adios

I'm waiting to see what position Renton's taking on that before responding.

Award-winningly off topic. I really have to go do some work now.

It would be too difficult to change time, and it's a universal system, unlike the imperial system, which only exists in a small number of countries which were once part of the commmon wealth. Also there are some factors youcan't change about time - for instance how many times the sun rotates before it orbits the sun - so whatever you do would be a bit of a fudge. Space and time are interwoven and therefore as unchangeable as each other, no? It's only their representation that we're talking about, the distance from Newcastle to Paris isn't changing any more than rotations of the Sun. Now you've reminded me of my pet hate, all the things you're talking about cause no real problems for programming, but American date format has been a huge fucking problem for us, A LOT. Now that's something I'd like to see someone hang for!

Just a horrendous spectacle tbh. btw "Horrendously rich" is about 33m+ of your old money.

Calculations like that would be reasonbly common for programming any date based functions. I just don't see how 16 - 14 - 142 is any less rational than 60 - 60 - 24 - 7 - 4.4. EDIT: Now you've got me interested in the origins of these things, when there are other things I need to be doing! Month/day/season/year all easy, but why hour? And if we'd been raised on octal would it be any more copmplex than decimal?

I don't follow your logic, Dave. If I want a 40k car, that I can get pretty much the same thing for £25k, why would I spend £40k. If you're saying that you would never spend that on a car, or that if you spent that on a car the 15k wouldn't be important, then fair enough; but otherwise you might be making a few too many assumptions.

How is that any worse than imperial system, though? Things like seconds in a week are a pain to work out. Sorry to dwell on it, I don't want to seem like I'm spoiling (which Alex sounds like he is tbh!) Seriously Alex, are you in a bad mood today?

Well, I can't see any problems with that.

Wrong.

I'm telling you I'm not, why would I bother lying about it? Some people found the discussion interesting, and funny in places. How have I given the impression i'm spoiling for a fight? The amount of times I've been misread on this site is astounding tbh. Hope SB was right about me being difficult to read.

I have a Rover 600 that cost me £600. It's an 11 year old 'N' plate and when people laugh at my 'banger' i laugh right back at them. It was owned by an octogenarian, garaged since new and when i got it had 28k on the clock. I've had it for 2 years, haven't spent a penny in repairs on it and don't have a couple of hundred quid a month going out on a car loan. New cars are a way to part stupid people from their money tbh. Or people who are just richer than you. You might have difficulty getting parts for that Rover if anything does fo wrong mind, and it almost certainly will, being a British car. Your point is moot. Why should being richer mean they have an urge to waste thousands of pounds on a new car, other than if they do starship mileage? Parts are no problem whatsoever, there are thousands of 600's still in circulation, as well as plenty of scrapyards where i live. Agreed, I think you have to be horrendously rich or a real car enthusiast to get the "benefit" of a new car. The depreciation after a year is insane, 10-20k is a lot to pay for new car smell. If I'm missing something I'd like to know.

I'm never totally serious, but if you think the argument's absurd then it is rubber, you are glue tbh. And you thought I was being entirely serious there, fucking hell Iteration - See Loop.

No, bastards.

who wanks in the dark btw?

Mate of mine got it done, very happy with it, vain fucker.

I'm never totally serious, but if you think the argument's absurd then it is rubber, you are glue tbh.

I think the opposite is probably the case. In the UK at least. Did I really get you there? Seriously, I've changed my mind. Yeah, well done Fuck off, I thought that was a good one, I was going to make a comment about a weighing monkey but I thought that would be COMPLETE OVERKILL given how OBVIOUS it was I was taking the piss. Mind you SB seems to have taken me seriously too, reflection of my perceived intellect, perhaps...

I think the opposite is probably the case. In the UK at least. Did I really get you there? Seriously, I've changed my mind.

Can you explain to me how getting 4.6 pounds wouldn't give you the answer you need? Are we talking caviar here? I could go further but I'm rarely faced with a situation where I need to be more accurate than that. Do you know I only heard that such a thing as the metric pound existed a few weeks ago, just to further complicate the issue.

I would think the vast majority of people would be able to estimate the weight of a banana to the nearest gram.

So basically it's ambiguous if you have to quickly tot something up in your head? You are making a strong case against me here, I must admit, though maybe somewhat unintentionally.

I was responding to your point about "accurate scales" as when I reread what I was responding to I realised I hadn't really said anything relevant! Gemmill's got it spot on tbh. You believe the state should enforce your rights to be protected and go metric because you're fucked if you have to do hard sums.

That's going to be a pretty limited range in your case. What if you needed 6 bananas a 14p each? What the fuck is an unambiguous price, anyway?

I stick with metres tbh as i can't count above 5, and apparently feet are scary. EDIT: I blame a dodgy shift key for making me look like an idiot, and I blame poker for that, the truth may be rather more upsetting.