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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   1948 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 22, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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If it were up me to update the calendar for the next century, I would put us on 13 months of 28 days each, and make the Saturdays of every month line up with the moon phases; full, half, and new moons would all be on Saturdays.

There would be only one leftover day in three out of four years, and two leftover days in the leap years. I would put the annual leftover day on the winter solstice, and call it New Year’s Day, the day without a month, and I would put the leap day between October and November, and call it Election Day.

The 13th month would be between May and June and it would be called “Leftober”.

Nah, as someone who has had heated arguments with people who are so adamant about the US adopting the metric system that they casually toss off metric units in casual speech as if they don't expect people to think they're insufferable dicks, the only calendar change I will support is a metric one.

The only SI unit of time is the second, so we'll start there. 100 seconds to the minute, 100 minutes to the hour, 10 hours to the day. 10 days a week, 10 weeks a month,.10 months a year. Of course, we wouldn't use those names; we'd redefine the second in terms of the metric day, so these hours would be decidays, years kilodays, etc.

Obviously, days wouldn't reliably track to sunrise and sunset, let alone anything like moon phases or seasons, but people who cite this as a reason my system is impractical are missing the point — the metric system isn't about making units that have any relationship to our everyday lives, it's about making the units divisible by ten. This is the information age. We have accurate clocks that can track time to a miniscule degree based on the half-life of a cesium atom, why the hell are we concerned about astronomical shit? Are you some fucking 5th century farmer who can't read and needs to count moon phases so you'll know when to plant your crops? Hell, no; the time is whatever the hell your phone says it is. It's time we get this shit in step with the 21st century.

Also, the fact that you'd add an extra month and not call it Smarch is borderline criminal.

Your displeasure is misplaced. There's a very good reason why our time measurements are centered around a solar day. When we someday leave the cradle of Mother Earth forever we might switch to a kilo- and mega- second timekeeping method, but as long as all our daily activities are dependent on the Sun's position in the sky the day of 86400 seconds is there to stay.

In contrast, there's nothing about US customary units that makes them have any relationship to our everyday lives. They are as arbitrary as metric units, but at least with metric units conversions are simple and intuitive.

The conversions which actually get used in imperial units are also quite easy. The ones I use with any regularity are:

12 inches : 1 foot, 3 feet : 1 yard
16 oz : 1 lb
3 tsp : 1 tbsp
2 cups : 1 pt, 2 pts: 1 qt, 4 qts : 1 gal

These are not onerous or difficult to remember. They are even easy to calculate, in this day of having a computer in your pocket at almost all times. People advocating for the metric system always go "BUT DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY STONE ARE IN A BUSHEL" and have a good laugh, but this is a bad faith gotcha. For the typical every day use, imperial conversions are quite easy to remember and work with.

How many fluid ounces are there in a tablespoon? How many ounces of water in a fluid ounce? Or are they equated via a different substance?

I don't know, nor are those conversions which I've ever needed.

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