On 16 February 2013 07:55, Timothy Sipples <[email protected]> wrote:
> For comparison -- and far worse when you think about it -- most automobiles > have at least two ways of checking the oil level. One way is a binary > readout, located on the dashboard. If the light is not illuminated, you > have enough oil. If the light is illuminated, you don't. (I'm ignoring > possible instrument failures.) The other way is to pull the hood (bonnet) > release lever usually located inside the car, go to the front of the car > (for front engine vehicles), pull the external hood release bar (which I > can never remember how to do), lift the hood, unscrew the oil cap, remove > the dipstick, clean the dipstick, insert the dipstick, remove the dipstick, > and read the oil level.... That oil light (or gauge, if you have an old or very upscale new car) is measuring/displaying oil *pressure*, not level. They are related, to be sure, but not in a simple way. Interestingly, each can be reliably measured only under conditions where the other can't. And of course neither is what you really want to know about; both are proxies for something of actual importance. Now back to our regular COBOL, uh, programming. Tony H. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
