If there are sixty minutes in an hour

[Cerys]

... and sixty seconds in a minute ... why do we have milliseconds?  I mean, if you're going to decimalise time, why not go all the way?

This post was brought to you by No, Oddly Enough I Can't Fucking Sleep.

[Hand Solo]

Probably because we use base 60 to measure time as inherited from the Babylonians, and never had the need or ability to measure consistantly to degrees less than a second until mechanical and later electronic means became used, by which time we were using a base 10 system generally for everything else.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

"What's next, Blue Pages?"

"They have those. They're for government listings."

[Cerys]

Probably because we use base 60 to measure time as inherited from the Babylonians, and never had the need or ability to measure consistantly to degrees less than a second until mechanical and later electronic means became used, by which time we were using a base 10 system generally for everything else.

Well maybe it's time to change all that.  Maybe this virus is giving us a chance to rewrite the rules, to decimalise our entire existence, to restructure physics and to confuse the elderly.  They'll love it - it'll give them a whole new lease of life.

[sirhenry]

Well maybe it's time to change all that.  Maybe this virus is giving us a chance to rewrite the rules, to decimalise our entire existence, to restructure physics and to confuse the elderly.  They'll love it - it'll give them a whole new lease of life.

But that would give us 10-day weeks, and no-one wants that! Imagine working 8 straight days before the weekend. Just at a time when they're asking for a shorter working week too!

And what would we call the extra days? We've already got the uncomfortable mix of two very different pantheons with the misspelled Norse in bed with the mispronounced Greco-Roman astronomical names. What are you planning to add, the Welsh names for rain, flooding and drizzle? Can you imagine the lisping, spitting nightmare scenario that would create for spreading contagion? Maybe some Aztec gods of unpleasant deaths instead? Or maybe they can be sold to the highest bidder and we'll get 3-day weekends named after Disney princesses that change with each new release.

You need to think these things through, even at 3 in the morning.

[thenoise]

60 divides into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12 convenient pieces, which makes it useful to talk about divisions of the hour without using ugly decimals.

Historically a 1/60 of a second is called a 'third', so there's no reason we can't keep dividing by 60 to get fourths, fifths, sixths, ...

[thenoise]

double post

[sirhenry]

60 divides into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12 convenient pieces, which makes it useful to talk about divisions of the hour without using ugly decimals.

Only if you're a Babylonian who has never seen the beauty of the universe compartmentalized into ten easy steps[nb]known in traditional British imperial measurements as 'a chain'[/nb]. There's only a tiny fraction of the world that still uses fractions, and the majority of them are American, therefore wrong. The fraction faction have outlived their usefulness. Time to call time on them.

[Blumf]

... and sixty seconds in a minute ...

Not entirely true. You sometimes have 59, or 61 seconds in a minute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

[BlodwynPig]

But that would give us 10-day weeks, and no-one wants that! Imagine working 8 straight days before the weekend. Just at a time when they're asking for a shorter working week too!

And what would we call the extra days? We've already got the uncomfortable mix of two very different pantheons with the misspelled Norse in bed with the mispronounced Greco-Roman astronomical names. What are you planning to add, the Welsh names for rain, flooding and drizzle? Can you imagine the lisping, spitting nightmare scenario that would create for spreading contagion? Maybe some Aztec gods of unpleasant deaths instead? Or maybe they can be sold to the highest bidder and we'll get 3-day weekends named after Disney princesses that change with each new release.

You need to think these things through, even at 3 in the morning.

6 days on, 4 days off

[Cerys]

You'll all no doubt be pleased to know that I eventually fell asleep and had a really cool dream about inadvertently straying on to the set of Young Dracula.  So there's that.

[Dewt]

I can't believe you've wasted Sebastian's time with this question

[Dewt]

That said I am equally irritated by milliseconds.

What is this like day 20 of social distancing? We're all going to start yelling at dust

fucking floaty skin flake cunts

[Gregory Torso]

You'll all no doubt be pleased to know that I eventually fell asleep and had a really cool dream about inadvertently straying on to the set of Young Dracula.  So there's that.

I had a dream that I was sitting on a toilet doing a poo at a bus stop with everyone looking at me. Then instead of pulling my pants and trousers up, I took all of my clothes off and was just walking around bare, asking people when the next bus to the padleys fish finger factory was.

[dissolute ocelot]

Who the fuck needs milliseconds? Who are you, Usain Bolt? Who coincidentally is often nude in my dreams.

It's worth remembering the only time they tried decimal time they ended up guillotining a bunch of people. Also Swatch tried it, but their guillotine was made of trashy plastic and failed after a week.

[Cerys]

I had a dream that I was sitting on a toilet doing a poo at a bus stop with everyone looking at me. Then instead of pulling my pants and trousers up, I took all of my clothes off and was just walking around bare, asking people when the next bus to the padleys fish finger factory was.

Were they able to help you with your enquiry?  Keith Lee Castle just got annoyed with me, despite there being no indication that the door opened on to a set.

[Gregory Torso]

Yeah, they were all perfectly cordial and helpful, not even commenting on my nakedness.

[thenoise]

10 hours in a day and 100 minutes per hour, makes a New Decimal Minute equal to 86.4 Babylonian Seconds

Divide this into 100 seconds per minute, and the New Decimal Second is equal to 0.864 Babylonian Seconds.

This approximates to about 70 bpm (Babylonian Minutes that is), which is a lot closer to a resting heartbeat than the old second, which means we can approximate timing things using our pulse more easily.  The minute is also an acceptable variation, a slight adjustment in our cooking times and tweaking of our toaster scales will account for this.

However an hour being a tenth of the day is not acceptable - that's 144 Babylonian Minutes!  How long before we have New Decimal Lectures lasting over two Babylonian Hours, films lasting one and a half hours being the norm even when the story is threadbare, New Decimal Lunchhour taking so long I'm practically hungry again by the end of it, and when the clocks change every spring and autumn it would be over twice as traumatising as it is now.

So on balance, no.

[Dewt]

The galling thing about that is like my friend Miley Cyrus I suffer from inappropriate sinus tachycardia, meaning my heart rate is very often a good metric 100

[olliebean]

Not entirely true. You sometimes have 59, or 61 seconds in a minute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second

Technically there can be 59 seconds in a minute, but there never has been, and probably never will be.

[Twit 2]

So Solid Crew should be appointed Lords of Time, stewards of both Chronos and Kairos. They alone should stand at the edge of things to monitor the flow, to weigh our dust and re-scatter it with special tweezers. Megaman and DJ Swift have expressed interest and have been seen carting a special bell round Battersea to toll our wasted seconds. They were fully robed and although their tiny feet were undoubtedly scampering beneath, Mr Shabz claims they glide unburdened by the necessity of footfall, their shins glowing ultraviolet in the electromagnetic spectrum. Skat D, where once he would sleep right in, awakens like a saffron-suited child of Hyperion, to ride his chariot across our rosy-fingered skies. If you cock your ear in the dew you can hear his celestial mumblings among the splendour. "...I ain't got the time to smoke this, hold this Yo G, roll by in a blacked out TT, Megaman carry two gats easy..."

[Gregory Torso]

That's beautiful, man.

[Replies From View]

I find the entire premise of this thread faulty.  There simply are not sixty minutes in an hour - there's only one minute in an hour and it's routinely taken up by someone who never lets anyone else have a go.







Oh sorry - I thought you meant there were sixty toilets in my house!  An easy misunderstanding!  There's only one toilet in my house^*, there's someone using it and boy do I need a shit!


^* not actually "my" house, obviously.  I rent.

[petril]

So Solid Crew should be appointed Lords of Time, stewards of both Chronos and Kairos. They alone should stand at the edge of things to monitor the flow, to weigh our dust and re-scatter it with special tweezers. Megaman and DJ Swift have expressed interest and have been seen carting a special bell round Battersea to toll our wasted seconds. They were fully robed and although their tiny feet were undoubtedly scampering beneath, Mr Shabz claims they glide unburdened by the necessity of footfall, their shins glowing ultraviolet in the electromagnetic spectrum. Skat D, where once he would sleep right in, awakens like a saffron-suited child of Hyperion, to ride his chariot across our rosy-fingered skies. If you cock your ear in the dew you can hear his celestial mumblings among the splendour. "...I ain't got the time to smoke this, hold this Yo G, roll by in a blacked out TT, Megaman carry two gats easy..."

yeah but they'd miss out 65% of every minute. skiving cunts

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Imagine working 8 straight days before the weekend.

This was the system proposed by the Beatles in 1964.

[Endicott]

Well maybe it's time to change all that.  Maybe this virus is giving us a chance to rewrite the rules, to decimalise our entire existence, to restructure physics and to confuse the elderly.  They'll love it - it'll give them a whole new lease of life.

The French tried this after the revolution, but it confused the shit out of everyone and got dropped.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/32127/decimal-time-how-french-made-10-hour-day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

[Zero Gravitas]

A kilosecond is 16 minutes and 40 seconds
A megasecond is 11 and a half days.
A gigasecond is 32 years.
A terasecond is 31,700 years.

Such useful and cool-sounding units, I have no idea why we don't use them.

[DistressedArea]

I've measured hours with as few as 23 full minutes or as many as 73. I've also come across weeks with 8 or even 9 days in them, always extra Wednesdays, not sure why that is.  Monday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Anyway, you should always check for yourself and keep records, like I do.

[Cerys]

Time flies when you're having fun.  Therefore being a miserable sod will prolong your life.