Numbers

How we tell time pisses me off, and not just because Zoe's in the midst of learning it. If you think about it, the system is insanely complicated and despite me being an engineer I'm constantly tripping on the stupidity of the system. Let's look at time: 12:35. The first digit is base ten. I like that. Most numbers most people work with are base ten. The 3 is really a base 6 number, since when we get to 59 it rolls over to 00. The next number is base 3, and the highest number is binary, or base 2. So there are four numbers and each of them has a different base? Seriously what the hell were they thinking? Then there's the 24 hour system- in some ways it's easier since there's less wrapping and carrying numbers to figure out what time it is in other zones during the day but it uses a base 3 number in a new position and brings in a base 5 number.

How about this: we have 100, or maybe 10 hours in a day with 100 minutes each in them. Each minute has 100 seconds. The length of a second would have to adjust to make that fit into a day and a night. It would take some getting used to for sure, but you could still divide up hours into half hours, or convenient 10ths of an hour. Decimals are just easier than the fractions the 24 hour system seems to be all about. I'd like to see the 24 hour clock go the way of the British shilling/tuppence debacle. Their whole imperial measurement system is also on my list to be destroyed. It's antiquated, bad, and makes me have way more wrenches than anyone needs to own.
It feels better getting that off my chest.