Gil -
Personally: I vote for a time equivalent of the metric system.
Considering moving from days of the week labeled as monday-thursday
and just as numbers, same for months of the year.
There are situations where we use daily cycles and annual cycles as the
only measure (100 days into the Presidency, or Tax Freedom Day
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Freedom_Day>) but as the neo-retro
luddite that I am, I would like my calender *more*, not less registered
on solar and lunar cycles. But the beat frequency between diurnal,
synodic, sidereal, tropical cycles aren't convenient multiples. Weeks
(1/4 moons), months (moons), years, are sort of a closest fit to
something universally observable, not requiring coordination, just
observation.
I *am* surprised that time is the last bastion of ancient standards and
calculations and the sexagesimal system. 10 offers 2 and 5 as prime
factors, 60 offers 2, 3, 5 ... not a lot more, but maybe enough to make
ad-hoc fractions much easier. If we wanted to add 7 or even 11 into
it, we'd be up in the 210 and 2310 base range... perhaps a bit too much
for any but the savants among us?
Given that days and years have some reasonable correlation with 1/4
fractions (daybreak, noon, sundown, midnight, winter, spring, summer,
autumn) I can live with a 12 month year and a 24 hour day than say... 10
monthlets of 10 weeklets of 3.65 days and 10 HOURs roughly 2.4 of our
current hours long.. .or 100 hourlets of 16 minutes long...
Just wait until we inhabit other planets/stars... our notion of
"standard time" will go to hell (even more completely).
Meanwhile, I vote to not bother changing our clocks... stay on "standard
time". And while we are at it, let's not be too hasty about declaring
Pi to be equal to 3 just because it is easier to use.
I also vote for a Zombie Apocalypse.
I think I could pass on the flesh eating
former-family-members-you-have-to-coldly-chop-to-little-pieces-cuz-they-are-undead
part, but I *am* still drawn (vaguely) by the presumed simplicity of a
post-apocalyptic world.
It's an illusion, I know, but there is still that imagination that a
primitive, dog-eat-dog (or zombie-eat-human) world would make every
moment a richer experience with less equivocation... but I think
tradeoff is a bad one in the bottom line.
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