chip

I was just wondering if maybe everyone in the world should go to the 24 hr. clock
especially nowadays with the Internet
Because on the other side of the world they reach a certain day 12 hrs. before we do?And there times are getting posted according to what they are use to.

ngateguy

At work I have been using the 24 hour clock not because of the new world wide economy I still have to adjust my time with theirs when I need to contact them but in the air freight business I was in before there is no chance of error. Like " I thought you meant the 7am flight not the 7pm flight." I really do not need it where I am now but I am so used to it that I just have been slowly teaching my crew to use it. I think it should be a requirement if you operate 24/7. That brings up another mater sort of tied into this one and that is change. It really is not that difficult to learn the 24 hour clock but I've got guys that can not figure it out to save their lives. It's that silly little mental block we all put up when we face change. I try and tell them it is easier to figure out there overtime that way

khuon

I have used 24hr time since I was around 7 or 8 years old. I find it much more comforting but then again I dislike ambiguity. I do however feel odd when having to translate things to someone who asks for the time. My wife is especially annoyed by my use of 24hr time. She doesn't like that the hour field goes past 12 on all my clocks or my use of European date format with the day ahead of the month and my frequent use of standardised date format really irks her with the year before the day before the month. She also doesn't like to use any of my calculators since they're RPN instead of algebraic... then there are my keyboards which have all had their caps and left-ctrl swapped (as per ANSI/VT100)... I could go on.

Gordon P

I like the 24-hour clock too; it is the lack of a standardised date here in Canada that drives me crazy! Each government department seems to have their own way of doing things. I had to fill out a pile of forms a few weeks ago and they used two different systems within the same department! So now I cross out what ever they have and use the European way.

Now the lack of a standardised universal measurement system drives me absolutely mad!!!!! We use everything from metric, soft metric, imperial, American standard and measurements according to sporting goods like balls and football fields, but I am not sure if they use an American football field or the Canadian one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guest

I like the 12 hour clock.

I'm not into that counting stuff. It just gets on my nerves to count backwards to figure out what time people are referring to. I know if we went to the clock, eventually we'd get so comfortable with it that we wouldn't have to count, but why do we have to do everything that the Europeans do? We use inches, they use meters, we use gallons, they use liters. At the end of the day, it's all the same anyway. It's just done a little differently, that's all.

I like that we are unique in some ways.

ngateguy

Remember Koffee we were supposed to be on the metric sytem also by now. My argument for that one is it is easier to do the math with metric mesurments than with american

lotek 

Amen to metric being easier.
Just try Dive chemistry (boyles law) or partial pressures
of gasses using imperial, what a pain.
Metric is so much easier.
As for 24 hour clock, all of my digital are set to 24 hour,
makes for less confusion.

Marty

John E

Around the time of the Revolution, Ben Franklin advocated adoption of the French system of weights and measures, rather than the British. Hindsight tells us how serious an error the new nation made.

Guest

Well, maybe Congress will take the French ban one step further- they'll convert everything to the British system of weights and measures!

Well, maybe after we give back the Statue of Liberty...

Gordon P

Please America go metric, just don’t wimp out like we did here in Canada and go soft metric.

Guest

What's soft metric? :confused: or rather, what's the difference between soft metric and hard metric? And don't say 3 inches either!

Seriously.

ngateguy

We are sort of soft metric already Industry is metric for the most part and when I ship things theses days 9 times out of 10 it is in kilos not pounds

ngateguy

Koffee your part of the Mod squad now aren't you supposed to behave yourself

and I think its more than 3 inches isn't guys

Gordon P

Soft metric is when everything is converted from imperial to metric. So for example: cereal will come in something like 753-gram box, beer comes in a 341-ml. bottle, butter is 454 grams etc. It is confusing and it makes us functionally incompetent when it comes to measuring things and in comparison-shopping. We even had a passenger jet fall out of the sky due to this type of confusion.

iamlucky13

I've had my watch on 24-hour since I was 10, when I thought it was cool. Then I got used to it and couldn't stand having it the other way. I get the weirdest looks when people glance at my watch.
As for metric versus imperial, I'm fine with the way it is now in America, even being an engineer. I do my calculations in metric and I fill my car up in standard!

iamlucky13

Oh yeah, Gordon? Well just up and lost a $100 million spacecraft due to the same thing. Beat that.

khuon

Yes, I remember that particular incident. I believe the pilot asked for X number of gallons of fuel and meant english gallons which the ground crew thought was imperial gallons and converted to kilograms. The upshot was that the aircraft was underfueled with the pilot figuring fuel burn in lbs per hour and estimated his fuel load based on english instead of imperial gallons. The aircraft was not lost however. Both engines (767) went into fuel starvation but the captain happened to be a trained and experienced glider pilot and managed over a 100 mile glide to safe landing at an airfield.

Erick L

The captain knew about a small abandonned airstrip where they were holding drag races. Would've liked to see the spectators when they saw the airplane coming. The pilot first got fired for the mistake and then decorated for saving the passenger's lifes. I work with the pilot's son. He also crashed a plane two years ago. Like father like son, I guess..

Here in Canada, while the industry and everything "official" is metric. We still give people's weight in pounds and height in feet/inches. Feet and inches are still used by many. Pound is still used a lot in the food industry... cheese at 10$ a pound is so much cheaper than at 22$ a kilo! Whenever they can, they sell in grams... even cheaper! The funny things is temperature, everyone accepted the °C quickly but we often mesure the water in a pool in °F.

Gordon P

The plane landed in Gimli, Manitoba and was nicknamed the Gimli Glider. Apparently, if it was any other jet it wouldn’t have made it, but the new 767 was more fuel-efficient.

nathank

i have been an advocate of the metric system since i learned about it in elementary school - back in the 70's when the US was on a push to convert everything to metric --- i found the metric system wonderful and so beautiful as everything converted (even between mass and volume!) -- and then it was halted for some stupid reason - i think from US business lobbies like the dairy industry and conservative groups wanting to keep America "different"... but i'm not exactly sure (i was a kid so i wasn't so hip to politics)

so now the US sells soft drinks in liters (and fluid onces), milk in gallons, medicines in grams, fuel in gallons -- a total mismash of metric and imperial with double-labelling for almost everything.

it is just beautiful the easy conversions in metric -- how many inches in a mile? i forget (5280 x 12)

and now having lived for 2 years in Europe i also really like the 24h clock. here in Germany when you write a time or see it in a time table it is always 24 hour time. but in conversation people use both and often say "half-eight" to mean 7:30pm...

i while back i visited a bunch of US websites who are against the metric system. the most do so on the basis of "pride" and say that the hard conversions and irregularity make the US cool and strong and we should have pride to be different... whatever! if you have to use a funky measurement system in order to take pride in yourself or your country, something smells fishy...

most of industry is already ready to convert with double-labelling for most products (either b/c they are international or they thought they would have to convert). and the US should just set a few milestone dates: say, by Jan 1 2005 all products must have metric labelling and by Jan 1 2008, metric will be used for ALL official measurements and trade... people are not so stupid and they can adapt. if you start buying your milk in liters instead of quarts and gallons you quickly learn "how much" a liter is...

greywolf

Im at that confused age I find the 24hr clock easier as I've worked with it for 35yrs in the rail industry , I find kilometers easier to visualise than miles but I still try to convert mm ,cm & metres into ins, ft. & yards to visualise the measurement I was raised with pounds, shillings & pence , 12 pence to the shilling , 20 shillings to the pound , dont even think about the florins , quienies , crowns , 1/2 crowns & farthings :confused: :confused: What a waste of school time trying to knock all that now useless information into our thick heads .You people in the US have had metric money for **********, a long time anyway . In the last 10yrs I've started thinking in litres & kilograms instead of pints , gallons, pounds ,ounces ect.
How about a metric clock 10 secs to the min. 10 mins to the hr, 10 hrs to the day but then we would need milleseconds & centiseconds too ! 10 months to the year ect. The mind boggles

khuon

The really interesting thing to me at least is that we are taught the metric system extensively in school in the US at an early age. I was much more comfortable visualising lengths in meters, volume in cubic centimeters, weight in grams, temperature in kelvin, etc... because of all the metric units I had since 5th. grade science classes and before I had to deal with "real-world" units. These days I juggle between metric units, english units, and standard units (nautical mile, knots). As far as metric time goes... indulge. There is also that goofy "Internet Time" initiative that was I believe started by Swatch.

DanFromDetroit

One of my favorite Dave Barry quotes:

regards
Dan

Avalanche325

A couple of interesting things to note:
First, I think that America not being metric is crazy. The Idea was that they would put both on everything and this would help people to learn. That makes as much sense as putting everything in english and chinese and thinking that somehow people will learn another language.

I lived in New Zealand for three years. They are metric but there are still some imperial holdovers there. People still measure their weight in stones (14 lbs). Now THAT is archaic. What size is that piece of wood? 4x2. (Yes, they put the 4 first). And car milage (yes, they still say milage). The thought was that 100,000 miles was alot. Now that they are metric, they think 100,000 kms is alot. (62,137mi) And with all that, they used to rag on me because the US was not metric. Oh yeah, penis size - definately in inches. (And for you Kiwis - just having some fun - I LOVE that place!!!! And my Kiwi wife)

Here's a good joke:
There was this guy with a 254 millimeter........................
Just dosen't work, does it?

oxologic

24 hr clock is one that I never use, not that it is confusing, it is very confusing! Sometimes, you get mixed up by the time and you minus 10 hrs of the 24 hrs clock instead of 12, leading to some real embarassing events.

Anyway, I really like to use the metric system instead of the the inches system, we are supposed to use metric over here anyway. It is easy to me, from km to meters, times 1000. From meters to cm, times 100. It is real easy to remember. From feet to inches, you have to times 12. From miles to inches, I'm not even sure! HAHA, but once people are used to any system, they'll find it easy.