Considering it would take 3-4 generations to adopt a new time standard, I'd opt for some kind of "universal time" instead - not tied to one random planet (Earth) rotation speed. Think stardates, but real :)
Metric Time
261–270 of 343 posts
Re: Metric Time
#262Another excuse to share the wonderful Unix epoch clock: https://retr0.id/stuff/2038/ Watch face has 4 hands, one for each pair of characters in the hex representation of the current unix time. Being hex, it kinda makes it easier to understand for me in that the "minute" is 255 seconds. The next chunk of time is 65,025 seconds or about 18 hours. Then comes 16,581,375 seconds, which is almost 192 days.
Actually the minute is 256 seconds (2^8). The next chunk of time is 65536 (2^16). Then comes 16777216 (2^24). The whole clock rolls over at 4294967296 (2^32).
Re: Metric Time
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
We need tau-rational-time! We sleep for τ/3, noon is at π.
An hour is just an another name for a deciturn, or a deciday. Tau is not a good unit for angles in general, unless you have circles, or you need lengths of circumferences somewhere. (You want to paint your clock and calculate the amount of paint, or something.) Turn is the natural angle unit. And since the earth rotates 1 turn/day, the amount of turns is the same as the amount of days.
I meant radian, not tau.
Re: Metric Time
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the full version there is an unrolled map of the world down the side with the terminator drawn on which solves all those concerns. Even if those problems were harder to solve its far more valuable to have a single time for your meeting than multiple times (depending on the time zones and savings time of the participants). The pain of organising international meetings was one of the reasons I did this.
UTC?
Yes, my preference is basically UTC, just with some UX improvements.
Re: Metric Time
#265.beat time or Swatch Internet Time is way better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
My favorite is traditional Japanese time. Breaks day and night into 6 equal time periods each, and adjusts them as the seasons change. I made a Sahku Dokei (19th century Japanese pillar clock) simulator to play with it.
Re: Metric Time
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/freedom_units
Thanks, I've learnt something today. Just out of curiosity: is it just a joke, or is there an idiocy behind, such as Sovereign Citizen or similar?
It's tongue in cheek or wink wink. No one uses it seriously but there is sometimes an undercurrent of resistance to what's seen as an external cultural standard. But you'll never see it used as a kind of rallying cry.
Re: Metric Time
#267Considering it would take 3-4 generations to adopt a new time standard, I'd opt for some kind of "universal time" instead - not tied to one random planet (Earth) rotation speed. Think stardates, but real :)
Already exists: "barrycentric coordinate time" (there's also some variations on it). It's generally used in computation of solar system orbits.
Re: Metric Time
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, a very confusing error. The metric time is the SI time (24h 60m 60s). The decimal time is base 10. French tried to get it used during the revolution and it did not work. Its the only unit that resisted decimalization, with a couple others ones in a handful of countries still using something called « imperial units ». Another similar thought experiment is binary clocks which I remember using to get use to read in…
>with a couple others ones in a handful of countries still using something called « imperial units ». The only country I know of offhand that uses "imperial units" is the UK. There's a different, but similar (and sometimes overlapping) system called "US Customary Units" that's used in the US. Imperial pints and gallons are NOT the same as US pints and gallons.
Though they like to pretend otherwise, there's still quite a bit of non metric use in Canada.
Re: Metric Time
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would sleeping time be a fraction of 2pi? > I'd guess that you're using rational numbers in the actual calculation anyways. Well, actually one uses floating point arithmetic, which isn't rational numbers either (as shown by the classic example a = 1/3, b = 3*a, then b != a)
I mean, we could be measuring time in radians. We already subdivide degrees into minutes and seconds, might as well call the day 2 pi radians. We sleep for 2/3 pi radians of the day in that case.
The whole argument started when somebody above claimed that we probably do not sleep exactly 8 hours, but some weird irrational number. That problem persists even if you measure in radians...
Re: Metric Time
#270Wouldn't this require redefining seconds? That's a no go in my book.