Cruncher Pete
05-22-12, 04:10 AM
Have you noticed lately how we tend to follow Commercial way of reporting Time.? I was under the impression that in order to simplify the measurement of time, we were taught at school that there is 24 Hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. We became so used to commercialism and or the geek way of reporting how long it takes for a Work Unit (WU) to complete, that we report it in seconds. For example, it is a common to say that a particular WU only took 2800 seconds. The first thing I have to do when I see that figure is to get my calculator out and divide it by 60 to see how long it took in minutes which brings it to 46 minutes and 6 seconds +. Now I can visualize exactly how long it took.
This by the way is not just restricted to Time measurements. When we changed from Imperial to Metric measures, we learned that everything is multiples of 10 so it should be easier to work with than using the basis of 12. Therefore there is 100 Centimetres in a Metre and 100 millimetres in a Centimetre. Easy one would think. Than why is it that when I go to a hardware store to by a lenght of wood that is a metre long the shop assistance looks at me as I am stupid and says, sorry, you mean 1000Mills?. I give up. When I go to another store, I learn that an article is 99cents, I give him a Dollar and wait for my change, only to be told that sorry there is no change for they no longer make one and two cents pieces. Why do we go along with this, are we like sheep and just follow or do we have some brain left and think for ourselves.?
This by the way is not just restricted to Time measurements. When we changed from Imperial to Metric measures, we learned that everything is multiples of 10 so it should be easier to work with than using the basis of 12. Therefore there is 100 Centimetres in a Metre and 100 millimetres in a Centimetre. Easy one would think. Than why is it that when I go to a hardware store to by a lenght of wood that is a metre long the shop assistance looks at me as I am stupid and says, sorry, you mean 1000Mills?. I give up. When I go to another store, I learn that an article is 99cents, I give him a Dollar and wait for my change, only to be told that sorry there is no change for they no longer make one and two cents pieces. Why do we go along with this, are we like sheep and just follow or do we have some brain left and think for ourselves.?