47th? How do he get a calender with 47 days in a month with metric time?
and "80 past 2" doesn't sound very metric. The zero after the eight is not needed, and that's in base hundred, not base ten. I would have made him say "2 point 8" or something of that nature.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Delphi hasn't been the center of anything in more than 2,000 years silly Euroman.
Didn't the people living at the center of the world send you a change of address notification? They live in the US now.
I'm nearly as American as the next guy, but I can't think of a single place in this country I'd want considered the "center of the world" in any category that would be widely considered cultural.
EDIT: And Xavier, like I said... I don't recall them drumming up the better points of Metric time. In true Simpsons fashion, the farther out of reality it is, the better! Remember, this is the show that added Febtober as the thirteenth month.
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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posted
The center of the world is highly mobile. Currently it is residing in Charlottesville, VA, but will be moving to Northern Virginia once it graduates.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Well, since everyone know that America is the center of the World and since a hog farm outside Lebannon Kansas is the center of the "lower 48" by one method of determination I guess that the center of the World is a hog farm outside Lebanon Kansas. Posts: 148 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
You know, I got that KoM was kidding. Some people, I'm not so sure about . . .
-o-
quote:Originally posted by Friday: I think the hardest part about adjusting to 24 hour time would be relearning to read analogue clocks. The current system works well because using a 12 hour system divides the minutes of the clock into groups of 5. This makes it fairly easy to instantly recognize the aproximate time when glancing at an analogue clock.
If the face of a clock were divided into 24 hours then the hour markins would group the minutes into units of 2.5. Such a system would not only be confusing because fractions are involved, but it also would be quite difficult to quickly tell what time it is because the major reference points on the face of a clock would be much more numerous and closer together.
Actually, location-wise, everything would still be exactly where you are used to thinking about it. Fifteen minutes would still be a quarter of the way around the clock, or 90 degrees. Five minutes would still be a twelfth of the way, or 30 degrees. You would simply have a few extraneous marks to ignore when it came to minutes. It might be a pain to teach you kids, but someone who grew up on a twelve-hour analog clock would have no difficulty at all converting to a 24-hour analog clock.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:And if we were studying in YOUR country and proclaimed that they should conform to OUR system because theirs confused US it would be cited as yet another example of AMERICAN arrogance....
That's what's so great about Europeans. They are guilty of exactly the same cultural arrogance as Americans, and the same desire to impose their own system on the rest of the world, but they love to act smug and say theirs is justified, based on the false premise that their culture is older.
False premise? Oh, yes. Silly Europeans, you don't think American culture simply sprang fully-formed from the head of Zeus in 1776, do you? American culture is a direct descendant of English culture and therefore has a heritage exactly as long as that of England. Plus we've derived cultural elements from other places as well, not the least of which were the native peoples of this continent, who may not have been much for architecture but had very rich cultural traditions of their own. Yes, American culture is very old and very rich, and it is only their own arrogant insularity that keeps Europeans from recognizing that fact.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I'm supposed to count to twenty-four. Are you suggesting I have more fingers and toes than I'm supposed to?
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
Gaal- I actually started typing before that post was made, so I didn't know it was there. I meant 24, as in 24 hours in a day.
Tante- I had the normal amount of fingers. But I think there is a human head sticking out of my left foot next to my smallest toe...
Posts: 6026 | Registered: Dec 2004
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You know very well that it doesn't count unless we have at LEAST five hundred year old buildings made of marble. Ours aren't old enough yet, so culture be damned.
Or is it a thousand years old? I don't know, the resident Europeans will have to answer that.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:There's nothing like defending your own culture from claims of arrogance by decrying others for exactly the same fault.
We're not arrogant and insular! They are!
I didn't say we weren't. I simply said that Europeans love to pretend they are this humble, worldly people when to them, "world" means "rest of Europe", and they have as much desire to make the rest of the world conform to their way of thinking as we do. I don't use this as an excuse for America's faults. I think we need to work on our faults regardless of what the rest of the world is like, and I neither said nor implied otherwise. I'm just saying that European smugness is out of place, and it is hypocritical of them to decry us for being too arrogant and insular while at the same time being just as arrogant and insular as we are.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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