Metric Time Reference                                              
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1) What is metric time?                                            
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Metric time is a new measurement system for time.  The system      
implemented in xmclock was (developed? discovered?) by myself and
a friend while we were in high school (1992).                                                                                                    
The system we came up with is very simple: each day is divided     
into 1,000 units of equal length.  For lack of a better term,      
these units are called minutes.                                    
                                                                   
2) Why mess with the current system?
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A) Because it is too confusing.
B) Time calculations are ridiculous.
C) AM and PM suck. 

Look at our current system of timekeeping.  Each day is made up    
up of 2 groups of 12 groups of 60 groups of 60 units.              
                                                                   
What is that? The duo-dodeca-sexa-sexagesimal system?              
                                                                   
The base unit of time is the second but nobody uses seconds for    
day-to-day timekeeping.  Currently, time does not obey the rules   
of the metric system.  During the French Revolution, a 10 hour     
clock was used and I hear reports that the SI people are about to 
try it again.  I fully expect it to fail.                         
                                                                   
The goal of our system was to measure time on the level of the day,
using a base unit that would be valid for general timekeeping      
and which would work like other units of the metric system.        
                                                                   
We quickly realized that 10 units per day would not work, since    
this yields unit that are 2.4 hours long.  100 units per day is    
also too long.  We settled on 1000 units per day for several reasons
The first reason is that this gives units with a length of 1.44     
standard minutes, which is good for everyday scheduling.  Also, the
subdivisions quickly become small enough to be very accurate.          
                                                                    
The most important thing to grasp is that in this timekeeping       
system, like all of SI, THERE IS NO UNIT EXCEPT THE BASE UNIT.      
                                                                    
Look at the liter.  10 liters do not make a gallon, or a jerboam,   
or any other new unit.  10 liters make a decaliter.  Our system     
works the same way.  10 minutes makes a decaminute. 1/1000 of a     
minute is a milliminute.                                            
                                                                    
One day is equivalent to a kilominute.  You may be thinking that    
this contradicts the two previous paragraphs, but this is not       
necessarily so. I give two reasons why the preceding paragraphs    
are valid.  First, our goal was to create a SI-compatible time      
measurement system that operated on the day level.  You can't change
the length of a day no matter how hard you try so we decided to     
leave it at that.  So, at its defined level of operation, metric    
time has only one unit which does not accumulate into new units.    
Second, while our intention was to leave the day alone, you can opt 
to ignore the day as a delimiter of time and just keep extending    
metric time ad infinitum.  Just how long is a gigaminute, anyway?   

In any case, I do not expect anyone to start sceduling their
meetings using metric time
.
This concept is mainly a fun mental exercise, plus it never hurts
to be reminded that you can always change the rules!
                                                                    
3) Exactly how does it work?
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Metric time divides the day into 1,000 equal units.  
 
12:00 midnight translates to 0 and 12:00 noon becomes 500.
6:00 AM becomes 250 and 6:00 PM becomes 750.
Every slice of time during the day is uniquely identified.

To convert from a given standard time to metric time:
	1) Calculate elapsed seconds since midnight
	2) Divide by 86.4

A Conversion example:
	It is 10:47:53 AM right now.

	10 hours = 10 * 60 * 60 = 36000 seconds
	47 minutes  =   47 * 60 =  2820 seconds
	53 seconds  =                53 seconds
	Total =                   38873 seconds

	Metric time = 38873 / 86.4 = 449.9189814815

Two conventions have developed during the work on this project.
	1) Time, for general timekeeping, is displayed with 0 to 3
	   decimal places of accuracy, user selectable.
	2) When spoken, the unit is not included.
	   Example: "Is it lunch time yet?" "No, it's only 470."


