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Imperial versus metric


Camacha

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3 hours ago, razark said:

Proper date format is DD Mon YYYY or for filenames DD_Mon_YYYY.

It disallows sorting in chronological order by name.

2 hours ago, SingABrightSong said:

The main advantage of US Customary is that the basic units, in particular units of length are very intuitive for humans.

Not so many 453.6 g heavy things I can see around.

Also the Russian pound was 409 g. Same intuitive.


30.48 cm is not just a "foot", it's more like an "NBA foot".

 

While 1852 m long mile makes some sense (1 arc min), the 1609 m is purely counter-intuitive, even in feet.

 

9 hours ago, tater said:

If people were serious, they'd use the decimal time they also invented along with metric. ;)

 

The time is too biological thing to avoid diving it by 2,3,4,5,6,10,12 daily.

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4 hours ago, razark said:

Proper date format is DD Mon YYYY or for filenames DD_Mon_YYYY.

Given there's about 1.5 billion people who natively uses YY年MM月DD日/YY년MM월DD일 then I think that's not completely universal.

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4 hours ago, SingABrightSong said:

The main advantage of US Customary is that the basic units, in particular units of length are very intuitive for humans. 

Every time imperial vs metric comes up, this is an argument given for imperial, and it's just completely wrong. No, it's not. You personally may find it easy to use because you've grown up with it. If you told me you're 5'7'' high, I would have no idea what you were talking about and if you're very tall or very short, until I convert it to metric. Decimal nature of metric system provides more then enough flexibility for every use case.

10 hours ago, tater said:

If people were serious, they'd use the decimal time they also invented along with metric. ;)

 

Funny you should mention it, since once you start working with periods shorter than one second, that's all you'll ever find.

Thankfully, there is no such thing as an imperial unit named drop, defined as time it takes for one drop of goat milk to melt due to energy released by a sockfull of cotton seeds (defined as 13876) sprouting on a warm spring day (undefined) in the outskirts of Gordonsville, Tennessee; roughly, but not quite equivalent to 3/64 of a second.

Using milliseconds, microseconds, etc is standard way to use decimal time in various science disciplines, but I personally use decimal time even for longer periods. Often for work purposes I need to tally up various time periods. I find it much easier to add 3:15:00 + 2:30:00 + 4:45:00 as 3,25 + 2,5 + 4,75 (the raw data is in 15 minute increment since it's good enough for this purpose, but I'd do it the same way even if I had to work with better precision). Once I have my decimal sum I convert the decimal part to minutes (that's what's required). It's much easier than to constantly keep track of base 60.

Sign me up for decimal time.

I will admit that there is one significant drawback of decimal time. Time is closely tied to day and year length, so we can't be as arbitrary as we may like to make the perfect system. Also redefining second would have an effect on almost all other SI units.

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4 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

It's much easier than to constantly keep track of base 60.

... only because you use base 10 numerals XD

With base 12 numerals you'd be looking at 50 rather than 60.

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There is the ISO standard for dates and times https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

The problem with time is that the units that are most important to people on earth, years and days,

aren't constant,

aren't nice multiples of each other

Are only relevant on one tiny blue spec in the universe.

Any attempt to make something so inherently messy make sense is always going to fail somewhere.

 

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8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

It disallows sorting in chronological order by name.

r0agjro.png

Name is not the field to sort chronologically.

 

7 hours ago, YNM said:

Given there's about 1.5 billion people who natively uses YY年MM月DD日/YY년MM월DD일 then I think that's not completely universal.

I didn't say "universal", I said "proper".  I can't help it that most of the people are being wrong.

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36 minutes ago, razark said:

Name is not the field to sort chronologically.

When you get a string list of file names, it's already sorted and doesn't need any manipulations.

The same when you see them in Total Commander or so.

An SQL query to the table containing the list of processed files.

***

But backwards to backyards.

A yard. Three feet. Exactly.
A distance between the Early Medieval English king's nose and the (according to the ru wiki, middle) finger.

Do I get it right, that they were holding a row of boots at the king's nose, while he was showing them the finger?

And this became the units which they use to measure the aircraft altitude?

Edited by kerbiloid
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On 6/19/2021 at 9:28 PM, razark said:

I can't help it that most of the people are being wrong.

Well it is the thing they came up with from ages ago, and it is the way they pronounce/read it as well (so no disconnect from the spoken version). Any shorter dates must be only month/date. For computer stuff (ie. files etc) they go even further and usually eliminate the separators altogether... (of which they usually use point for separator rather than slashes)

But yeah as with more people in this thread I think the real atrocity is MM/DD/YYYY or anything of the sort. Even English have little to no reason to do that (July 3, 2012 could easily be 3rd of July 2012).

 

Metric vs. imperial itself I honestly find no problem as long as we lock the values - and we do. The only remaining problem is with standards which tends to be both a) prescriptive and b) simplistic.

Edited by YNM
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A proper and readable Imperial (Roman Imperial) calendar.

Spoiler

Museo_del_Teatro_Romano_de_Caesaraugusta

 

Days[edit]

Main article: Kalends

Roman dates were counted inclusively forward to the next one of three principal days within each month:[38]

  • Kalends (Kalendae or Kal.), the 1st day of each month[38]
  • Nones (Nonae or Non.), the 7th day of full months[39] and 5th day of hollow ones,[38] 8 days—"nine" by Roman reckoning—before the Ides in every month
  • Ides (Idus, variously Eid. or Id.), the 15th day of full months[39] and the 13th day of hollow ones,[38] one day earlier than the middle of each month.

These are thought to reflect a prehistoric lunar calendar, with the kalends proclaimed after the sighting of the first sliver of the new crescent moon a day or two after the new moon, the nones occurring on the day of the first-quarter moon, and the ides on the day of the full moon. The kalends of each month were sacred to Juno and the ides to Jupiter.[40][41] The day before each was known as its eve (pridie); the day after each (postridie) was considered particularly unlucky.

The days of the month were expressed in early Latin using the ablative of time, denoting points in time, in the contracted form "the 6th December Kalends" (VI Kalendas Decembres).[39] In classical Latin, this use continued for the three principal days of the month[42] but other days were idiomatically expressed in the accusative case, which usually expressed a duration of time, and took the form "6th day before the December Kalends" (ante diem VI Kalendas Decembres). This anomaly may have followed the treatment of days in Greek,[43] reflecting the increasing use of such date phrases as an absolute phrase able to function as the object of another preposition,[39] or simply originated in a mistaken agreement of dies with the preposition ante once it moved to the beginning of the expression.[39] In late Latin, this idiom was sometimes abandoned in favor of again using the ablative of time.

The kalends were the day for payment of debts and the account books (kalendaria) kept for them gave English its word calendar. The public Roman calendars were the fasti, which designated the religious and legal character of each month's days. The Romans marked each day of such calendars with the letters:[44]

  • F (fastus, "permissible") on days when it was legal to initiate action in the courts of civil law (dies fasti, "allowed days")
  • C (comitialis) on fasti days during which the Roman people could hold assemblies (dies comitiales)
  • N (nefastus) on days when political and judicial activities were prohibited (dies nefasti)
  • NP (uncertain)[e] on public holidays (feriae)
  • QRCF (uncertain)[f] on days when the "king" (rex sacrorum) could convene an assembly
  • EN (endotercissus, an archaic form of intercissus, "halved") on days when most political and religious activities were prohibited in the morning and evening due to sacrifices being prepared or offered but were acceptable for a period in the middle of the day

Each day was also marked by a letter from A to H to indicate its place within the nundinal cycle of market days.

 

Spoiler
Day Original
31-day months
Mar, May, Jul, Oct[g]
New Julian
31-day months
Jan, Aug, Dec[h]
New Julian
30-day months
Apr, Jun, Sep, Nov
Original
29-day months
Jan, Apr, Jun, Aug, Sep, Nov, Dec[j] February 1 Kal. On the Kalends
Kalendis Kal. Kal. Kal. Feb. 2 a.d. VI Non. The 4th Day before the Nones
ante diem quartum Nonas a.d. IV Non. a.d. IV Non. a.d. IV Non. Feb. 3 a.d. V Non. The 3rd Day before the Nones
ante diem tertium Nonas a.d. III Non. a.d. III Non. a.d. III Non. Feb. 4 a.d. IV Non. On the Day before the Nones
Pridie Nonas Prid. Non. Prid. Non. Prid. Non. Feb. 5 a.d. III Non. On the Nones
Nonis Non. Non. Non. Feb. 6 Prid. Non. The 8th Day before the Ides
ante diem octavum Idus a.d. VIII Eid. a.d. VIII Eid. a.d. VIII Eid. Feb. 7 Non. The 7th Day before the Ides
ante diem septimum Idus a.d. VII Eid. a.d. VII Eid. a.d. VII Eid. Feb. 8 a.d. VIII Eid. The 6th Day before the Ides
ante diem sextum Idus a.d. VI Eid. a.d. VI Eid. a.d. VI Eid. Feb. 9 a.d. VII Eid. The 5th Day before the Ides
ante diem quintum Idus a.d. V Eid. a.d. V Eid. a.d. V Eid. Feb. 10 a.d. VI Eid. The 4th Day before the Ides
ante diem quartum Idus a.d. IV Eid. a.d. IV Eid. a.d. IV Eid. Feb. 11 a.d. V Eid. The 3rd Day before the Ides
ante diem tertium Idus a.d. III Eid. a.d. III Eid. a.d. III Eid. Feb. 12 a.d. IV Eid. On the Day before the Ides
Pridie Idus Prid. Eid. Prid. Eid. Prid. Eid. Feb. 13 a.d. III Eid. On the Ides
Idibus Eid. Eid. Eid. Feb. 14 Prid. Eid. The 19th Day before the Kalends
ante diem undevicesimum Kalendas a.d. XVIII Kal. a.d. XVII Kal. a.d. XVI Kal. Mart. 15 Eid. The 18th Day before the Kalends
ante diem duodevicesimum Kalendas a.d. XVII Kal. a.d. XVI Kal. a.d. XV Kal. Mart. 16 a.d. XVII Kal. The 17th Day before the Kalends
ante diem septimum decimum Kalendas a.d. XVI Kal. a.d. XV Kal. a.d. XIV Kal. Mart. 17 a.d. XVI Kal. The 16th Day before the Kalends
ante diem sextum decimum Kalendas a.d. XV Kal. a.d. XIV Kal. a.d. XIII Kal. Mart. 18 a.d. XV Kal. The 15th Day before the Kalends
ante diem quintum decimum Kalendas a.d. XIV Kal. a.d. XIII Kal. a.d. XII Kal. Mart. 19 a.d. XIV Kal. The 14th Day before the Kalends
ante diem quartum decimum Kalendas a.d. XIII Kal. a.d. XII Kal. a.d. XI Kal. Mart. 20 a.d. XIII Kal. The 13th Day before the Kalends
ante diem tertium decimum Kalendas a.d. XII Kal. a.d. XI Kal. a.d. X Kal. Mart. 21 a.d. XII Kal. The 12th Day before the Kalends
ante diem duodecimum Kalendas a.d. XI Kal. a.d. X Kal. a.d. IX Kal. Mart. 22 a.d. XI Kal. The 11th Day before the Kalends
ante diem undecimum Kalendas a.d. X Kal. a.d. IX Kal. a.d. VIII Kal. Mart. 23 a.d. X Kal. The 10th Day before the Kalends
ante diem decimum Kalendas a.d. IX Kal. a.d. VIII Kal. a.d. VII Kal. Mart. 24 a.d. IX Kal. The 9th Day before the Kalends
ante diem nonum Kalendas a.d. VIII Kal. a.d. VII Kal. a.d. VI Kal. Mart.[k] 25 a.d. VIII Kal. The 8th Day before the Kalends
ante diem octavum Kalendas a.d. VII Kal. a.d. VI Kal. a.d. V Kal. Mart. 26 a.d. VII Kal. The 7th Day before the Kalends
ante diem septimum Kalendas a.d. VI Kal. a.d. V Kal. a.d. IV Kal. Mart. 27 a.d. VI Kal. The 6th Day before the Kalends
ante diem sextum Kalendas a.d. V Kal. a.d. IV Kal. a.d. III Kal. Mart. 28 a.d. V Kal. The 5th Day before the Kalends
ante diem quintum Kalendas a.d. IV Kal. a.d. III Kal. Prid. Kal. Mart. 29 a.d. IV Kal. The 4th Day before the Kalends
ante diem quartum Kalendas a.d. III Kal. Prid. Kal.   30 a.d. III Kal. The 3rd Day before the Kalends
ante diem tertium Kalendas Prid. Kal.   31 Prid. Kal. On the Day Before the Kalends
Pridie Kalendas  

D

 

Edited by kerbiloid
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23 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

A proper and readable Imperial (Roman Imperial) calendar.

Not too bad for a yearly almanac. Sole problem is the number system on the bottom, which practically doesn't have a fixed base. (weird since what they're based on actually does have a fixed base.)

Edited by YNM
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On 6/19/2021 at 3:28 PM, razark said:

r0agjro.png

Name is not the field to sort chronologically.

There are plenty of situations where "date modified" is not the correct date to sort by.

 

But moving on from date formats in filenames, my fantasy calendar would be 12 months of 30 days of 5 weeks of 6 days, plus a variable length festive week to make up the difference in the end of December, 5 or 6 days.

Advantages - year always starts on Monday 1st January. Years end on Saturday December 35th, except on leap years when they end on Sunday December 36th. Dates always correspond to the same day. The 23rd of a month would always be a Saturday, for instance, and you can know that any number of years in advance without consulting a calendar. A 4 day working week followed by a 2 day weekend is a better ratio than present 5 on 2 off. Pay periods would be more uniform - a work month is always 20 days, no variable number of days or weekends. No Tuesdays (because Moonday, Odin'sday, Thor'sday, Frigga'sday, Saturn'sday and Sunday are all more awesome).

Disadvantages - born on a weekday? Yeah, that's forever. Just celebrate on a weekend like most people do most years anyway. Entire planet would need to change to avoid conflicting dates. And it's never going to happen, we're too locked in to our current bizarre system.

Edited by RCgothic
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A day cycle is important because day/night. Year because of seasons. 4 weeks roughly follows the lunar cycle and hence - tides. But why should the 12 month cycle be kept besides convention?

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1 hour ago, mrfox said:

A day cycle is important because day/night. Year because of seasons. 4 weeks roughly follows the lunar cycle and hence - tides. But why should the 12 month cycle be kept besides convention?

13x 28-day months don't divide nicely by anything, the lunar cycle, isn't well approximated by current months either and isn't directly relevant to most people anyway.

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3 hours ago, Kerwood Floyd said:

The vast majority of "rational" calendar reform founders on the fact that the Abrahamic religions will never give up on the seven day week. I believe there are proposals, however, that accommodate that.

Just point out to them that all the days are named after pagan gods, and they may be more inclined to change that position.

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17 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Entire planet would need to change to avoid conflicting dates. And it's never going to happen, we're too locked in to our current bizarre system.

As with in every other field...

Spoiler

standards.png

 

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5 hours ago, Codraroll said:

ust point out to them that all the days are named after pagan gods, and they may be more inclined to change that position.

They will get orthodox. No pagan gods in weekdays.

Spoiler

Mon = понедельник= on the week
Tue= вторник = the second
Wed = среда = the middle
Thu = четверг = the fourth
Fri = пятница = =the fifth
Sat = суббота = shabbat
Sun = воскресенье = resurrection

 

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Whilst we're on the subject of superior ISO standards, I'm quite fond of ISO 216, A, B and C series paper. Fold in half to get the next size down without changing the aspect ratio.

A series has an area of 1m2 at A0. This means that A series sizes have areas that are a regular fraction of 1m2.

B series is the size half way between each A series size and the next size up. B0 has a width of 1m. This means B series sizes all have a side that is a regular fraction of 1m.

C series is half way between B and A, making it fractionally larger than A so that A series paper will comfortably fit inside a C series envelope of the same size.

So cool!

Edited by RCgothic
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59 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Fold in half to get the next size down without changing the aspect ratio.

And stitch two on the long sides to get one size up.

 

Will have to mention that the choice was deliberately chosen to be such, not just a coincidence. Those 19th century Germans... (prior to this I think there isn't really any standard paper sizes.)

Edited by YNM
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