Swatch Internet Time

Swatch Internet Time (or beat time) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 by the Swatch corporation as part of their marketing campaign for their line of "Beat" watches.

Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided up into 1000 parts called ".beats". Each .beat is equal to one decimal minute in the French Revolutionary decimal time system and lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds (86.4 seconds) in standard time. Times are notated as a 3-digit number out of 1000 after midnight. So, @248 would indicate a time 248 .beats after midnight representing 248/1000 of a day, just over 5 hours and 57 minutes.

There are no time zones in Swatch Internet Time; instead, the new time scale of Biel Meantime (BMT) is used, based on Swatch's headquarters in Biel, Switzerland and equivalent to Central European Time, West Africa Time, and UTC+01. Unlike civil time in Switzerland and many other countries, Swatch Internet Time does not observe daylight saving time.

History

Swatch Internet Time was announced on October 23, 1998, in a ceremony at the Junior Summit '98, attended by Nicolas G. Hayek, President and CEO of the Swatch Group, G.N. Hayek, President of Swatch Ltd., and Nicholas Negroponte, founder and then-director of the MIT Media Lab. During the Summit, Swatch Internet Time became the official time system for Nation1, an online country (supposedly) created and run by children.

Beat (police)

In police terminology, a beat is the territory and time that a police officer patrols. Beat policing is based on traditional policing (late 19th century) and utilises the close relationship with the community members within the assigned beat to strengthen police effectiveness and encourage cooperative efforts to make a safer community. Beat police typically patrol on foot or bicycle which provides more interaction between police and community members.

Before the advent of personal radio communications, beats were organised in towns and cities to cover specific areas, usually shown on a map in the police station and given some sort of name or number. Officers reporting on duty would be allocated a beat by their sergeant and sometimes given a card indicating that the officer should be at a particular point at set times, usually half an hour, or forty-five minutes apart. The points would usually be telephone kiosks, police pillars or boxes, or perhaps public houses where it would be possible to phone the officer should he be needed to respond to an incident. The officer would remain at the point for five minutes and then patrol the area gradually making his way to the next point.

Beat (band)

Beat were a Finnish band who represented their country in Eurovision Song Contest 1990. The group performed the song Fri? (Free?) in Swedish and finished 21st out of 22 countries, scoring 8 points. The group was composed of members Janne Engblom, Kim Engblom, Tina Krausen and Tina Petersson.

The song was also recorded in Finnish and English.

Discography

Bibliography

Loop (knot)

In reference to knots, loop may refer to:

References

Loop (band)

Loop are an English alternative rock band, formed in 1986 in Croydon, Surrey.

The band went through several lineup changes, with frontman Robert Hampson being the only permanent band member. They split in 1991, with the 1989–90 lineup of Hampson, John Wills, Scott Dawson and Neil Mackay reforming in 2013 for a series of gigs. In November 2014, Hampson unveiled a new lineup of the band with himself as the sole original band member.

Career

Loop were formed in 1986 by Robert Hampson (vocals, guitar), with his then-girlfriend Becky Stewart on drums. Bex was later replaced by John Wills (The Servants) and Glen Ray, with James Endeacott on guitar. Initially releasing records on Jeff Barrett's Head label, their first release was 1987's '16 Dreams', with debut album Heaven's End following later that year. The band was then signed up by Chapter 22 Records.

Loop returned with a more polished sound with the 'Collision' single in 1988. A second album Fade Out followed in 1989, reaching No. 51 on the UK album chart. Endeacott left the band in 1988, Scott Dowson joined the following year. They changed labels again to Beggars Banquet subsidiary Situation Two, releasing the 'Arc-Lite' single in 1989 and the third and final studio album A Gilded Eternity in 1990.

Loop (inlet)

The Loop or Darss Canal (Darßer Kanal) was an inlet of the sea between the lagoon known as the Saaler Bodden and the Baltic Sea near Ahrenshoop on the German coast. It formed the northern boundary of the region of Fischland. Originally the Loop was the northern estuarine branch of the River Recknitz.

The old inlet ran between the present villages of Ahrenshoop and Althagen. The Loop was roughly two metres deep and had posts for mooring boats and barges. Its navigability was frequently curtailed by storms and silting up. Today only a small ditch remains on the former Mecklenburg-Pomeranian border, which runs alongside a main road, the so-called Grenzweg ("border way").

The cartographer and court astronomer at the Mecklenburg court, Tilemann Stella, described the Loop thus: "Between the village of Oldenhagen [Althagen] and the Arnshope [Ahrenshoop], the waters of the Ribnitz river and lake break through into the salty sea. Beyond the beach is a large pile of rock and bricks at the place by the beach; that was the customs post, located 3 or 4 ruthen [50 metres] into the salty sea. Beyond that, forty or fifty posts stood in the salt sea, at the end of which was a large pile of rocks on which the fort stood."