunananda
>minority here by saying I like English, although some dialects I
>don't like.
did i have a chance ; i mean i just grow up with it as a 2ndL .
gunananda
>system has been completely, 100% legal for use in the USA for well
>over a century. It just isn't required.
why do you need measures at all , you can keep on using your palms ,
pots, fingers , nails and what so ever for the rest of your live
gunananda
>localized codepages would have been nice, many products are
>using it now, but most still ignore it. While we're on the
because there does not seem to be a need for unicode in
even this forum , because communication works perfectly in ASCII
gunananda
at least it would be good to know whether it is dark or not ;
Alan Lothian
Garabik <gar...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>
> The biggest problem
Not so. The biggest problem is that sexist, speciesist and self-styled
scientificist so-called authorities have deluded us into believing that
the "earth" goes round the "sun" and have a typical anal-retentive
obsession that a "year" must end up at the same place on each "orbit"
every time. Just because they're good at long division doesn't mean we
should be slaves to their nonsense. The year starts when the God-king
is slain over the tilled soil before the new crops are sown, as any
fule kno. And it ends when the God-King says so, OK?
--
"The past resembles the future as water resembles water" Ibn Khaldun
My .mac.com address is a spam sink.
If you wish to email me, try atlothian at blueyonder dot co dot uk
Dana Nutter
Perfectly? Only for writing English! I've received many
garbled messages from people using who-knows-what encoding for
diacritics or foreign scripts. Suppose I wanted to show
examples in Devanagari script, or Chinese? I can easily
intermix different scripts on a single text document with
Unicode, something that's not possible with the 7 or 8 bit
codepages. Ever try to read or write a document in Russian? I
know of at least 4 different (KOI-8, ISO, DOS, Windows)
encodings for it! Esperanto? Some use CX, GX, HX, JX, SX
while others use CH,GH,HH, JH, SH.
Unicode IS the new standard. Standards have even been set to
allow UTF-8 domain names on the Internet.
--------------------------------------
Dana Nutter
SASXSEK JATIS
http://www.nutter.net/sasxsek
Dana Nutter
<bart...@smart.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Dana Nutter wrote:
>
> > [most trimmed]
>
> > I'd push earlier
> > deployment of the metric system in general. Are there any other
> > holdouts left except the U.S which now has an unusual mix?
>
> The last I ever read, the only nations not requiring metric were
> the USA, Bhutan, and Liberia. The last, when it's not engaged in
> civil war, tends to follow the USA. What Bhutan may have done in the
> meantime, I don't know. Many people are not aware that the metric
> system has been completely, 100% legal for use in the USA for well
> over a century. It just isn't required.
I seem to remember several times back in the 1970's when it was
supposed to be fully implemented by changing road signs and
such. The politicians ended up prcrastinating and eventually
the idea faded away without much notice. When gas first hit
$1.00 per gallon, many gas stations had pumps that wouldn't go
past 0.999 so they started selling by the liter. The public
couldn't relate so most just started selling by the half-gallon
until eventually they had new equipment installed.
There are a handful of road signs out around me that have
kilometers as well as miles so some conversion was attempted out
here at one time.
I also thought the UK still had remnants of the old system in
use?
Another standard that would be nice would be to at least get the
world driving on the same side of the road.
Dana Nutter
All daylight savings time does is shift everyone's schedule by
one hour. It doesn't "save" anything. The same goall can be
achieved by simply having separate schedules for each season.
Dana Nutter
> > Why does everyone like to pick on English? Am I in the
> > minority here by saying I like English, although some dialects I
> > don't like.
>
> it was difficult to learn and its pronunciation and syntax is not
> really suited for an IAL (though its spelling and lack of morphology is).
> Anyway, had Esperanto/Interlingua/anything won, we would be moaning
> about how unnecesary difficult it is and how Interlingua/Novial/anything2
> would be better suited for the task.
Not suited for an IAL? It already is an IAL, and a very popular
one despite its difficulties.
I still say no conlang has any chance of becoming an IAL unless
some powerful political entity forces it upon everyone. Even
then, I would expect resistance from those who just don't want
anything forced upon them.
Matthew Barnett
Dana Nutter <dn2...@nutter.net> wrote:
[snip]
>
> Scientific, but not practical for Earthly purposes. Imagine
> getting your daily weather report in Kelvin where the numerical
> differences would be very minor. I'd definitely rather have
> centigrade/celsius than fahrenheit though. I'd push earlier
> deployment of the metric system in general. Are there any other
> holdouts left except the U.S which now has an unusual mix?
>
I believe that the intention in the UK was to switch to metric over a
ten year period, ending about 1980.
Not quite there yet: all the traffic signs are still in miles; milk is
still delivered in pints, but sold in shops in litres.
Paul O. BARTLETT
Some conlang authors choose to use some diacritical marks over some
letters of the Latin alphabet. The ISO-8859-1/Latin-1 encoding is very
widely used, so I have no objection to it, and it provides a lot of
extra symbols to the twenty-six.
JJ Karhu
framerate all around the world. And unify the TV systems while I'm at
it.
// JJ
Joshua P. Hill
wrote:
>I'd change the TV and movie standards so that there would be a single
>framerate all around the world. And unify the TV systems while I'm at
>it.
That's what the Japanese wanted to do. Hell, everyone except the
French -- they complained that 60 Hz favored the 60 Hz countries, and
wanted a "compromise" that was equally far from everything -- 72 Hz or
something.
--
Josh
To reply by email, delete "REMOVETHIS" from the address line.
Crandadk
>complete lunar calendar.
Speaking of holidays, I think we should get rid of the idea that we have to
take holidays off, and they should just give us more vacation time to make up
for it. Why should I have to take Dec. 25 off every year, just because some
religious figure was supposedly (and probably not really) born on that date a
couple thousand years ago, especially if I'm not even a follower of that
religion? As a government employee, I wonder what ever happened to separation
between church and state? Why is it the Christian holidays we are forced to
take off? This is blatant discrimination.
Michael Ash
> That's what the Japanese wanted to do. Hell, everyone except the
> French -- they complained that 60 Hz favored the 60 Hz countries, and
> wanted a "compromise" that was equally far from everything -- 72 Hz or
> something.
The solution should be obvious; just use a 300Hz framerate everywhere. :)
phil hunt
>>
>> What would you change and why?
>
>I'll show Novial to Schleyer and Zamenhof. Or maybe Interlingua, to
>increase the chance of international acceptance.
That may well work.
--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)
Joshua P. Hill
wrote:
I was thinking that it would be more convenient to abolish France . .
gunananda
>one hour. It doesn't "save" anything. The same goall can be
>achieved by simply having separate schedules for each season.
danke , hiaz ken i mi aus
gunananda
>framerate all around the world. And unify the TV systems while I'm at
>it.
why , the machine recognizes the standard already ...
by the way would it be 25 or 30 fps
gunananda
i agree with you . but however i am forced to have free days because i
am without job , apparment but why do hell do i have internet access ?
are the gods crazy , or was it just made like that for fools like as ?
gunananda
>world driving on the same side of the road.
he sir danny , maybe the also should drive in the same direction ?
what this world needs is diversity , what this world has is diversity
, .....
if they go and standardize sex , there will be protests
gunananda
who knows something else ?
>garbled messages from people using who-knows-what encoding for
>diacritics or foreign scripts. Suppose I wanted to show
>examples in Devanagari script, or Chinese? I can easily
mai ye kyoo karoo ?
>encodings for it! Esperanto? Some use CX, GX, HX, JX, SX
>while others use CH,GH,HH, JH, SH.
kaj tiu kauzas al mi neniu malkomprenproblemo .
do por tiu gwa gwa esperanto oni ec ne bezonas kodon .
>Unicode IS the new standard. Standards have even been set to
>allow UTF-8 domain names on the Internet.
is schu guit , oida
duij da wos au heast
Dana Nutter
wrote:
This is something I've been advocating all along. Let us make
up our own holidays. I do not observe Christmas, Easter nor
Thanksgiving but am forced to stop and suffer through them and
the whole ugly "Holiday Season." Then there are the political
holidays which I don't care much about either. New Year's Day
is about the only one I bother to celebrate because it means
nothing other than "Let's just have a good time."
Candide Waugh
18:31:59 GMT in news:dh0u60t680qqhr0t5...@4ax.com:
> I do not observe Christmas, Easter nor
> Thanksgiving but am forced to stop and suffer through them and
> the whole ugly "Holiday Season."
I feel similarly about the notion of Sunday, and weekends. I
work a good distance from my home, and appreciate greatly the
fact that on the weekend some stores DEIGN to be open for me and
others do not. The ones that do not, somehow have this religious
concept that I am undermining their small-town's "morality" or
"righteousness" by shopping on the weekend. What they don't get,
is (1) I'm not a member of their small-town's church and
therefore their desire to impose their religion on me is, well,
rather affronting, and (2) I CAN'T SHOP DURING THE WEEK because
I'm away at work, duh.
Sunday, weekends, dividing 365.249 by 7 ... why can't it all be
more reasonable. :)
--
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in
higher esteem those who think alike than those who think
differently.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Dana Nutter
<guna...@epatra.com> wrote:
> >Another standard that would be nice would be to at least get the
> >world driving on the same side of the road.
> he sir danny , maybe the also should drive in the same direction ?
> what this world needs is diversity , what this world has is diversity
Wait til you're almost run over because you looked the wrong way
crossing the street.
> if they go and standardize sex , there will be protests
It's being done, and usually thereare protests.
Dana Nutter
<bart...@smart.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, gunananda wrote:
>
> > >Earller deployment of Unicoded/UTF-8 to replace ASCII and other
> > >localized codepages would have been nice, many products are
> > >using it now, but most still ignore it. While we're on the
> >
> > because there does not seem to be a need for unicode in
> > even this forum , because communication works perfectly in ASCII
>
> Some conlang authors choose to use some diacritical marks over some
> letters of the Latin alphabet. The ISO-8859-1/Latin-1 encoding is very
> widely used, so I have no objection to it, and it provides a lot of
> extra symbols to the twenty-six.
Not enough. I like to mix scripts in the same document. I can
combine just about any scripts I want together in a single
document or database with Unicode. Futhark? No problem.
Hanzi? Which would you like, Simplified or Traditional? Even
Klingon and Tengwar have been incorporated into one of the
user-defined areas.
Dana Nutter
> > Thanksgiving but am forced to stop and suffer through them and
> > the whole ugly "Holiday Season."
>
> I feel similarly about the notion of Sunday, and weekends.
> Sunday, weekends, dividing 365.249 by 7 ... why can't it all be
> more reasonable. :)
I'd like to see a full 7 day schedule. People would work either
5x8 or 4x10, but the schedules would be offset so businesses
could cover all seven days. And if possible, each day would be
spread out to cover as many hours as possible.
By spreading out the times we could make things more convenient
for everyone while eliminating things like "rush hour" where
everyone is going to the same places at the same times. Figure
7 people working at the same place. Now figure that 2 would be
off on any given day. Now take the 5 left and have them each
start a couple hours apart (ex: 6-3, 8-5,10-7, 12-9, 2-11).
This gives a business coverage from 6AM to 11PM every day.
Candide Waugh
news:j63u605nalmo10gi8...@4ax.com:
> Figure
> 7 people working at the same place. Now figure that 2
> would be off on any given day.
...
> This gives a business coverage from
> 6AM to 11PM every day.
>
Yes, but unfortunately many businesses rely on having all (or at
least most) of their workers at the same location at the same
time. I work in an office of 20 to 25 people, among whom there
is very little hierarchy and a great deal of interchange of
opinion, discussion, information. Some of this could be left in
the form of notes and shared files for one another on the
computer, but in general if we were to start arriving at work at
only about 66% of our total numbers, our overall effectiveness
would be reduced to nearly zero almost immediately. We all
require one another. So, we all rely on one another's regular
schedules, of being at work 8 to 4:30 M to F. It sucks, but I
can't see a way around it.
Now, when I'm working for myself, or independently for a little
while, I certainly don't let some misguided corporate principle
of anal-retention force me to "mark time" merely to be at a
location regularly (so boss can check up on me?). That's one of
the most offensive parts of the modern worktime assumptions --
they'd rather have an employee at his least productive as long
as he shows his face and marks the clock properly, instead of
actually letting him use his own biorhythms and responsibility
to use his talents to the fullest, contribute the most to the
company for the least pain, and generally have a better life.
A lot of corporate mentality isn't as much about "profit" as the
free-marketeers would have us believe; more of it than they
admit, is about control and power, even at the expense of
profit.
Joseph Hertzlinger
<bryan....@shaw-spamguard.ca> wrote:
> On 1 Apr 2004 08:52:09 GMT, Radovan Garabik
><gar...@kassiopeia.juls.savba.sk> wrote:
>>But anyway, it would be MUCH better to switch to duodecimal system
>>anyway.
>
> Hexadecimal. :)
We should use hexadecimal measuring units.
There are 0x10 ounces in a pound...
gunananda
>crossing the street.
just a reprensentation of the lords mercy
god is everywhere - ....
Jack Linthicum
And you have how many 30 MHz channels to send information. Spread
spectrum is the answer.
Dana Nutter
> Yes, but unfortunately many businesses rely on having all (or at
> least most) of their workers at the same location at the same
> time. I work in an office of 20 to 25 people, among whom there
> is very little hierarchy and a great deal of interchange of
> opinion, discussion, information. Some of this could be left in
> the form of notes and shared files for one another on the
> computer, but in general if we were to start arriving at work at
> only about 66% of our total numbers, our overall effectiveness
> would be reduced to nearly zero almost immediately. We all
> require one another. So, we all rely on one another's regular
> schedules, of being at work 8 to 4:30 M to F. It sucks, but I
> can't see a way around it.
True, smaller businesses don't have the numbers to be quite that
flexible but this still doesn't mean everyone has to stick to
the 9-5 model. Depending on the nature of the business, that
could easily be shifted to 11-7 or something else. Even a
late-late shift for nocturnal types could possibly work in some
indutries.
> Now, when I'm working for myself, or independently for a little
> while, I certainly don't let some misguided corporate principle
> of anal-retention force me to "mark time" merely to be at a
> location regularly (so boss can check up on me?). That's one of
> the most offensive parts of the modern worktime assumptions --
> they'd rather have an employee at his least productive as long
> as he shows his face and marks the clock properly, instead of
> actually letting him use his own biorhythms and responsibility
> to use his talents to the fullest, contribute the most to the
> company for the least pain, and generally have a better life.
> A lot of corporate mentality isn't as much about "profit" as the
> free-marketeers would have us believe; more of it than they
> admit, is about control and power, even at the expense of
> profit.
Yes, there are who tend to get an authority complex and enjoy it
too much. They are fueling their own ego rather than filling
their wallets. Look at government. Why do you think they want
to keep it growing? Bigger government means more power. Notice
how many company have departments that are much larger than
necessary. This is because managers make sure to spend their
entire budgets to appear as though it really takes all those
resources to run their section and pump up their own importance.
Modern business is not about productivity, but about
perceptions. Put on a good song and dance to make it look like
you are doing something for someone else and they pay you for it
regardless of whether there is any substance. My pet peeve
lately is the "call center" method of doing business. Companies
hire a bunch of phone drones to sit there and waste my time by
saying things like "I understand your frustration", "I
apologize for the inconvenience",etc. to try and make the
customer "feel" better rather than getting to the heart of the
matter and solving it (which they usually have no means of
doing).
While we're on the subject of changing standards. How about
eliminating the employer-employee relationship (along with the
labor laws and the bureaucracy that administers them)
altogether? Have each individual function as an independent
contractor working by the job/project.
Candide Waugh
18:39:51 GMT in
news:0ij070dcpr9rpsd0v...@4ax.com:
> My pet peeve
> lately is the "call center" method of doing business.
> Companies hire a bunch of phone drones to sit there and
> waste my time by saying things like "I understand your
> frustration", "I apologize for the inconvenience",etc. to
> try and make the customer "feel" better rather than getting
> to the heart of the matter and solving it (which they
> usually have no means of doing).
>
>
DesCartes: the subjectless object
John Ralston Saul (in Voltaire's Bastards, et al.): those
institutions thrive which most ensure their own survival, not
which most ensure the performance of their avowed function
Perhaps it's just a sad truism about life itself, that the
selfish instinct is the most powerful. (Perhaps its a truism
about the free market, that we've let it grow to such unfettered
lengths that it mimics too closely life itself, with all
attendant weaknesses.)
Call centers, furthermore, tend nowadays to be located in
Bangalore or Jalallabad, while corporate chiefs spout
"patriotic" statements about how much their homeland (generally
America, Britain, or Germany) "means" to them.
Y'know what I'd like? I'd like to live somewhere that my skills
were wanted. That's all. Nothing more ... I can do without a lot
of the trappings of North American consumer success -- I don't
want a car, it's a pain in the butt, but I have to have one to
commute in the manner that is required of me; I prefer to wear
comfortable durable droopy soft clothes, not well-pressed
expensive and fragile ones, but the latter are (again) required;
etc. It seems I could figure out how to get paid in US dollars
doing some sort of job in a third-world country, where I could
live off the delightful exchange rate, couldn't I?
Dana Nutter
> Call centers, furthermore, tend nowadays to be located in
> Bangalore or Jalallabad, while corporate chiefs spout
> "patriotic" statements about how much their homeland (generally
> America, Britain, or Germany) "means" to them.
That will eventually backfire when the language barrier creates
enough misunderstandings and frustrated clients.
> Y'know what I'd like? I'd like to live somewhere that my skills
> were wanted. That's all. Nothing more ..
Wanted skills? You're not in I.T., are you? 4-5 years ago, my
phone rang constantly with calls from headhunters. Now jobs are
few and pay 30-50% of what they used to pay.
> . I can do without a lot
> of the trappings of North American consumer success -- I don't
> want a car, it's a pain in the butt, but I have to have one to
> commute in the manner that is required of me; I prefer to wear
> comfortable durable droopy soft clothes, not well-pressed
> expensive and fragile ones, but the latter are (again) required;
> etc. It seems I could figure out how to get paid in US dollars
> doing some sort of job in a third-world country, where I could
> live off the delightful exchange rate, couldn't I?
No car! Never! Freedom of mobilty is a must, but no need to
waste a bunch on Mercedes or BMW's just to show off to others
just something reliable and reasonably comfortable.
Clothing: I like to dress comfortable too, but I can deal with
"business casual". As long as I don't have to wear that noose
around my neck.
The exchange rate idea really doesn't work well. Wherever you
go, you'll be paid relative to what the costs of living are
unless you happen to be in a really specialized field where your
skills are in high demand. I worked a contract on a cruise ship
once, and they paid us cash in USD while we toured the world.
Joseph Hertzlinger
<josh442R...@snet.net> wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Apr 2004 03:57:59 -0500, Michael Ash <mi...@mikeash.com>
> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 2 Apr 2004, Joshua P. Hill wrote:
>>
>>> That's what the Japanese wanted to do. Hell, everyone except the
>>> French -- they complained that 60 Hz favored the 60 Hz countries, and
>>> wanted a "compromise" that was equally far from everything -- 72 Hz or
>>> something.
>>
>>The solution should be obvious; just use a 300Hz framerate everywhere. :)
>
> I was thinking that it would be more convenient to abolish France . .
> .
We need the French. They know how to deal with Greenpeace.
Joshua P. Hill
At last, an organization they didn't have to surrender to!
Keith Morrison
>>> I was thinking that it would be more convenient to abolish France . .
>>
>>We need the French. They know how to deal with Greenpeace.
>
>At last, an organization they didn't have to surrender to!
You know, as much as I appreciate a good French joke, this sort of
thing does get rather tiring.
--
Keith
John Schilling
You'd think. But every time French jokes look to be wearing thin,
the French go do something that reinvigorates that whole field of
humor for another decade.
Polish jokes on the other hand... The French could learn from
the Poles.
--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *
DJensen
> Keith Morrison <kei...@polarnet.ca> writes:
>>Joshua P. Hill <josh442R...@snet.net> wrote:
>>>>>I was thinking that it would be more convenient to abolish France . .
>
>>>>We need the French. They know how to deal with Greenpeace.
>
>>>At last, an organization they didn't have to surrender to!
>
>>You know, as much as I appreciate a good French joke, this sort of
>>thing does get rather tiring.
>
> You'd think. But every time French jokes look to be wearing thin,
> the French go do something that reinvigorates that whole field of
> humor for another decade.
I must have missed it.
--
DJensen
Keith Morrison
>>>>We need the French. They know how to deal with Greenpeace.
>
>>>At last, an organization they didn't have to surrender to!
>
>>You know, as much as I appreciate a good French joke, this sort of
>>thing does get rather tiring.
>
>You'd think. But every time French jokes look to be wearing thin,
>the French go do something that reinvigorates that whole field of
>humor for another decade.
Yeah. Nothing like offering advice that would have saved (up to now,
what, 630, 640?) lives of American soldiers, several thousand
civilians and not created Terrorism Recruitment Centre Baghdad.
Well, I suppose that's not fair. We can blame it on the French, I
suppose. They could have kept from butting in on a small localized
dispute in 1778.
--
Keith
Joseph Hertzlinger
<kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
> Yeah. Nothing like offering advice that would have saved (up to
> now, what, 630, 640?) lives of American soldiers, several thousand
> civilians
ObSF: The calculation of how long it would take the Idiran War in
"Consider Phlebas" to have a net saving of life.
> and not created Terrorism Recruitment Centre Baghdad.
Effects do not precede causes.
> Well, I suppose that's not fair. We can blame it on the French, I
> suppose. They could have kept from butting in on a small localized
> dispute in 1778.
A united British Empire could run the world with no worries about this
multilateral nonsense.
Keith Morrison
<jcyclespersec...@nine.reticulatedcom.com> wrote:
>> and not created Terrorism Recruitment Centre Baghdad.
>
>Effects do not precede causes.
Right. How many Iraqis hijacked the those airliners? The best
evidence the administration had about connections between the Iraqis
and current terrorists (as opposed to what the Iraqis did 11 years
ago) was a guy who supposedly went to Iraq for medical treatment and a
leg amputation: only know they admit he might still actually have both
his legs and didn't really go to Iraq for medical treatment.
Effects preceding causes my ass.
--
Keith
Nathan Leahy
> > Well, I suppose that's not fair. We can blame it on the French, I
> > suppose. They could have kept from butting in on a small localized
> > dispute in 1778.
>
> A united British Empire could run the world with no worries about this
> multilateral nonsense.
Pah, nonsense, unified my arse. At this late stage the Empire is
merely an interlocking web of treaties, culture and economic and
military ties, not to mention the almost incestuous ties between the
various Kingdoms under the Saxe-Coburg-Gothes. L'Empire de la Maghreb
is almost as much a member of the Empire as the Kingdom of Australia,
why it even has speaking rights in the Imperial Congress. Now, if Lord
Powell had been listened to this Kingdom Within Empire nonsense would
never have been started, THEN we'd be able to speak of a United Empire
(before the time of our greatgrandparents, but one can lament lost
opportunities)
Paul O. BARTLETT
among other places. However, it is no longer particularly relevant to
this newsgroup, so perhaps further follow-ups could take place to relevant
newsgroups other than a.l.a.
--
Paul Bartlett
bartlett "at" smart "dot" net
PGP key info in message headers
Joshua P. Hill
<kei...@polarnet.ca> wrote:
>schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling) wrote:
>
>>>>>We need the French. They know how to deal with Greenpeace.
>>
>>>>At last, an organization they didn't have to surrender to!
>>
>>>You know, as much as I appreciate a good French joke, this sort of
>>>thing does get rather tiring.
>>
>>You'd think. But every time French jokes look to be wearing thin,
>>the French go do something that reinvigorates that whole field of
>>humor for another decade.
>
>Yeah. Nothing like offering advice that would have saved (up to now,
>what, 630, 640?) lives of American soldiers, several thousand
>civilians and not created Terrorism Recruitment Centre Baghdad.
Given that Saddam was murdering as many as several hundred thousand
Iraqis a year, there's little to suggest that the "advice" of the
French would have done anything but cost lives.
Joshua P. Hill
wrote:
Rather obviously, you did.
Robert J. Kolker
Joshua P. Hill wrote:
>
> Given that Saddam was murdering as many as several hundred thousand
> Iraqis a year, there's little to suggest that the "advice" of the
> French would have done anything but cost lives.
You bring up a good point. Saddam was much better at killing Moslems
than we are. Why did we stop him?
Bob Kolker
>
Anton Sherwood
> If someone is proposing changes to time what about the calendar.
> The standard year is 365 days divided by 7 you get 52 weeks and one day.
> Because of this one day extra we need every year a new calender as the
> days of the week change to the date.
So my birthday isn't on Monday every year. I like that.
There are many kinds of rhythm in the world(s), and in my humble opinion
we'd be the poorer for trying to line them all up alike.
Why not have Valentine's Day every 288 days (or pick your own arbitrary
number) rather than every 365?
--
Anton Sherwood (prepend "1" to address)
http://www.ogre.nu/
Anton Sherwood
> I feel similarly about the notion of Sunday, and weekends. I
> work a good distance from my home, and appreciate greatly the
> fact that on the weekend some stores DEIGN to be open for me and
> others do not. The ones that do not, somehow have this religious
> concept that I am undermining their small-town's "morality" or
I can easily imagine shopkeepers who are not bothered by such
"undermining" but still prefer to reserve a day of *their own* time for
their respective god(s). Would you compel them to open?
Life could get interesting if one of the major religions had a six- or
eight-day week.
Joshua P. Hill
Maybe because we aren't /like/ him?
Steve Cross
news:107doc8...@corp.supernews.com:
> Bernardz wrote:
>> If someone is proposing changes to time what about the calendar.
>> The standard year is 365 days divided by 7 you get 52 weeks and one
>> day. Because of this one day extra we need every year a new calender
>> as the days of the week change to the date.
>
> So my birthday isn't on Monday every year. I like that.
>
> There are many kinds of rhythm in the world(s), and in my humble
> opinion we'd be the poorer for trying to line them all up alike.
It would be more "efficient" in some ways to have a calendar where every
day fell on the same day of the week each year, but in practice it would
mean altering the religious calendars of at least 3 religions. You know
which three I mean. :)
Steve Cross
DJensen
>>opinion we'd be the poorer for trying to line them all up alike.
>
> It would be more "efficient" in some ways to have a calendar where every
> day fell on the same day of the week each year, but in practice it would
> mean altering the religious calendars of at least 3 religions. You know
> which three I mean. :)
Well no. That's like saying if you move to a country that doesn't
use the Gregorian calendar you would never have another birthday,
because the locals don't have an April on their calendar. Last I
heard, there are no religious celebrations or festivals for a
numbered date (e.g. do Christians celebrate Christmas because
it's the 25th of December, for for another reason?). Festivals
and such tied to the lunar or solar cycle would not be altered in
anyway, either.
--
DJensen
Steve Cross
news:x3Idc.16425$BF2.1...@news20.bellglobal.com:
> Festivals
> and such tied to the lunar or solar cycle would not be altered in
> anyway, either.
Those are the ones I was thinking of. Thanks for the clarification.
Steve Cross
Dana Nutter
<ne...@ogre.nu> wrote:
> Candide Waugh wrote:
> > I feel similarly about the notion of Sunday, and weekends. I
> > work a good distance from my home, and appreciate greatly the
> > fact that on the weekend some stores DEIGN to be open for me and
> > others do not. The ones that do not, somehow have this religious
> > concept that I am undermining their small-town's "morality" or
> > "righteousness" by shopping on the weekend. . . .
>
> I can easily imagine shopkeepers who are not bothered by such
> "undermining" but still prefer to reserve a day of *their own* time for
> their respective god(s). Would you compel them to open?
Why shouldn't they open? They don't have to be there in person.
It would be easy to have an employee work those days by giving
them different days off.
> Life could get interesting if one of the major religions had a six- or
> eight-day week.
Doesn't make sense. 7 days is a quarter of a lunar cycle so
it's part of the natural rhythm.
What I'm wondering is how did the months get so screwed up? 31
days? 30 days? 28+1 days? I say we just stop having "months"
and just have 4 "seasons": Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall but
even that wouldn't apply well to the opposite hemisphere where
the seasons are reversed. So maybe just count the days starting
from the Northern Winter solstice: 1 to 365 (366 on leap years).
------------------------------
Dana Nutter
SASXSEK JATIS.
http://www.nutter.net/sasxsek
DJensen
> On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 10:53:33 -0700, Anton Sherwood
> <ne...@ogre.nu> wrote:
>>Candide Waugh wrote:
>> > I feel similarly about the notion of Sunday, and weekends. I
>> > work a good distance from my home, and appreciate greatly the
>> > fact that on the weekend some stores DEIGN to be open for me and
>> > others do not. The ones that do not, somehow have this religious
>> > concept that I am undermining their small-town's "morality" or
>> > "righteousness" by shopping on the weekend. . . .
>>
>>I can easily imagine shopkeepers who are not bothered by such
>>"undermining" but still prefer to reserve a day of *their own* time for
>>their respective god(s). Would you compel them to open?
>
> Why shouldn't they open? They don't have to be there in person.
> It would be easy to have an employee work those days by giving
> them different days off.
Not all stores have employees, family-run stores for example, and
what about the employee's feelings towards working on Sundays?
>>Life could get interesting if one of the major religions had a six- or
>>eight-day week.
>
> Doesn't make sense. 7 days is a quarter of a lunar cycle so
> it's part of the natural rhythm.
This came up elsewhere in this thread in rec.arts.sf.science
before it was crossposted, but I've yet to see any evidence that
it's true. I know that most of the time I couldn't tell you what
moon should be in the sky on any given night.
> What I'm wondering is how did the months get so screwed up? 31
> days? 30 days? 28+1 days? I say we just stop having "months"
> and just have 4 "seasons": Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall but
> even that wouldn't apply well to the opposite hemisphere where
> the seasons are reversed. So maybe just count the days starting
> from the Northern Winter solstice: 1 to 365 (366 on leap years).
4 seasons is strictly a tradition that only applies to certain
temperate regions. When is winter at the equator? for example.
Around here I keep hearing there are 6 seasons: summer, fall,
locking, winter, unlocking, spring.
You could divide the year into quarters with the soltices and
equinoxes as fenceposts, 91.25 days each (or so). I think it
would make more sense to count from the vernal equinox, as it's
equal in both north and south and more or less cues spring for
the majority of the population.
--
DJensen
Gary Shannon
"Dana Nutter" <dn2...@nutter.net> wrote in message
news:mkcg70hk8ff0007pe...@4ax.com...
<snip>
>
> What I'm wondering is how did the months get so screwed up? 31
> days? 30 days? 28+1 days? I say we just stop having "months"
> and just have 4 "seasons": Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall but
> even that wouldn't apply well to the opposite hemisphere where
> the seasons are reversed. So maybe just count the days starting
> from the Northern Winter solstice: 1 to 365 (366 on leap years).
Let each month have exactly 30 days. At the end of the twelfth month is a
holiday period that does not belong to any month and whose length varies
depending on whether it is a leap year or not. Kinda the way D.C. is in the
United States but is not a state and does not belong to any state. These
would, once a year, offer people the opportunity to escape for a while from
the tyranny of the calendar and be truely free.
--gary
Anton Sherwood
>> I can easily imagine shopkeepers who are not bothered by such
>> "undermining" but still prefer to reserve a day of *their own* time
>> for their respective god(s). Would you compel them to open?
Dana Nutter wrote:
> Why shouldn't they open? They don't have to be there in person.
> It would be easy to have an employee work those days by giving
> them different days off.
And if they have no employees?
>> Life could get interesting if one of the major religions
>> had a six- or eight-day week.
> Doesn't make sense. 7 days is a quarter of a lunar cycle
> so it's part of the natural rhythm.
Except that the lunar cycle is not 28 days but 29.6 days.
Dana Nutter
<m...@no-spam-thanks.net> wrote:
> >>I can easily imagine shopkeepers who are not bothered by such
> >>"undermining" but still prefer to reserve a day of *their own* time for
> >>their respective god(s). Would you compel them to open?
> >
> > Why shouldn't they open? They don't have to be there in person.
> > It would be easy to have an employee work those days by giving
> > them different days off.
>
> Not all stores have employees, family-run stores for example, and
No employees? Hire some. That extra day will probably add to
the bottom line while you are at it.
> what about the employee's feelings towards working on Sundays?
They can work somewhere else. Sunday is not important to
everyone. Seventh Day Adventists have their sabbath on
Saturday, Moslems on Friday, etc. Some people just don't care
what days off as long as they have days off.
> >>Life could get interesting if one of the major religions had a six- or
> >>eight-day week.
> >
> > Doesn't make sense. 7 days is a quarter of a lunar cycle so
> > it's part of the natural rhythm.
>
> This came up elsewhere in this thread in rec.arts.sf.science
> before it was crossposted, but I've yet to see any evidence that
> it's true. I know that most of the time I couldn't tell you what
> moon should be in the sky on any given night.
>
> > What I'm wondering is how did the months get so screwed up? 31
> > days? 30 days? 28+1 days? I say we just stop having "months"
> > and just have 4 "seasons": Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall but
> > even that wouldn't apply well to the opposite hemisphere where
> > the seasons are reversed. So maybe just count the days starting
> > from the Northern Winter solstice: 1 to 365 (366 on leap years).
>
> 4 seasons is strictly a tradition that only applies to certain
> temperate regions. When is winter at the equator? for example.
> Around here I keep hearing there are 6 seasons: summer, fall,
> locking, winter, unlocking, spring.
True there are variations in climate, but the cycles of Earth
vs. Sun still exist regardless of how extreme they affect the
weather of a certain area. Wherever you are, there is still a
365.25 day cycle.
I took a trip to Central America a few years ago where they only
have two "seasons", "wet" and "dry". "dry" meaning is still
rains a lot, just not as much.
> You could divide the year into quarters with the soltices and
> equinoxes as fenceposts, 91.25 days each (or so). I think it
> would make more sense to count from the vernal equinox, as it's
> equal in both north and south and more or less cues spring for
> the majority of the population.
I still say start at the peak of darkness, just like we begin
our clocks at midnight.
Crandadk
>>eight-day week.
>
> Doesn't make sense. 7 days is a quarter of a lunar cycle so
> it's part of the natural rhythm.
My almanac says that from new moon to new moon is 29 days, 12 hours, and 44.05
minutes. Rounded to the nearest integer, this is 30 days, so five six-day
"weeks" would fit more closely to the lunar cycle than four seven-day weeks
totaling 28 days.
Dana Nutter
<ga...@fiziwig.com> wrote:
> Let each month have exactly 30 days. At the end of the twelfth month is a
> holiday period that does not belong to any month and whose length varies
> depending on whether it is a leap year or not. Kinda the way D.C. is in the
> United States but is not a state and does not belong to any state. These
> would, once a year, offer people the opportunity to escape for a while from
> the tyranny of the calendar and be truely free.
Why 12 months of 30? How about 4 x 91, one for each season with
a holiday or two at the end.
DJensen
> On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 16:10:05 -0400, DJensen
> <m...@no-spam-thanks.net> wrote:
>>>>I can easily imagine shopkeepers who are not bothered by such
>>>>"undermining" but still prefer to reserve a day of *their own* time for
>>>>their respective god(s). Would you compel them to open?
>>>
>>>Why shouldn't they open? They don't have to be there in person.
>>>It would be easy to have an employee work those days by giving
>>>them different days off.
>>
>>Not all stores have employees, family-run stores for example, and
>
> No employees? Hire some. That extra day will probably add to
> the bottom line while you are at it.
It's easy to spend other people's profits eh?
>>what about the employee's feelings towards working on Sundays?
>
> They can work somewhere else. Sunday is not important to
> everyone. Seventh Day Adventists have their sabbath on
> Saturday, Moslems on Friday, etc. Some people just don't care
> what days off as long as they have days off.
The issue is Sunday shopping, so we're not talking about people
who don't have any particular religious need for that specific
day of the week.
[...]
>>You could divide the year into quarters with the soltices and
>>equinoxes as fenceposts, 91.25 days each (or so). I think it
>>would make more sense to count from the vernal equinox, as it's
>>equal in both north and south and more or less cues spring for
>>the majority of the population.
>
> I still say start at the peak of darkness, just like we begin
> our clocks at midnight.
What I'd really rather see is removing leap years and leap days
and daylight savings and all the other fix-up math we've loaded
the calendar with over the centuries and just use time-keepers
that reflect that there's 365.24xxxxx days in a year, and that
it's precisely noon now where you're standing, etc, by spreading
out that fix-up math over the entire year, doled out as
individual seconds if necessary.
--
DJensen
Dana Nutter
> > No employees? Hire some. That extra day will probably add to
> > the bottom line while you are at it.
>
> It's easy to spend other people's profits eh?
Not a requirement, but another day open will probably increase
profits.
> What I'd really rather see is removing leap years and leap days
> and daylight savings and all the other fix-up math we've loaded
> the calendar with over the centuries and just use time-keepers
> that reflect that there's 365.24xxxxx days in a year, and that
> it's precisely noon now where you're standing, etc, by spreading
> out that fix-up math over the entire year, doled out as
> individual seconds if necessary.
Daylight savings is something that definitely needs to be
eliminated. It's just a complete nuisance and serves no
purpose.
Universal time would be a good idea. For example we could have
the whole world on GMT.
FWIW: There is already a "leap second" that's in use but many
haven't heard of it.
Anton Sherwood
> Universal time would be a good idea. For example we could have
> the whole world on GMT.
So that weekends and holidays begin and end at 4pm (for me)?
What's the advantage?
> FWIW: There is already a "leap second" that's in use but many
> haven't heard of it.
The leap second is widely misunderstood. Unlike leap day, it has
nothing to do with the length of the year; it is inserted because the
day (thanks to tidal friction) is now a big fraction of a millisecond
longer, on average, than it was when clocks first got so precise.
cellus Purfluxius
>>clumsy religious holidays that depend on phases of the moon or the
>>complete lunar calendar.
>
>
> Speaking of holidays, I think we should get rid of the idea that we have to
> take holida1ys off, and they should just give us more vacation time to make up
> for it.Snip!
In viu ke to es un grup de artificiali
linguas ego responde in un, mi propri
internationali idiolekt.
Ego konkorda kon li previosi skriptor.
Optimum e celebration del hibernali
solstice e li vernali e autumnali
ekvinoxes e naturalmen li estivali
solstice anke.
Li persons ke observa varii religions
posse adaptar li sekulari libri periods
ad su religiosi festas, si il se trova
un besonio.
Cellus P.
Anton Sherwood
> What I'd really rather see is removing leap years and leap days and
> daylight savings and all the other fix-up math we've loaded the
> calendar with over the centuries and just use time-keepers that
> reflect that there's 365.24xxxxx days in a year, and that it's
> precisely noon now where you're standing, etc, by spreading out that
> fix-up math over the entire year, doled out as individual seconds
> if necessary.
So that if sunset is at 18h today it will be at 12h next April?
Or do you mean that it's now possible for wristwatches to show true
local sundial time? That could be fun.
Perhaps you'd like this little idea of mine. It's a bit weird at first
sight but I think people would cope pretty well:
Each month has 30 numbered days. Every (69.7)th day is a holiday which
does not interrupt the week but has no number, so a calendar might look
like this:
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 -- 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
cellus Purfluxius
> On 03 Apr 2004 03:30:26 GMT, cran...@aol.comnojunk (Crandadk)
> wrote:
>
>
>>>clumsy religious holidays that depend on phases of the moon or the
>>>complete lunar calendar.
>>
>>Speaking of holidays, I think we should get rid of the idea that we have to
>>take holidays off, and they should just give us more vacation time to make up
>>for it. Why should I have to take Dec. 25 off every year, just because some
>>religious figure was supposedly (and probably not really) born on that date a
>>couple thousand years ago, especially if I'm not even a follower of that
>>religion? As a government employee, I wonder what ever happened to separation
>>between church and state? Why is it the Christian holidays we are forced to
>>take off? This is blatant discrimination.
>
>
> This is something I've been advocating all along. Let us make
> up our own holidays. I do not observe Christmas, Easter nor
> Thanksgiving but am forced to stop and suffer through them and
> the whole ugly "Holiday Season." Then there are the political
> holidays which I don't care much about either. New Year's Day
> is about the only one I bother to celebrate because it means
> nothing other than "Let's just have a good time."
>
In brevo: Lass de religiosi celebrar
lori festas e festa solo neo-anno-di, li
solstices i li ekvinoxes!
Cellus P.
DJensen
> DJensen wrote:
> > What I'd really rather see is removing leap years and leap days and
> > daylight savings and all the other fix-up math we've loaded the
> > calendar with over the centuries and just use time-keepers that
> > reflect that there's 365.24xxxxx days in a year, and that it's
> > precisely noon now where you're standing, etc, by spreading out that
> > fix-up math over the entire year, doled out as individual seconds
> > if necessary.
>
> So that if sunset is at 18h today it will be at 12h next April?
> Or do you mean that it's now possible for wristwatches to show true
> local sundial time? That could be fun.
The latter. Some combination of GPS and radio would be enough to
keep your watch (and all clocks so equiped) both in synch with
all others and constantly adapting to the Earth-Sun realtionship
as it changes over the year.
For practical reasons we might keep timezones (but straighten
them out as much as possible)... I could see some confusion if
you're driving east or west and trying to keep track of how long
you have to get where you're going, or how long you've been on
the road, without a second traveltime clock going.
> Perhaps you'd like this little idea of mine. It's a bit weird at first
> sight but I think people would cope pretty well:
> Each month has 30 numbered days. Every (69.7)th day is a holiday which
> does not interrupt the week but has no number, so a calendar might look
> like this:
>
> 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
> 11 12 13 14 -- 15 16
> 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
It's rather stick them all together as an intercalary week at the
beginning/end of the year for a week-long holiday, myself.
--
DJensen
Ash Wyllie
>Bernardz wrote:
>> If someone is proposing changes to time what about the calendar.
>> The standard year is 365 days divided by 7 you get 52 weeks and one day.
>> Because of this one day extra we need every year a new calender as the
>> days of the week change to the date.
>So my birthday isn't on Monday every year. I like that.
>There are many kinds of rhythm in the world(s), and in my humble opinion
>we'd be the poorer for trying to line them all up alike.
>Why not have Valentine's Day every 288 days (or pick your own arbitrary
>number) rather than every 365?
One can only eat so much chocolate
-ash
Cthulhu for President!
Why vote for a lesser evil?
David Johnson
Yeah - but it would be interesting to find out just how _much_ that
really is...
David
--
_______________________________________________________________________
David Johnson home.earthlink.net/~trolleyfan
"You're a loony, you are!"
"They said that about Galileo, they said that about Einstein..."
"Yeah, and they said it about a good few loonies, too!"
jetgraphics
>As a government employee, I wonder what ever happened to separation
>between church and state? Why is it the Christian holidays we are forced
>to take off? This is blatant discrimination
Pandering to a majority religion is misdirection so that the public servants
and socialists can steal more, without triggering a rebellion among the
serfs.
It's only after government becomes the religion, that competing religions
are dismissed.
cellus Purfluxius
> cellus Purfluxius wrote:
>
>>As a government employee, I wonder what ever happened to separation
>>between church and state? Why is it the Christian holidays we are forced
>>to take off? This is blatant discrimination
>
No, ego non ha scribite isto!
In mi opinion le religion debe esser
separate del stato. Le religion debe
esser le cosa private de cata citatano.
Varie religiones, demonstrate in le vita
public, crea solo innecessari conflictos.
Cellus P.
Carlos Th
Okay, let's return to base 60 as much as possible.
TIME:
If we decide that our logical time measure system should be the "day"
(define the average day much as 60x60x24 seconds as currently defined
scientifically) which is quite a nice unit for our biological cycles, we can
define:
First multiple of day: A sixth-year (60 days)
Second multiple: a decenium (3600 days)
Third multiple: would be close to 6 centuries, and would help us define
major historical eras.
Other convenient multiples:
a "week" (either six or ten days, for ten or six weeks in a sixth).
a "year": the tenth of a decenium or six sixths: 360 days.
First divisor: a 24 minutes period (almost half an hour) is convenient to
mark mayor blocks of a day.
Second divisor: a 24 seconds period (almost half a minute) is convenient to
measure most human processes that do not need too much presition.
Third divisor: a 0.4 second period... which is more or less what we get when
counting fast verbally.
Four divisor: a 6.67 ms period, enough for most scientific precision
matters.
TEMPERATURE:
Let's take as unit the temperature of the triple point of water wich is
conveniently close to the melting point of water in our environment. This
is 273.16 Kelvin.
First divisor: aprox 4.55 Celcius or 8.2 Farenheit. Gives us a nice
impression of temperatures we have to deal with.
Second divisor: aprox 0.076 Celcius or 0.14 Farenheit... well is too fine
for normal human experience, but might have application for scientific work.
Of course, decades of the second divisor is nice to make perceptual
diferences in body or room temperature.
Now, temperatures below one unit are freezing temperatures (actually one
second division above one unit). Desire room temperature are between 4 to 5
first divisors above one unit. Normal body temperature is slightly bellow 8
first divisions above one unit. Water boils at 22 first divisions above one
unit, and you bake at two units.
MEASURE:
We might find some unit based on speed light and plank unit or something,
but let's take one geobased measure:
Unit: circumference at the Equator.
First division: 667 km (usefull for defining distances between far away
cities)
Second division: 11.1 km (usefull for defining distances between cities,
close to 7 miles)
Third division: 186 m (200 yards)
Fourth division: 3,1 m (ten feet)
Fifth division: 51 mm (two inches)
Sixth division: 0.87 mm
Etc.
If we take light speed and our day unit; one distance unit would be probably
too big for common human experience. Might have applications for
astronomical measures into our solar system.
However:
fourth division: 2000 km (earth circumpherence would be 20 fourth divisions)
fifth division: 33.3 km (~20 miles, distances between cities)
sixths divisions: 555 m (~1/3 mile, smaller distances between geographic
references)
seventh divisions: 9.25 m (~10 yards)
eighth divisions: 15.4 cm (~ 6 inches: major antropometric measures)
ninth divisions: 2.57 mm (~ 1/10 inch: smaller measures in human experience)
tenth divisions: 43 micra (usually enough for engineering precision)
With light speed as a unit:
fourth division: 83 km/h, 52 mil/h: to describe speed of airplanes or trains
fifth division: 1,4 km/h, 0,87 mil/h: to describe precision speed of
automobiles.
We have one way (one set of prefixes) for first, second, third, etc.
divisions, much as prefixes in the metrical system.
Each division would define our concept of "order of magnitude" wich allows
us to conveniently jump between nice orders. (a little less than between
meters and centimeters, a little more than between inches and yards: equal
than between seconds, minutes and hours).
Besides, fractions of each division are conveniently describe in multiples
of the next division level:
1/2 : 30'
1/3 : 20'
1/4 : 15'
1/5 : 12'
1/6 : 10'
1/10 : 6'
Even:
1/8 : 7' 30"
1/9 : 6' 40"
(if you really need sevenths: 1/7 ~= 8' 34" )
-- Carlos Th
pyotr filipivich
"Carlos Th" <chl...@my-deja.com> from posting to soc.history.what-if the
following:
>
>Okay, let's return to base 60 as much as possible.
>
I had a wild idea for to use the wave length of hydrogen as a basic "meter"
(in the original sense of the word: a defined measure of length), and work from
there. If memory serves, the Hydrogen wavelength is around 21 cm, or a tad
over two SI meters. Bummer, as I see a basic human prejudice for a measurement
about that long (holding two hands about a yard/meter apart.)
The next "trick" is a basic multiplier, 1024 units seems good. Thus we get
one kilobyte to be actually one "kilobyte".
Hey, part of this was to come up with some "elegant" numbers, the reason
for which is "obvious" for some esthetics reason, much as seven can be
represented as a particular pattern of dots (two over, three in the middle, two
under), and nine is three rows of three, or fifteen is 1111 in binary. (Which
lead to some interesting speculation on primes - are the same quantities prime
if the numbering system is not decimal? Can you _have_ prime numbers in
binary? Trinary?)
I didn't get far with this, but did learn a bit about the definitions of
basic dimensions (weight volume, time, etc) and some of the derived units.
"Someday ..."
pyotr
--
pyotr filipivich
What is normal?
"Two sigmas either side of mu.
You bring the cow." drieux.
Robert J. Kolker
pyotr filipivich wrote:
> lead to some interesting speculation on primes - are the same quantities prime
> if the numbering system is not decimal? Can you _have_ prime numbers in
> binary? Trinary?)
Primeness/nonprimeness is a property of the integers themselves, not the
system of representing them.
Bob Kolker
Erik Max Francis
> (Which
> lead to some interesting speculation on primes - are the same
> quantities prime
> if the numbering system is not decimal? Can you _have_ prime numbers
> in
> binary? Trinary?)
Yes, and they're the same numbers. Primes are defined by what numbers
divide into them evenly or don't; the numbering system used is
irrelevant.
--
__ Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
/ \ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && AIM erikmaxfrancis
\__/ Love has no heart.
-- Ned Rorem
Paul Colquhoun
| A city wide blackout at Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:23:16 -0500 did not prevent
| "Carlos Th" <chl...@my-deja.com> from posting to soc.history.what-if the
| following:
|>
|>Okay, let's return to base 60 as much as possible.
|>
|
| I had a wild idea for to use the wave length of hydrogen as a basic "meter"
| (in the original sense of the word: a defined measure of length), and work from
| there. If memory serves, the Hydrogen wavelength is around 21 cm, or a tad
| over two SI meters. Bummer, as I see a basic human prejudice for a measurement
| about that long (holding two hands about a yard/meter apart.)
Actually, a tad over 1/5th of a meter. 1 meter = 100 cm
21 cm is ~ 8.25 inches
--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/~paulcol
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro
Fuckoyed Vitiossi
Paul Colquhoun wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 01:57:42 GMT, pyotr filipivich <ph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> | A city wide blackout at Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:23:16 -0500 did not prevent
> | "Carlos Th" <chl...@my-deja.com> from posting to soc.history.what-if the
> | following:
> |>
> |>Okay, let's return to base 60 as much as possible.
> |>
> |
> | I had a wild idea for to use the wave length of hydrogen as a basic "meter"
> | (in the original sense of the word: a defined measure of length), and work from
> | there. If memory serves, the Hydrogen wavelength is around 21 cm, or a tad
> | over two SI meters. Bummer, as I see a basic human prejudice for a measurement
> | about that long (holding two hands about a yard/meter apart.)
>
>
> Actually, a tad over 1/5th of a meter. 1 meter = 100 cm
>
> 21 cm is ~ 8.25 inches
>
>
It's settled, then. The basic unit of measurement should be the length
of my knob.
FV
Keith Morrison
>> | I had a wild idea for to use the wave length of hydrogen as a basic "meter"
>> | (in the original sense of the word: a defined measure of length), and work from
>> | there. If memory serves, the Hydrogen wavelength is around 21 cm, or a tad
>> | over two SI meters. Bummer, as I see a basic human prejudice for a measurement
>> | about that long (holding two hands about a yard/meter apart.)
>>
>> Actually, a tad over 1/5th of a meter. 1 meter = 100 cm
>>
>> 21 cm is ~ 8.25 inches
>
>It's settled, then. The basic unit of measurement should be the length
>of my knob.
Yeah, but how many times does the average person need to measure in
the equivalent of millimetres anyway?
--
Keith
rosignol
pyotr filipivich <ph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
[zap]
> Hey, part of this was to come up with some "elegant" numbers, the reason
> for which is "obvious" for some esthetics reason, much as seven can be
> represented as a particular pattern of dots (two over, three in the middle,
> two
> under), and nine is three rows of three, or fifteen is 1111 in binary.
> (Which
> lead to some interesting speculation on primes - are the same quantities
> prime
> if the numbering system is not decimal? Can you _have_ prime numbers in
> binary? Trinary?)
Sure. Writing it as 1101 doesn't make that value evenly divisible by any
value that it isn't already divisible by.
[zap]
--
al Qaeda delenda est
pyotr filipivich
Colquhoun <postm...@andor.dropbear.id.au> from posting to soc.history.what-if
the following:
>On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 01:57:42 GMT, pyotr filipivich <ph...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>| A city wide blackout at Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:23:16 -0500 did not prevent
>| "Carlos Th" <chl...@my-deja.com> from posting to soc.history.what-if the
>| following:
>|>
>|>Okay, let's return to base 60 as much as possible.
>|>
>|
>| I had a wild idea for to use the wave length of hydrogen as a basic "meter"
>| (in the original sense of the word: a defined measure of length), and work from
>| there. If memory serves, the Hydrogen wavelength is around 21 cm, or a tad
>| over two SI meters. Bummer, as I see a basic human prejudice for a measurement
>| about that long (holding two hands about a yard/meter apart.)
>
>
>Actually, a tad over 1/5th of a meter. 1 meter = 100 cm
>
>21 cm is ~ 8.25 inches
Oh drat, I dropped a decimal point. All these "millimeters" and
"Centimeters" - whatever happened to cubits and hands? :-)
--
pyotr filipivich
"With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."
Anton Sherwood
> Oh drat, I dropped a decimal point. All these "millimeters"
> and "Centimeters" - whatever happened to cubits and hands? :-)
Ah, but when you drop a digit . . . .
Bernard Peek
<ne...@ogre.nu> writes
>pyotr filipivich wrote:
>> Oh drat, I dropped a decimal point. All these "millimeters"
>> and "Centimeters" - whatever happened to cubits and hands? :-)
>
>Ah, but when you drop a digit . . . .
You have to start counting in octal.
--
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.
Ash Wyllie
>In message <10931j6...@corp.supernews.com>, Anton Sherwood
><ne...@ogre.nu> writes
>>pyotr filipivich wrote:
>>> Oh drat, I dropped a decimal point. All these "millimeters"
>>> and "Centimeters" - whatever happened to cubits and hands? :-)
>>
>>Ah, but when you drop a digit . . . .
>You have to start counting in octal.
Wouldn.t that be nonal?
Anton Sherwood
>> I'd change the TV and movie standards so that there would be a single
>> framerate all around the world. And unify the TV systems while I'm at
>> it.
Joshua P. Hill wrote:
> That's what the Japanese wanted to do. Hell, everyone except the
> French -- they complained that 60 Hz favored the 60 Hz countries, and
> wanted a "compromise" that was equally far from everything -- 72 Hz or
> something.
And the Loglanists wanted a weighted average. :P