3 ms·
Completely tangential, but I was very excited many years ago when Swatch came up with beats, a decimal time system, intended to replace our current sexagesimal
by joubert 16y ago
Completely tangential, but I was very excited many years ago when Swatch came up with beats, a decimal time system, intended to replace our current sexagesimal system. Even though the latter has many advantages, I suppose the real reason beats never became commonplace is the overwhelming inertia that prevents wholesale shifts in measurement systems that are used earth-wide (even though the Swatch Group is the biggest watch maker)
- jurjenh 16y agoGood point, however time is used daily by almost everyone, whereas lat and long are used (directly) by far fewer people. The main problem this would have is people figuring out what the hell it means! Most people have some grasp on latitude / longitude and although they may not know how to read/use it, they could probably find out. A random code without obvious meaning is going to be a whole lot less appetizing... At least until it gets popular - I mean look at what twitter did for url shorteners... maybe that's the way to integrate this. Or get google maps to implement it, and use it in their location code (it is shorter than lat/long coords and they already use these in their queries, and they are concerned about bits transmitted...)
- frobozz 16y agoIt didn't catch on in France during The Revolution either.