Re: Time needs some sanity!

Posted by Arlo Barnes on
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Time-needs-some-sanity-tp7584207p7584215.html

Neo-retro luddite that I am, I would like my calender *more*, not less registered on solar and lunar cycles. 

Meanwhile, I vote to not bother changing our clocks... stay on "standard time".  And while we are at it, let's not be too hasty about declaring Pi to be equal to 3 just because it is easier to use.

 I have given my recommendation (last clock change) for what we as a world should do. Rather than rehashing it I shall note that, as a non-farmer (and someone who does not often keep recommendable sleep schedules, but that is another story) the conventional calendar, complete with hms timekeeping system, offers no immediately discernible advantage over an arbitrary alternative system, apart from compatibility with the rest of the world. And if that is the goal of the US, they should write their dates in an order that makes sense (an ISO-approved one, maybe?), use a 24-hour clock (of course, that would ruin FriAM's name, it would have to be Fri<12) and why not fully switch to metric (SI, actually) while they are at it (besides street signs and odometers [and some speedometers], we are making progress: SFCC's physics lab has metric floor tiles now).
Also, there is the old joke about an engineer approximating pi to 3 (his companions are a physicist and a mathematician); it turns out ten places are enough to measure the circumference of the earth (given the radius of the earth; let us say you get it in exact earth-radius-units [one of them, then] for preciseness) to within an inch. So maybe 3 is easier except for edge cases?

I think I could pass on the flesh eating former-family-members-you-have-to-coldly-chop-to-little-pieces-cuz-they-are-undead part, but I *am* still drawn (vaguely) by the presumed simplicity of a post-apocalyptic world.  

It's an illusion, I know, but there is still that imagination that a primitive, dog-eat-dog (or zombie-eat-human) world would make every moment a richer experience with less equivocation... but I think tradeoff is a bad one in the bottom line.

I am about halfway through World War Z (the book) and it is an excellent global, cross-career oral history (and thereby analysis) of how the world reacts to a combined huge natural disaster and war. How do they react? Not well.
-Arlo James Barnes

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