OT.... but I need help

[Char Jackson]

Manufacturers here _are_ gradually switching to rounder numbers, but it
does seem to be taking many decades. I guess the main reason is that
they have machinery in the old Imperial sizes, that refuses to wear out;
partly being wary of being accused of trying to take advantage (some
folk have long memories from when we metricated the currency, about
1970!), and partly "to give customers what they want".

Here in the US manufacturers seem reluctant to raise prices, so
instead they shrink the size of the container by little bits at a
time. It's hard to get to a round number and stay there, that way.

 

[Ken Blake]

Look, if you want to get on with metrication, you convert road speeds to
the nearest sensible figure which in this case would have been 90 kph.

Yes, my point exactly.

Of course the antis used such stupid arguments. There is no reason why
the bottle capacity couldn't be uppped to a sensible 1 lt.

Yes my point exactly.

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 18:50:21 +0000, John Williamson

[snip]

For what it's worth, all my Casio watches of various ages consistently
gain about a second a day, and have done from new.

So mine is not the only one gaining time, eh? It gains about 1/2
second per day.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[choro]

Ken Blake wrote:
Even if a watch is "perfect" when it leaves the factory, it won't
be perfect any more in ten years time.
So how far from perfect is it likely to be after ten years?


Mine is off by 5-6 minutes per month, which makes it

[]
You haven't stopped wearing it and started carrying it in a pocket, by
any chance? That'd be likely to make a difference to its accuracy.

I stopped wearing a watch in 1983, when a motorcycle accident stopped
my Timex dead in its tracks at 3:08 PM. I've found that I don't need a
watch, especially in the past decade or longer, since cell phones can
tell time and there are always lots of other clocks around.

Does anyone under the age of about 60 still wear a watch?

No, they don't. Which is why watchmakers have all disappeared! ;-) --
choro
*****

 

[choro]

Yes, my point exactly.






Yes my point exactly.

Exactly!--
choro
*****

 

[Gene Wirchenko]

[snip]

I stopped wearing a watch in 1983, when a motorcycle accident stopped
my Timex dead in its tracks at 3:08 PM. I've found that I don't need a
watch, especially in the past decade or longer, since cell phones can
tell time and there are always lots of other clocks around.

With a watch, I just turn my arm, and there is the time. Much
easier than fishing out one's cell phone. Or looking for a clock
since they are not everywhere.

Does anyone under the age of about 60 still wear a watch?

I do. I turn 52 tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, charlie

As I remember it, one of the objections to changing to
Centigrade/Celsius had to do with the "size" of a degree.

How often do you need temperature more accurate than 1 degree C - and in
those rare cases, don't you need it more accurate than 1 degree F? (I
still remember that nominal body temperature was 98.4F, for example.)

When I was in high school, physics was a real pain, simply because you
had to lean how to deal with/work equations that were based upon mixed
metric and English measurements, constants, etc. And then you added

Indeed ...

slide rule accuracy and interpolation.

.... though slide rules (although I never really used them) did have the
advantage that they _forced_ order-of-magnitude understanding, which is
often not grasped today.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On 04/11/2012 19:46, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

And for those (wine, at least - can't say for liquor), the strange unit
the centilitre (cl) is used, which isn't used anywhere else in the
metric system! (At least, in UK it is.)

cl = cc

No it doesn't. I'm glad you're not my doctor (-:

Well, you are WRONG! It IS part of the metric system.

, it isn't part of the metric system in the same way as kg, l, and m.
(Though IMO it is a more sensible scale for humans living around
temperatures related to water.)

The antis will come out with all sorts of silly and stupid arguments
but in the end they will eventually come round.

Hmm, how long do you think "in the end" will be? Here in the UK, though
the legal changes (apart from pints in pubs) went through decades ago,
the old units are still in use - including by the generation (or even
two) that have come up since; in the US, I see even less willingness to
change, even legally. (And of course from a different set of units, too,
which can cause further confusion.)

Different standards in different parts of the world are used as weapons
in the struggle to win and keep markets. And most people fail to
realize this.

Wow, you _do_ feel strongly (-:! [I'm in favour of metrication myself,
but have given up on persuasion, as there are more important things to
do with my time.]

--

You need a space after the two dashes.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Ed Cryer
[]
We called them "thermionic valves" if anybody ever asked us what a
"valve" was.
When I started as a computer programmer one of the women in the office
told us how she programmed first-generation machines; and she used to
"hide from her boss in the memory cupboard".
I should think it was quite hot in there.

Ed

Depends; if it was core storage, maybe not ...

but full of bugs !!

That earns a golden groan

Although wasn't that the origin of the computer "bug in the program" -
insects in the relays?

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

[snip]

I stopped wearing a watch in 1983, when a motorcycle accident stopped
my Timex dead in its tracks at 3:08 PM. I've found that I don't need a
watch, especially in the past decade or longer, since cell phones can
tell time and there are always lots of other clocks around.

With a watch, I just turn my arm, and there is the time. Much
easier than fishing out one's cell phone. Or looking for a clock
since they are not everywhere.

My view exactly. (Plus my 'phone _doesn't_ get time from the network -
and is far from always with me anyway, and in fact rarely turned on.)

I do. I turn 52 tomorrow. I do. I turned 52 in April.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Happy birthday, Gene!

 

[choro]

On 04/11/2012 19:46, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

And for those (wine, at least - can't say for liquor), the strange unit
the centilitre (cl) is used, which isn't used anywhere else in the
metric system! (At least, in UK it is.)

cl = cc

No it doesn't. I'm glad you're not my doctor (-:

OK. My mistake, I admit...
1 cl = 10 cc

cl is 1/100th of a litre as the name suggests; and cc is 1/1000th of a
litre. And don't worry. I am NOT in the medical profession!

I DO wish they'd stick either to one or the other for marking bottle and
can capacities in supermarkets. There is really no need to use cl's. lt
and cc will suffice. No need to complicate matters.

BTW, I also detest markings of sizes in mm rather than the more easily
remembered cm's. One can, after all, use a decimal point if more
precision is required in giving out size measurements.
41.9 x 26.7 is certainly more easy to remember than
419x267
and rulers and tape measures are marked in cms in any case with
divisions for the mm's.--
choro
*****

Well, you are WRONG! It IS part of the metric system.

, it isn't part of the metric system in the same way as kg, l, and m.
(Though IMO it is a more sensible scale for humans living around
temperatures related to water.)

The antis will come out with all sorts of silly and stupid arguments
but in the end they will eventually come round.

Hmm, how long do you think "in the end" will be? Here in the UK, though
the legal changes (apart from pints in pubs) went through decades ago,
the old units are still in use - including by the generation (or even
two) that have come up since; in the US, I see even less willingness to
change, even legally. (And of course from a different set of units, too,
which can cause further confusion.)

Different standards in different parts of the world are used as
weapons in the struggle to win and keep markets. And most people fail
to realize this.

Wow, you _do_ feel strongly (-:! [I'm in favour of metrication myself,
but have given up on persuasion, as there are more important things to
do with my time.]

--

You need a space after the two dashes.

choro
*****

 

[Ed Cryer]

On 11/4/2012 8:27 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message <[email protected]>, Ed Cryer
[]
We called them "thermionic valves" if anybody ever asked us what a
"valve" was.
When I started as a computer programmer one of the women in the office
told us how she programmed first-generation machines; and she used to
"hide from her boss in the memory cupboard".
I should think it was quite hot in there.

Ed

Depends; if it was core storage, maybe not ...

but full of bugs !!

That earns a golden groan

Although wasn't that the origin of the computer "bug in the program" -
insects in the relays?

So they do say.
"Load" a program comes from when a program was held on punched cards,
and they had to be literally loaded into the card hopper.
What happened in actuality was that an operator would carry them across
the room, trip over one of the wires, scatter the cards all over the
floor, pick them up and put them in the hopper.
Next day the programmer would arrive at work and be told that his
program run had produced strange results!


Ed

 

[Tim Slattery]

The anode supply draws only a few milliamps. Filament current was much more.

By "Filament current" I think you mean the power to heat up the
filament. That was a major power drain for tubes, and something that
transistors and ICs completely did away with.

 

[Fokke Nauta]

By "Filament current" I think you mean the power to heat up the
filament.

Yes, I did.

 

[Ed Cryer]

In our local sports centre swimming pool there's a clock on the wall. It
keeps good time. I've relied on it for years to time myself.
However, every day at 4-00pm exactly it goes into overdrive, and sweeps
round covering many hours in a few seconds. Then it resets at just after
4-00pm, and continues normally.

I've pointed it out to many fellow swimmers; and they stare in
amazement, raised eyebrows and a dim expression over the facial features
and say they don't know.

The other day I finally gave in and asked at Reception what it was all
about. She told me that that was the only clock in the Centre that did
that, that they weren't interconnected and that she didn't know why.

My best guess is that it's a radio clock, and it self-adjust every day
at 4-00pm. But I've googled for "clock speeds up at 4-00pm" and the like
and haven't found the answer.

Some one here must have met one of these things. If so then let me know
more.

Ed

I got a close-up view today, thanks to a friendly pool-attendant and a
ladder on wheels.
It's got "Radio Controlled" + a beacon symbol, running from 7 to 5. But
no manufacturer's name or logo at all.
Rather like this one without the logo;
http://tinyurl.com/cu6ke5m

Ed

 

[charlie]

In message <[email protected]>, charlie


How often do you need temperature more accurate than 1 degree C - and in
those rare cases, don't you need it more accurate than 1 degree F? (I
still remember that nominal body temperature was 98.4F, for example.)

Indeed ...

... though slide rules (although I never really used them) did have the
advantage that they _forced_ order-of-magnitude understanding, which is
often not grasped today.

It's been years, but as I remember, one of the slide rule methods to
determine magnitude was to round and/or truncate the actual numbers,
work the equation then see what the resulting magnitude might be.

Back in the 70's, the first real "programmable scientific calculator" I
bought was an HP-45. I remember being amazed to find that slide rule
based reference answers to complicated textbook problems were off by
quite a bit. One of the worst offenders was a standard textbook used to
teach and study for the FCC's First Class Phone license, the basic
license for a radio or television station engineer. "Endorsements" added
to the license covered radar, shipboard equipment, aircraft radio, and
so forth.

The larger errors almost always involved the differences of orders of
magnitude and/or the rounding that occurred with slide rule use.

When I first noticed the errors, I ended up working some of the
equations manually, (lots of time and paper), then with a slide rule,
and finally with the calculator.
Three different answers were not uncommon, with the calculator being the
most repeatable, and hopefully the most accurate. Seldom did any of the
answers exactly agree with those printed in the textbook.
There was a minor glitch in the calculator, and I ended up having to
send the HP-45 in for a firmware update.

No wonder the electronic engineers of that and previous eras used "tweak
and tune" as a major method/tool.

 

[charlie]

On 11/4/2012 8:27 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message <[email protected]>, Ed Cryer
[]
We called them "thermionic valves" if anybody ever asked us what a
"valve" was.
When I started as a computer programmer one of the women in the office
told us how she programmed first-generation machines; and she used to
"hide from her boss in the memory cupboard".
I should think it was quite hot in there.

Ed

Depends; if it was core storage, maybe not ...

but full of bugs !!

That earns a golden groan

Although wasn't that the origin of the computer "bug in the program" -
insects in the relays?

The legend goes that a female member of the armed forces (US Navy?) came
up with the "bug" bit, based upon an actual insect in the works. If
memory (organic) serves, she retired as one of the highest ranking
females in military service. Relays were a common part of the early
"fire control" computers, although I really don't remember the details.

Perhaps the strangest system I ran across while working for a GE lab was
a system that was on the borderline between hardwired logic and a
computer as we think of it. Programming was done with cards and jumpers.
The "flip flops" were something called a "Mag Amp", used for one bit
storage, and decisions. It was old in the early 60's, and used to
control industrial systems. A later, also obsolete system was full of
miniature "crystal can" relays and transistors, with a few tubes and
stepping relays thrown in for good measure. It used IBM punch cards.
A PDP-8 was about the latest and greatest at the time. Mainframe disk
drives were physically huge, heavy, and movable only with a fork lift.

 

[Fokke Nauta]

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 17:07:19 -0500, Zaidy036 wrote:

On 11/4/2012 8:27 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message <[email protected]>, Ed Cryer
[]
We called them "thermionic valves" if anybody ever asked us what a
"valve" was.
When I started as a computer programmer one of the women in the
office
told us how she programmed first-generation machines; and she used to
"hide from her boss in the memory cupboard".
I should think it was quite hot in there.

Ed

Depends; if it was core storage, maybe not ...

but full of bugs !!

That earns a golden groan

Although wasn't that the origin of the computer "bug in the program" -
insects in the relays?

The legend goes that a female member of the armed forces (US Navy?) came
up with the "bug" bit, based upon an actual insect in the works. If
memory (organic) serves, she retired as one of the highest ranking
females in military service. Relays were a common part of the early
"fire control" computers, although I really don't remember the details.

Perhaps the strangest system I ran across while working for a GE lab was
a system that was on the borderline between hardwired logic and a
computer as we think of it. Programming was done with cards and jumpers.
The "flip flops" were something called a "Mag Amp", used for one bit
storage, and decisions. It was old in the early 60's, and used to
control industrial systems. A later, also obsolete system was full of
miniature "crystal can" relays and transistors, with a few tubes and
stepping relays thrown in for good measure. It used IBM punch cards.
A PDP-8 was about the latest and greatest at the time. Mainframe disk
drives were physically huge, heavy, and movable only with a fork lift.

PDP 8 were great machines. You needed to load the bootstrap loader with
toggling those data switches!

 

[Tim Slattery]

The legend goes that a female member of the armed forces (US Navy?)

Admiral (but not at that time) Grace Hopper.

came
up with the "bug" bit, based upon an actual insect in the works.

She taped an insect she'd removed from the hardware into a logbook.
Electrical engineers, and most likely others, had been using "bug" to
mean a glitch in the system for a long time before that.

If memory (organic) serves, she retired as one of the highest ranking
females in military service.

No doubt true. Hopper was also a member of the Codasyl committee,
which designed COBOL.

 

[Ken Blake]

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 18:50:21 +0000, John Williamson

[snip]

For what it's worth, all my Casio watches of various ages consistently
gain about a second a day, and have done from new.

So mine is not the only one gaining time, eh? It gains about 1/2
second per day.

Unless you don't reset it until several weeks have gone by, and you
are talking about an average gain, how could you possibly know?