comp.os.linux.networking

In news:9FIDj.20194$Ch6.16650@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net,
EricThompson typed:

> And as I
> pointed out before, we could make the new system gel better with the
> metric system, since that's what we're all supposed to be leaning
> toward anyway. What is with this 60 seconds in the minute, 60
> minutes in an hour, and 24 hours in the day? It sounds accidental,
> somehow,

On the contrary it is *very* intentional, given the use of the Gregorian
calendar and Julian time, the only really arbitrary:reference of which is
t=0 for both.

$ factor --version
factor (GNU coreutils) 5.97 # cheap effort at Linux on-topic)
...
$ factor 100 60 1440 86400 24
100: 2 2 5 5
60: 2 2 3 5
1440: 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 5
86400: 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 5 5
24: 2 2 2 3

Ignoring the trivial case of 1 and themselves, 100 is evenly divisible by 2,
4, 5, 10, 20, 25 and 50, while 60 is evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10,
12, 15, 20 and 30, making a sexagesimal system much more useful than
centesimal (*not* metric as you claim) for temporal and directional
coordinates. More useful that is, for anybody who doesn't need to use their
fingers and toes to count in base10. Russia and some eastern European
nations use the gradian (a.k.a. grad, 1/400 of 2*pi radians) as a unit of
angular measure which has some functional utility in navigation, but it's
very, very awkward to use centesimal in a temporal sense as you suggest.
1440 minutes/day (24*60) and 86400 seconds/day (24*60*60) also aid
tremendously in evenly-divisible temporal increments in science and
navigation.

The DST will force the birds to wake up an hour earlier, and cause the
draperies and furniture to fade more.