The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I was just using height as an example. In school we were taught that decimeter was a unit of length but I never actually see it used and wondered why

Off the top of my head the only deci unit that's in common use is 'decibel', it replaced the MSC (Miles of Standard Cable).

BR

[meeera]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

If divisibility is so important, it's odd that I've never come across complaints about the US decimal currency.

Can anyone explain the divisibility thing more clearly to me, please? Given how easy the metric system is, what are the situations where base 12 would have a practical advantage?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by meeera

Can anyone explain the divisibility thing more clearly to me, please? Given how easy the metric system is, what are the situations where base 12 would have a practical advantage?

You have something 1 foot long, which you need to cut into three pieces. Just mark and cut at 4 inches and 8 inches.

Whereas, if you have something that's 1 metre long (1000mm), which you need to cut into three pieces, you mark and cut at 333mm and 667mm. Which are both 1/3mm off.

Of course, if you want to cut it into five pieces, the problem's reversed.

[pdurrant]

Of course, the divisibility by 12 only applies to lengths. For weights (at the kg level), you have pounds and ounces with 16 ounces to the pound. Only divisible by 2, 4 and 8.

For liquid measures it's the same in the US (16 fl.oz. to the pint) but different in the UK (20 fl.oz. to the pint.)

(Luckily the difference between the US fl.oz. and the imperial fl.oz. is negligible for domestic use)

The hundredweight is fun: 112 pounds, or 8 stone. (14 pounds to the stone, of course. Great for divisibility by 7. I don't know why the US doesn't use it.)

16 ounces to the pound
14 pounds to the stone
20 stone to the hundredweight
8 stone to the ton.

More divisibility than one can shake a rod at.

[pdurrant]

And people wonder why I like metric.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You have something 1 foot long, which you need to cut into three pieces. Just mark and cut at 4 inches and 8 inches.

Whereas, if you have something that's 1 metre long (1000mm), which you need to cut into three pieces, you mark and cut at 333mm and 667mm. Which are both 1/3mm off.

Of course, if you want to cut it into five pieces, the problem's reversed.

Yes, it's not like calculating or finding 33.3 and 66.7 is difficult. The problem's not just reversed at the end, it's reversed and significantly harder.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

"Losing ten pounds" means very different things in US English and British English...

They can mean the same thing even though they can also be different. Most scales in the UK have a pounds (lbs) setting.

[JSWolf]

What dates are 12/10/2023 and 02/03/2023?

This is why the world should go computer date format 2023-07-04. Everyone would know what that date is and it would sort properly.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by meeera

Can anyone explain the divisibility thing more clearly to me, please? Given how easy the metric system is, what are the situations where base 12 would have a practical advantage?

You might want to look into the history of the French attempt at metric time.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What dates are 12/10/2023 and 02/03/2023?

This is why the world should go computer date format 2023-07-04. Everyone would know what that date is and it would sort properly.

The sorting is nice, but in everyday life I just routinely use 4 Jul 2023. Clear to everybody.

[DNSB]

My personal date format would be 2023-Jan-31.

[fum]

Being a developper on ms-sql databases i Denmark, I hate dates. I have to show the dates on the screen in the format dd:mm:yy. Så the date 12.03.23 is the 12 of march 2023. But its saved in the database as '2023-03-12 09:30:51.500'. (yyyy:mm:dd and the time). And lets not forget the timezones. Is it +1, -1?, or what happens during the daylight saving time. When was data entered with a timestamp 02:30:000? Relatively important in healthcare applications that I am coding. But i haven't got a solution :-)

[ownedbycats]

In filenames or things like that, I use 2023-02-01 for sorting. But I prefer to use 'Feb 1 2023' if I can get away with it.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What dates are 12/10/2023 and 02/03/2023?

This is why the world should go computer date format 2023-07-04. Everyone would know what that date is and it would sort properly.

Originally Posted by meeera

The sorting is nice, but in everyday life I just routinely use 4 Jul 2023. Clear to everybody.

Originally Posted by DNSB

My personal date format would be 2023-Jan-31.

JSWolf's post illustrates why, when normally writing dates, I go with either "1 Feb 2023" or "1 February 2023". It eliminates the ambiguity of other date formats. The only time I use a "MM-DD" for the date is if the current year is stated somewhere else on the form.

If I was going with an all-numbers format then I'd use YYYY-MM-DD. A long time ago I wrote a program in BASIC and used the "YYYY-MM-DD" to make sorting easy. Writing the date in "MM-DD-YYYY" format would necessitate a lot of program lines (with many subroutines) to get it to sort properly.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

You might want to look into the history of the French attempt at metric time.

From what I understand, one of the reasons the Metric Calendar (10 months of 10-week days) was rejected is because of the loss of days off.

• 7-Day Week = 102 weekend days in a year (2 days each week)
• 10-Day Week = 72 weekend days in a year (2 days each week)

Although 7 might seem like an odd number (no pun intended) for the number of days in a week, consider that each week has one day of rest, leaving 6 workdays each which can be divided evenly into 1, 2, 3, and 6.

I remember reading/hearing somewhere that a base of 6 might be a viable alternative to 10 or 12 since: (1) it has the above factors, and (2) it doesn't involve the creation of two new symbols as would be need with base 12.