Neal, how intriguing!! You open new vistas again, ----what miracles
this earth, and the heavens --hold. On the other hand, we housewives
and coffee makers and kids in school who have to change square feet
into yards and what's worse into the cubic system !! - At least we did
it with the money system! Maybe those who are into money are not into
nautical miles or into figuring bits and bytes, they want a quick
oversight to gloat at their gain and squirm at their loss.
But you did tell us something, I did not know and maybe others don't
either.
I only have one question: When they first measured the earth around
its biggest circumference, why did they not do it in such a way to
make the nautical mile a bit different that it would fit into at least
the fifty rather than the 60. 50 is at least half of the hundred and
easier to handle.
Marta
On Jan 4, 2009, at 17:28 pm, Neal Hammon wrote:
Marta:
There is a lot of truth to what you say, but few decisions are black
or white. If you would like to see the various advantages of
measuring systems other than the metric system, please read the
recently released book by Andro Linklater, Measuring America, Walker
& Co.. New York, 2002. This book particularly goes into the
advantages of measuring land by using feet, chains, acres, etc.
Also, did you know that that the metric system gives map-makers
fits? The reason is that on degree in the earth's latitude or
longitude at the equator is equal to exactly 60 nautical miles. How
many kilometers? How about 111.37598 ! This is why aviators still
prefer to use nautical miles instead of kilometers.
It also appears that metrics do not get along too well in computers
either. Here is a quote from the book.
The [metric] refusers found an unexpected ally in the American-
dominated computer industry, whose hardware, such as disks,
monitors, and printers, was measured in traditional units. Solfware
for printers and for complex CAD (computer-aided design) application
also used inches and fractions of inches, which created unexpected
problems in metric mode, American architect, for example, who se
tolerances of one-quarter, one-eights, or one-sixteenth of an inch
in their work, found the software for technical drawings ideal for
their requirements, but metric architects complained that the
solfware insisted on approximating teir more precise millimeters to
the nearest fractional equivalent, and so threw off their
calculations. Even the computer's basic information code, based on
binary arithmetic and thus having to be counted in 2s, defies
decimalization, so that there are 1024 bytes rather than 1000 in
each kilobyte of information.
Neal
On Jan 44, 1120092007, at 11:04 AM, Marta Edie wrote:
Neal, now you bring up a whole new dimension into this discourse.
Where actually do you reside? In a different time zone altogether,
or do you live by Zulu time?
They also have given up the word "Greenwich Mean Time."
It had a familiar ring to it. As a child in the fourth grade, we
learned it was one hour behind our "German time", I used to marvel
why we were so privileged.
And did you all realize we had one extra second to breathe this New
Year's Eve? I did it with a "sigh" .
This "time" business is something to lose your mind over. I have
been trying to have the churches change the wording of the Apostles'
Creed to read "time eternal" at the end, not " everlasting" which
suggests that we will after death be in a prolonged "Time"
frame,which we will be not. Eternity just is outside time,
so ...........I for myself cannot visualize an everlasting banquet
( you will get filled up) and everlasting happiness or anything
that has the "time" element in it. Have you ever envisioned an
everlasting kiss?
With this globalization of everything we are really in a pickle -
the New Year having come at different times to people. So the moment
here is not the moment there , although it is the same instant when
I make the telephone call. Now when our technology invents a phone
we can call into eternity with, maybe even give God a call, -------
well.
Yes, I am making fun, but then I am not either. Just consider it all
in a moment of reflection from a philosophical or even theological
standpoint.
As to the feet and pounds issue you raise -- you do have a point. My
feet have already a diminished existence and don't carry me farther
than from the car to the store and that with leaning on the shopping
cart, and the pound issue has become a looming over head issue,
since the loss of the feet has made the pounds ever more dominant,
and perhaps i should be glad, because our silly pound is just a bit
less than the "real" pound of 500 gramm---- you know what I mean, my
scale is fooling me.
But seriously, how this nation can be so backward and not have
adopted the 100 scale, - who wants it to start freezing at 32
degrees? = A rug at 3x4 feet? I to this day divide everything by
three to get at least close to a meter, so I can function when I buy
curtains or rugs.
But the silliest thing now is the packaging - giving the grams after
the ounces, so everybody thinks this gram and kilogram business is
an insurmountable hurdle. Why they cannot package in kilograms and
grams and have the pound at 500 gram is a puzzle to me.( they then
could give the ounces afterwards, and then the ounces would fall
into the silly category.)
So I have decided that I shall spend the little life that is left in
me to take on the whole United States and urge everybody to go on
the barricades and then take a march unto Washington to demand the
change for sanity's sake and lift this nation up to the level of the
whole Western world and not keep stuck in the mediaeval confines
where people measured with their feet walking across the fields -
and hopefully you had a large size!
And I challenge every person in this technological group to resist
to measure the size of the picture screen in inches , but in
centimeters ------- and let us see how far we the people of
"advanced" technologies have come in this goal of lifting up our
beloved country from the dungeon into the light!
And now my energies are exhausted!
Marta
On Jan 4, 2009, at 09:49 am, Neal Hammon wrote:
Marta:
Don't worry too much about seeing 8am and 8pm on your computer
display. In reality, this is not the real celestial time anyhow.
Aviators use Zulu time, (same as Greenwich time) which is perhaps
the best way to go.
For all you people in Louisville, perhaps you should know that
your court house is at longitude 85 degrees and 45.58 minutes
west, so celestial noon will not occur until 12:43 in the
afternoon when we are on standard time. When on daylight savings
time, celestial noon comes at 1:43, meaning that then we are nearly
two hours off off nature's cycle. Most people in the world are
smarter, and try to regulate their time so that they live within a
half hour of natural or celestrial time.
Incidentally, I can understand wanting to get rid of pounds and
ounces, but if you got rid of your feet, how would you all walk
around?
Neal
On Jan 43, 1120092007, at 8:21 PM, Marta Edie wrote:
In all my computers except in my MBp can I display the time in my
calendar in the 24 hour mode. I have not succeeded in doing this in
this leopard loaded computer.I am sure there is a way, but where is
it?
The am pm display just seems so old fashioned, I would like to get
rid of it as i would of pound and ounces and miles and yards and
feet. And every time I look at my calendar in the week display
mode, it bothers me to read noon and 8am etc and then again 8 pm .
Marta
_______________________________________________
The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane.
Posting address: MacGroup@erdos.math.louisville.edu
Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
_______________________________________________
The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane.
Posting address: MacGroup@erdos.math.louisville.edu
Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
_______________________________________________
The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane.
Posting address: MacGroup@erdos.math.louisville.edu
Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
_______________________________________________
The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane.
Posting address: MacGroup@erdos.math.louisville.edu
Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
_______________________________________________
The next Louisville Computer Society meeting will
be January 27 at MacAuthority, 128 Breckinridge Lane.
Posting address: MacGroup@erdos.math.louisville.edu
Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
