Sex Sells

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Metric Time

The one thing that hasn't gone metric is time. There's still 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, etc.

And for good reason. Metric time just wouldn't work.

The SI unit of time is the second. It's described as:

The second [...] is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the caesium frequency, ΔνCs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium 133 atom, to be 9192631770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s^−1

Yeah, I don't understand it either.

There is a "metric time" accepted for use with the metric system, minutes, hours, and days which are not considered SI units. French Revolutionary Time divided the day into 10 hours, each with 100 minutes, and each minute with 100 seconds, That resulted in a metric second being a slightly different length than a standard SI second. 

According to Wikipedia:

The [French Revolutionary] calendar consisted of twelve 30-day months, each divided into three 10-day cycles similar to weeks, plus five or six intercalary days at the end to fill out the balance of a solar year. It was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and it was part of a larger attempt at dechristianisation and decimalisation in France.

 I doubt it worked well and the calendar was abolished in 1805 after 12 years of usage.

Our current system of 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours in a day, etc., is just too ingrained in society. Plus it works, unlike the French Revolutionary Calendar. 

What do you think of "metric time"? Let me know in the comments below.

Side note: I started this blog on September 19, 2012. So tomorrow is the 13th anniversary of it. Since then I have made 1,373 posts including this one.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

 I really like Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (SNW). It reminds me of Star Trek The Original Series (TOS) but without the 1960s cringe and the awful special effect (which have since been updated). The characters are unique and likable. I enjoy that they tie into TOS occasionally (Christine Chapel's boyfriend in SNW is her fiancé in the TOS episode "What are Little Girls Made Of?" for example). I like it more than Star Trek: Discovery which tried too hard to be politically correct.

However, I do have some complaints. 

SPOILERS if you haven't watched the show

First thing is Spock's character. He keeps having romances. First with his betrothed, T'Pring (and they acted very human together), then with Nurse Chapel, and now with Chief of Security La'an Noonien-Singh (who is a descendent of Khan Noonien-Singh which is an interesting little twist). I know Spock is half-human but in TOS he was only interested in romance during the pon farr, which hits only every seven years.

Second is how they handle the Gorn. This is my biggest complaint. I recently watched the "Arena" episode of TOS where the Gorn were first introduced (and then never seen again). Remember, TOS is supposed to take place after Strange New Worlds. In "Arena," Starfleet knew nothing of the Gorn. But in SNW they are not only well known but an aggressive enemy. I liked the episodes with the Gorn, but I feel as if they are violating canon. Also, the Gorn are a little too much like the Alien xenomorphs (incubating young inside humans and probably other species).

Finally, tonight's episode is the last one of season three. I haven't seen it yet. There have been only thirty episodes over three seasons! Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) would do about 25 episodes per season. And it has to be easier today to do special effects with CGI. Yes, the production values of SNW exceeds TNG, but not by enough to have less than half as many episodes per season. And who knows how long we'll have to wait for seasons four and five (which are the last seasons planned).

Having said all that, I still like SNW. I just wish there were more episodes.

How do you feel about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S.: Monday was the 59th anniversary of TOS premiering on television.  

The above photo is being used under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: fair usage.

Sting Ray Robb

IndyCar

This year, Fox Sports is showing IndyCar racing, which is fun to watch. I like IndyCar because it's not boring like NASCAR, not confusing like IMSA, and not quite as precise as Formula 1. Plus the same people/teams don't win the races all the time like in F1. Although Alex Palou won over half this year's IndyCar races and won the championship with two races left in the season. He might be moving to F1.

There's an 23-year-old IndyCar driver named Sting Ray Robb (yes, that's his real name; his parents were Chevrolet fans and named him after the Corvette Sting Ray) and when they introduce him, he says he's from Payette, Idaho. That amazed me because Payette is a small town (about 8,000 souls) near the Oregon border northwest of Boise. It's not too far north of Interstate 84.

And I wondered how someone from such a small town could end up being an IndyCar driver. Payette is about the same size as the small town in Idaho where I mostly grew up. So I googled him. Wikipedia said he started kart racing at age 5. Which means when I decided I wanted to be a race car driver at age 8, I was already too late. 

But where did Robb race karts. Boise is the nearest town of any size and about an hour drive away for Payette. And, yes, there's a kart racing facility in Eagle, ID which is a suburb of Boise. So, probably on weekends his parents would drive the hour plus to get to the kart racing facility where he could learn racing. 

I grew up on the other side of the state, about 250 miles from Boise. Plus, when I was five (or eight), I doubt that kart racing facility was there. So I didn't have the opportunities Robb did. (Plus, I had no idea how to become a race car driver.) This makes me extremely envious of him. 

According to Wikipedia, "Robb started running nationally at age eight, entering Cadet division events from 2010 to 2013. During his first season in the Junior ranks, he finished second in America and raced in Valencia, Spain. Robb won a national championship in Rotax Junior Max karting in 2015." So he had some success in karting.

Robb is not one of the usual winners of IndyCar races. He starts somewhere back in the pack and ends up there. At the end of the season he was in 25th place. But still, to be an IndyCar driver must be a dream come true for him. It would be for me.