Base 60? How many fingers and toes did they have??!? 
The biggest “Too late to change” of 'em all:
Windows (and Microsoft in general)
Well, of course you know the rhyme that accompanies resistor colour codes, right?
Anyway with surface mount components there are no identifiers on most resistors or capacitors now; the only marking being on the original reel.
'Cause it’s too small? 
I suspect they couldn’t print little numbers that small and repeatably on components when the colour code was invented (in the 1920s, IIRC, around the same time as the battery size code).
There’s a reason colour-blindness is not encouraged in electronics.
However, as an example of things that can change, I note with approval that people now say nF (nanofarad) and pF (picofarad) instead of *muF (*millimocrofarad) and *uuF (micromicrofarad), as in my grandfather’s electronics books.
And consider that the US “in-band on-channel” (IBOC) digital radio standard is used nowhere else in the world (no, not even Canada at present, though there are rumours that IBOC will be allowed alongside the worldwide DAB standard, whose rollout has basically ceased here). This means that people in the US will continue to sell portable radios that get AM and FM, even if they also get digital radio.
I mentioned the change from analog to digital radio, because there are already some NPR affiliate stations around the country doing it. I just asked the engineer about digital radio, and he says there is no FCC mandate. Stations can add digital channels alongside their main analog one. But there is no impetus for everyone in radio to change to digital broadcasting, like television will in 2009. In fact, the engineer said a total switch will probably not happen in our lifetimes, and that there will be terrestrial broadcasting for the foreseeable future.
So, my comments were somewhat premature, no? I had thought that because NPR was doing it, that everyone else was going to do it as well, but I was wrong. Hang onto your radio!
There are words in our language that originated from now-obsolete technologies but we still use them and likely always will from here on. For example, we still “dial” phone numbers even though hardly anyone uses a rotary dial telephone anymore. Likewise, most phones don’t really “ring” anymore since few phones feature an actual bell inside of them but use an electronic tone instead.
Its and It’s drive me nuts. In every other word, aprostophe-s - “dog’s,” “cat’s,” - is possessive, meaning “belonging to the dog.” But when it comes to it, one of the most common identifiers we use in English, it’s REVERSED - so “it’s” means “it is” and “its” means “it has”/“belonging to it.” It looks wrong even when you’re aware of it.
“Its” is not “it” with a possessive S - it’s a completely separate word, a possessive pronoun. Same relationship as “his” has to “he” or “him”. You wouldn’t put an apostrophe in the middle of “his”.
Don’t worry, there’s a helpful song you can remember! … scalawag.
I guess they could probably both be “it’s”.
On that note, I hate the word “probably”. I demand that we re-cast it as “prolly”! It**'**s so much easier!
Well, it’s not like our greatest mathematicians have trouble with this or anything, but assume for example that you want to add up several time intervals of a number of seconds.
Like: 43 sec + 36 sec + 59 sec= 138 sec. Now if this was as I suggested, with 100 seconds to a minute, that would mean 1.38 minutes, but as it is now it means 2 minutes, 18 seconds. Or roughly 2.3 minutes.
And similarly, 2.5 minutes is not 2 minutes, 50 seconds, but 2 minutes, 30 seconds.
Sure, it might be simple enough to convert it in your head, but still, wouldn’t it be even easier with what I suggested?
That’s even worse. I’m learning esperanto.
Heh, this reminds of my friend’s old boss–where if she worked 5 and a half hours, she’d get marked down on the timesheet for 5.3 hours, and be paid accordingly! (like $53 instead of $55 at $10/hr) Man that guy was a prick.
And what’s wrong grammatically with Esperanto? (This is a serious question. I have my gripes with it, but am curious about what yours might be.)
Woosh?
(I think he meant “Screw english, I’m learning Esperanto!” [though I could also be getting the woosh])
It doesn’t really matter. Conventional current is not electron current, and what’s going on at the stolid state level is, for the most part, immaterial to what happens with circuit.
The purpose of the Electoral College was not only to provide an alternative to poor communications and a lack of ballot verification, but also to provide stability such that you don’t have ten politicaly parties all vying for control and ending up without a clear majority. It’s arguable that it still serves this purpose, particularly considering some of the clusters that have occured in parlementary democracies of Europe from time to time, but it has also created a rather stagnant political background in which your choice is the lesser of the two lizards.
It’s a pain in the ass to deal with from a programming standpoint, and the 11 a.m. -> 12 p.m. transition is just a bizarre pain in the ass. Hexadecimal time actually makes a lot more sense than metric time. In any case, most traditional measurement systems are sufficiently arcane to be problematic unless you use them on a daily basis.
My vote goes for the American education system, especially high school and secondary schools, which lock students into a four year/four year cycle regardless of whether the material fits that schedule or not. Most engineering or technical fields should probably cover a minimum of five years of study, with a broader range of coverage and the equivilent of a M.S. rather than a bachelor’s degree. Other areas of study would be hard pressed to fill in three years of actual coverage, and while the pre-med/pre-law programs intended to prepare a student for professional school in those areas are a good idea in theory, they seem to lack adequate breadth, while many Ph.D. candidate programs seem geared to do little other than provide a pool of cheap labor for university researchers. There should probably be seperate programs for those wishing to enter the workforce (a sort of advanced Master of Science degree with a focus on practical development and business savvy), and those who intend to do “pure” research and teaching (the latter with an emphasis on pedagogy and tutorage).
And textbooks…if there is anything in university more exploitative and unnecessary than the oft poorly written, badly edited, bloated, and dramatically overpriced university textbook, I’m not sure what it is. Somehow Schaum’s Outlines seems to put the same information in a more concise form, with very few errors, into books costing US$12-US$20. Admittedly, they’re sparse on (often unnecessary) exposition, and of course they’re paperback, intended to be used as a workbook/study guide rather than a primary or reference text, but they’re often a damned sight better than the textbooks they theoretically supplant. But we’re forced by universities, professors, and textbook publishers to shell out $100-$200 per class for textbooks that are often so bad that the professor uses it only as a reference for problem sets.
But we have the system we have, and changing anything in the existing collegate structure is like stirring molasses; the faster or firmer you try to stir, the more resistance you get.
Stranger
Yeah … I’m trying to remember the last time I had to do something like that … :dubious:. I’m perfectly comfortable with techies having their own units for their own needs.
Neckties as a default part of dress clothing for men.
Time oddities again.
In austria “quarter five”(viertel Fünf) means “quarter past four”
“three-quarter five”(dreiviertel Fünf) means “A quarter to five”
It’s driving me nuts to this day (I am austrian)
And the way we count. If you learned german, you know it. It’s all backwards 53 is “Three and fifty”
125 is “one hundred five and twenty”(Einhundertfünfundzwanzig)
And this seems sane compared to the french system!
73 is soixante-treize (sixty thirteen)
95 quatre-vingt-quinze (three twenty fifteen)
The time thing is the same in Hungarian:
7:15 =“negyed nyolc” = “one-quarter eight”
7:30=“fél nyolc” = “half-eight”
7:45= “háromnegyed nyolc”= “three-quarters eight”
Except it gets worse (for us foreigners trying to learn the system). You can also say
7:15=“hét óra tizenöt perc”=“seven hours fifteen minutes”
Which, I suppose is not that far off English “seven fifteen” vs “quarter past seven”
What gets weird is stuff like:
7:20=“fél nyolc lesz tiz perc múlva”=“after ten minutes it will be half eight”
7:20=“õt perccel múlt negyed nyolc”=“five minutes past quarter eight”