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Let's stop counting centuries

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Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#351

Post by runarberg »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #319

Another example of confusing numeric systems emerges from 12-hour clocks. For many people, asking them to specify which one is 12AM and which one is 12PM is likely to cause confusion. This confusion is immediately cleared up if you just adopt a 24-hour clock. This is a hill I'm willing to die on.

You usually know it from context, and if not, 12 noon or 12 midnight is quite common.

But I do wished people would stop writing schedules in the 12 hour system. You get weird stuff like bold means PM etc. to compensate for the space inefficiency of 12 hour system

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#352

Post by dtech »

jonathan_landy wrote: post #317
swyx wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oooor we can slowly migrate towards sensibility as we did celsius and centimeters

Re temp, I’m glad we use F for daily life in the USA. The most common application I have for temp is to understand the weather and I like the 0-100 range for F as that’s the typical range for weather near me. For scientific work I obviously prefer kelvin. Celsius is nearly useless.

95% of the world uses Celcius without problems because they're used to it. You'd either also be fine with it or you belong to a sub-5th percentile which couldn't figure it out, take your pick.

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#353

Post by User23 »

swyx wrote: post #313
tempodox wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logic is in short supply and off-by-one errors are everywhere. Most people don't care. I think it's more doable to learn to just live with that than to reprogram mankind.

oooor we can slowly migrate towards sensibility as we did celsius and centimeters

It’s been tried. The “rational” calendar reform was something of a failure.

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#354

Post by User23 »

dboreham wrote: post #346
prerok wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At sea level, yes :) I do agree, though I live in Europe and C is the norm. I could never wrap my head around F. That said, I think 0 is more important in daily life, below or above freezing. How much is that in F again?

As a dweller of a cold place in the USA, F is pretty handy because "freezing" isn't terribly cold. Having 0F be "actually quite seriously cold" is useful.

Also, conveniently, freezer temperature is 0F not 32F.

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#355

Post by dash2 »

I use "the 1900s" to mean 1900-1910.

I understand the difficulty, but I don't think it is too terrible for us to get used to it and we aren't gonna change the past 500 years of literature that already did this.

Also, it's ironic for a bunch of people who literally count arrays from zero to be complaining about this... :-P

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#356

Post by Viliam1234 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #348
gcp123 wrote: post #2

Author makes a good point. "1700s" is both more intuitive and more concise than "18th century". The very first episode of Alex Trebeck's Jeopardy in 1984 illustrates how confusing this can be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTxS9_CwZA The "Final Jeopardy" question simply asked on what date did the 20th century begin, and all three contestants got it wrong, leading to a 3-way tie.

1700s means 1700–1709, i.e. roughly the first decade in the 18th century. Just like '2000s'. The OP acknowledges this issue and then just ignores it.

I have a solution that would work in writing, but not sure how to pronounce it:

1700s means 1700–1709

1700ss means 1700–1799

To go one step further:

2000s means 2000-2009

2000ss means 2000-2099

2000sss means 2000-2999

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#357

Post by cvdub »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #319

Another example of confusing numeric systems emerges from 12-hour clocks. For many people, asking them to specify which one is 12AM and which one is 12PM is likely to cause confusion. This confusion is immediately cleared up if you just adopt a 24-hour clock. This is a hill I'm willing to die on.

That’s why I always say “12 noon” when writing out scheduling instructions for something at 12PM.

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#358

Post by bowsamic »

dboreham wrote: post #350
bowsamic wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one that I know of in Europe gets taught this

I grew up in Scotland. We studied American History in school. In fact we didn't study English History, except as it pertained to Scottish History, so to this day I'm hazy on Magna Carta, turbulent priests and so on.

I’m glad to be proven wrong. I’m English btw. We learnt nothing about America but we learnt everything about King Henry VIII

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#359

Post by bowsamic »

kzrdude wrote: post #278
bowsamic wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one that I know of in Europe gets taught this

Why not learn it anyway. Broader 'bildung' is a lifelong pursuit.

I’m from working class England and that’s absolutely not the culture for us. Education is considered superfluous unless it makes you money

Re: Let's stop counting centuries

#360

Post by creeble »

jonathan_landy wrote: post #317
swyx wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oooor we can slowly migrate towards sensibility as we did celsius and centimeters

Re temp, I’m glad we use F for daily life in the USA. The most common application I have for temp is to understand the weather and I like the 0-100 range for F as that’s the typical range for weather near me. For scientific work I obviously prefer kelvin. Celsius is nearly useless.

I agree. For ambient temp, F is twice as accurate in the same number of digits. It also reflects human experience better; 100F is damn hot, and 0F is damn cold.

Celsius is for chemists.

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