[threatens with ISO-8601]
Comment on I'm just better
Spooge@lemmy.world 2 months agoI’m an American, and I refuse to switch to metric time.
Bahnd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Spooge@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Today is May 6th.
Bahnd@lemmy.world 2 months ago
[Runs away hissing] 2026-06-05T18:25:00+00:00
HeHoXa@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
This thread has been cleansed
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Why not? What’s wrong with having a day composed of 1000 chroners, or 1 kilochroner which can be divided into either 10 centichroners or 100 decachroners?
We can even divide each chroner into 1000 millichroners, or for scientific purposes, a million microchroners, a billion nanochroners, or a trillion picochroners.
So much more sense than 60 seconds times 60 minutes times 24 hours. What even is a second, anyway? When was it defined as a constant, by whom, and against what reference? It’s completely arbitrary, I tell you!
And then when you extend that to 7 days, times 4 to 4.43 weeks, times 12 months before you finally get into decimals (decades, centuries, millenia, etc.), it’s insanity!
PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
As a true believer in SI units, nonetheless:
When was it [the “second”, the smallest unit of time-measure under insanity-rules for unit hierarchy] defined as a constant, by whom, and against what reference?
I have to notice, as a long-time student of being-a-person - for ~most folks, a “second” is reasonably close to the length of a single heartbeat. It’s imprecise (badly depending on lots of stuff), and so maybe I’m just finding coincidence that has nothing to do with anything.
BUT if we’re talkin bout earliest references for attempting to “measure” ongoing time, I mean, look no further, fellow probable-human-with-heartbeat!
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
60 bpm is about typical for a resting heart rate, I suppose. So that could make sense.
About as much sense as positing that humans use decimal numeral systems (ignoring whatever the fuck the Romans used) because they have ten fingers.
No way to really confirm, but it seems a likely guess.
I wonder if Parmenides talks about it at all…
Also, how did they even standardize this before digital clocks? Like did the first clock maker tell all his apprentices “This clock ticks every second. One tick is one second. Every clock you make must tick at exactly the same rate.”
PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Easy-peasy, first clock-maker set their metronome to 60 bpm, fiddled with the fiddly bits on the clock until no one could hear a difference. Said to apprentices, “see?”
Spooge@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Daylight saving.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Now that that’s going away maybe we’ll finally have metric time. The age of the chroner is upon us!
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Thanks for posting this. That was an interesting read.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Yeah, how else would you say “a quarter past eight”, like “15 centimeters past eight”? It makes no sense!
Spooge@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Exactly
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
UTC isn’t metric time. LOL
Spooge@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Metric time isn’t real. That’s the joke.
JoMiran@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Spooge@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You are not fun.
mech@feddit.org 2 months ago
OK then keep using your American Football innings per school shooting.
MintyFresh@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Image
Jerb322@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Danm…ha ha