4 ms·

> After fifty minutes (one microcentury as von Neumann used to say) I like this. I also had to check: 100 years * 10^-6 = 52.56 minutes.

jeffwass 2y ago
And on a similar note : Pi seconds is a nanocentury!
gniv 2y ago
It's a cute remark, but why is 50 minutes the right cutoff? For a technical talk it seems long. For an entertaining keynote it seems short. Movies are 90+ minutes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  At both the universities I’ve attended, lectures lasted 50 minutes. The odd few we had that were 100 had a short break in the middle supposedly inspired by research on how attention levels decay and recover over time. Conference talks seem to usually hover around the 60 minute mark. I find movies have become too long — especially in recent years.
  - meristohm 2y ago
    Same here, regarding movies- we preferentially watch films under two hours, ideally 90-100 minutes, because that both fits between our child's bedtime and ours, and it's a better economy of time for a story in that format, rather than an indulgent marathon. I doubt I will ever watch Heat again, unless over a couple days, and unless my child wants to I won't watch the Lord of the Rings again (and especially not The Hobbit movies; that was largely a waste of time, though I will gladly read The Hobbit at least once more before I die). Mad Max: Fury Road (Black & Chrome version) I watched for the third time recently, but over two days. Engaging conversation, though? I recently had the luxury of time and privilege of talking for three hours straight with a well-read college student. Not being a high school teacher anymore I'm out of touch with young-adult perspectives, and I have so many follow-up questions now.
    - atlasy1 2y ago
      [dead]
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    Have movies really become longer again? I consider 3+ hours indulgent (we get ice cream and beer, once or twice, during what used to be the reel changes here), but two and half hours is about right. Two hours would be my bare minimum for "feature length", and when I see one and half hour "films" I wonder "why was this not made-for-TV"?
    - xanderlewis 2y ago
      The Matrix (which was being shown in cinemas recently, remastered, for the 25th anniversary), is 2 hours and 16 minutes. It feels like the perfect length to me.
      - yazantapuz 2y ago
        Ghost in the Shell (1995) is 85 minutes long, just perfect.
    - endofreach 2y ago
      Still haven't seen some of recent movies that got recommended to me & that probably would like a lot. Because i know i just cant stop mid-movie and finish another day like some people can. And i can't justify watching a 3h movie... what a commitment... while i have no issue watching just one episode(... after another... before the sunlight screams that i am an irresponsible moron for binge-watching 6h during the week...)
  - eleveriven 2y ago
    It seems like movies have been getting longer. Streaming platforms has influenced movie lengths I think in some ways.
- tialaramex 2y ago
  Humans don't do well concentrating on something for more than about an hour. So fifty minutes seems like a reasonable rule of thumb. You can improve this if you make it more varied, adding interactions, changing media, multiple speakers taking turns, that sort of thing, but having a rule of thumb helps. And it fits calendars nicely, fifty minutes per talk, ten minutes break between, one talk per hour.
  - gniv 2y ago
    > fifty minutes per talk, ten minutes break between Yes, I suspect that's the real reason.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      But that break was typically how long it took to get to the next class. So it might have been a break from active brain activity (as evidenced by the brain dead decisions of navigating hallways/lockers), it's not a break per se. Maybe one was determined by the other, but I remember having to hustle to get from one end of campus to the other in those 10 minutes in a very un-break like use of energy
      - LodeOfCode 2y ago
        > I remember having to hustle to get from one end of campus to the other in those 10 minutes Yeah, personally I read it less as 50 minutes being some biological limit of human attention and more as once you go over people start thinking about how much longer you're going to be, how long it'll take to get to their class, weighing missing the end of this talk vs the start of the next one vs skipping their bathroom break/sprinting. Plus the added the distraction of people who have reached their limit getting up and squeezing their way past to leave.
  - eleveriven 2y ago
    That's why Pomodoro Technique works great..
- WalterBright 2y ago
  In lectures in college, I always looked at my watch 35 minutes in, and it was downhill from there.
velcrovan 2y ago
Some of my favorites: nanoacre = about 4 square millimeters microfortnight = about 1.2 seconds beard-second = 5-10 nanometers (depending on who you ask), or the length an average beard grows in one second
- liamN 2y ago
  I like going the other way, too. My personal favorite: kilosecond: 11.57 days and fun to say, but never useful: gigasecond: 31.68 years
  - greggyb 2y ago
    I think you're confusing your kiloseconds with megaseconds. * 60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour: 3600 seconds per hour * 1 kilosecond = 16 minutes and 40 seconds * 24 hours per day: 86,400 +/- 1 seconds per day * 1,000,000 / 86,400 ~= 11.57 I love giving metric-using friends a hard time whenever they criticize imperial units of measure. I always tell them that I will happily embrace metric when they give up their irrational attachment to an archaic system of time-telling.
- schubart 2y ago
  And a light foot is a nanosecond. Think about it…
  - tutipop 2y ago
    a light nanosecond is a foot :)
  - daynthelife 2y ago
    Beat me to it!
    - __rito__ 2y ago
      You will like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw
jihadjihad 2y ago
I love GNU Units for stuff like this, it's just such a fun utility: You have: microcentury You want: minutes * 52.594877 / 0.019013259
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
eleveriven 2y ago
Love that! One nanocentury - about 3.16 seconds
vismit2000 2y ago
π seconds is a nanocentury: 1 year = 3.155 × 10^7 seconds (Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley)
- mikhailfranco 2y ago
  This allows you to calculate the Earth's orbital velocity per second, as the orbital diameter in millions, divided by 10. So if you think the radius is 93m miles, you get 18.6 mile/sec, but if you are not American, you think the radius is 150m km, so 30 km/s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_orbit

jeffwass 2y ago

And on a similar note : Pi seconds is a nanocentury!

gniv 2y ago

It's a cute remark, but why is 50 minutes the right cutoff? For a technical talk it seems long. For an entertaining keynote it seems short. Movies are 90+ minutes.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
xanderlewis 2y ago
At both the universities I’ve attended, lectures lasted 50 minutes. The odd few we had that were 100 had a short break in the middle supposedly inspired by research on how attention levels decay and recover over time. Conference talks seem to usually hover around the 60 minute mark. I find movies have become too long — especially in recent years.
- meristohm 2y ago
  Same here, regarding movies- we preferentially watch films under two hours, ideally 90-100 minutes, because that both fits between our child's bedtime and ours, and it's a better economy of time for a story in that format, rather than an indulgent marathon. I doubt I will ever watch Heat again, unless over a couple days, and unless my child wants to I won't watch the Lord of the Rings again (and especially not The Hobbit movies; that was largely a waste of time, though I will gladly read The Hobbit at least once more before I die). Mad Max: Fury Road (Black & Chrome version) I watched for the third time recently, but over two days. Engaging conversation, though? I recently had the luxury of time and privilege of talking for three hours straight with a well-read college student. Not being a high school teacher anymore I'm out of touch with young-adult perspectives, and I have so many follow-up questions now.
  - atlasy1 2y ago
    [dead]
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  Have movies really become longer again? I consider 3+ hours indulgent (we get ice cream and beer, once or twice, during what used to be the reel changes here), but two and half hours is about right. Two hours would be my bare minimum for "feature length", and when I see one and half hour "films" I wonder "why was this not made-for-TV"?
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    The Matrix (which was being shown in cinemas recently, remastered, for the 25th anniversary), is 2 hours and 16 minutes. It feels like the perfect length to me.
    - yazantapuz 2y ago
      Ghost in the Shell (1995) is 85 minutes long, just perfect.
  - endofreach 2y ago
    Still haven't seen some of recent movies that got recommended to me & that probably would like a lot. Because i know i just cant stop mid-movie and finish another day like some people can. And i can't justify watching a 3h movie... what a commitment... while i have no issue watching just one episode(... after another... before the sunlight screams that i am an irresponsible moron for binge-watching 6h during the week...)
- eleveriven 2y ago
  It seems like movies have been getting longer. Streaming platforms has influenced movie lengths I think in some ways.
tialaramex 2y ago
Humans don't do well concentrating on something for more than about an hour. So fifty minutes seems like a reasonable rule of thumb. You can improve this if you make it more varied, adding interactions, changing media, multiple speakers taking turns, that sort of thing, but having a rule of thumb helps. And it fits calendars nicely, fifty minutes per talk, ten minutes break between, one talk per hour.
- gniv 2y ago
  > fifty minutes per talk, ten minutes break between Yes, I suspect that's the real reason.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    But that break was typically how long it took to get to the next class. So it might have been a break from active brain activity (as evidenced by the brain dead decisions of navigating hallways/lockers), it's not a break per se. Maybe one was determined by the other, but I remember having to hustle to get from one end of campus to the other in those 10 minutes in a very un-break like use of energy
    - LodeOfCode 2y ago
      > I remember having to hustle to get from one end of campus to the other in those 10 minutes Yeah, personally I read it less as 50 minutes being some biological limit of human attention and more as once you go over people start thinking about how much longer you're going to be, how long it'll take to get to their class, weighing missing the end of this talk vs the start of the next one vs skipping their bathroom break/sprinting. Plus the added the distraction of people who have reached their limit getting up and squeezing their way past to leave.
- eleveriven 2y ago
  That's why Pomodoro Technique works great..
WalterBright 2y ago
In lectures in college, I always looked at my watch 35 minutes in, and it was downhill from there.

velcrovan 2y ago

Some of my favorites: nanoacre = about 4 square millimeters microfortnight = about 1.2 seconds beard-second = 5-10 nanometers (depending on who you ask), or the length an average beard grows in one second

liamN 2y ago
I like going the other way, too. My personal favorite: kilosecond: 11.57 days and fun to say, but never useful: gigasecond: 31.68 years
- greggyb 2y ago
  I think you're confusing your kiloseconds with megaseconds. * 60 seconds per minute * 60 minutes per hour: 3600 seconds per hour * 1 kilosecond = 16 minutes and 40 seconds * 24 hours per day: 86,400 +/- 1 seconds per day * 1,000,000 / 86,400 ~= 11.57 I love giving metric-using friends a hard time whenever they criticize imperial units of measure. I always tell them that I will happily embrace metric when they give up their irrational attachment to an archaic system of time-telling.
schubart 2y ago
And a light foot is a nanosecond. Think about it…
- tutipop 2y ago
  a light nanosecond is a foot :)
- daynthelife 2y ago
  Beat me to it!
  - __rito__ 2y ago
    You will like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw

jihadjihad 2y ago

I love GNU Units for stuff like this, it's just such a fun utility: You have: microcentury You want: minutes * 52.594877 / 0.019013259

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

eleveriven 2y ago

Love that! One nanocentury - about 3.16 seconds

vismit2000 2y ago

π seconds is a nanocentury: 1 year = 3.155 × 10^7 seconds (Programming Pearls by Jon Bentley)

mikhailfranco 2y ago
This allows you to calculate the Earth's orbital velocity per second, as the orbital diameter in millions, divided by 10. So if you think the radius is 93m miles, you get 18.6 mile/sec, but if you are not American, you think the radius is 150m km, so 30 km/s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_orbit