Marta: The real problem with computers are the typos; if computers could stop typos, the world would be a better place to live. Here is my last message with some corrections:
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 one degree in the earth's latitude or longitude at the equator is equal to exactly 60 nautical miles. How many kilometers? How about 111.47598 ! 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 set 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 their 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 PS: I reside in Shelbyville. Here in Shelbyville, where the court house is at 85 degrees, 12.92 minutes west, celestial noon is a little sooner, occurring at 12: 41 PM. And yes, Zulu time is one hour behind most of the time set in Germany, but we can all live with Zulu time and be happy. 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: [email protected] 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: [email protected] 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: [email protected] 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: [email protected] Information: http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
