Although I usually prefer plain text, I certainly don't prefer ASCII, as it's a 7-bit code and can't handle accented characters and a number of other characters, such as Â.
These days, I format for Unicode (UTF-8) whenever I reply. (In Outlook 2000, it's Format>Encoding>Unicode (UTF-8).) Bill Potts, CMS Roseville, CA http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Behalf Of Nat Hager III >Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 03:25 >To: U.S. Metric Association >Subject: [USMA:28350] RE: those conversions in Edmonton article > > >Sorry Bill, I really didn't take note of the "metric conversions" at the >bottom, as we've all seen them so many times before. Knowing the list >prefers ASCII, I simply converted accordingly. > >Nat > >PS My favorite remains 10^21 picolos = 1 gigolo <g> > > >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On >Behalf Of Bill Potts >Sent: Wednesday, 2004 January 21 22:28 >To: U.S. Metric Association >Subject: [USMA:28347] RE: those conversions in Edmonton article > > >I suspect Nat Hager knew that, but trusted the rest of us to recognize, >as you did (and as I did), that they were exponents. > >I pointed out, in USMA: 28341, that he could have preserved them in an >HTML-formatted email. > >Unfortunately, email software does not typically allow one to format >characters as superscripts (Outlook 2000 certainly doesn't), so he would >have to have copied the existing HTML code (from the web site where he >found it) to a message set up for HTML formatting, rather than the plain >text message he used. > >It shouldn't really be a big deal to us cognoscenti, though. <g>. >Bill Potts, CMS >Roseville, CA >http://metric1.org [SI Navigator] > > >-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Behalf Of Bill and/or Barbara Hooper >Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 19:16 >To: U.S. Metric Association >Subject: [USMA:28346] those conversions in Edmonton article > > >Andy Johnson emphasized that we should be sure look at the "metric >conversions" at the end of the Edmonton journal article. Some of them >are quite clever and funny. The first two however, were garbled >somewhere; I don't know if the Edmonton paper printed them that way or >whether the got garbled on the internet or on the email messages that >copied the article. > >As I saw it in the original article submitted by Nat Hager and later >repeated and emphasized by Andy Johnson, the first two conversions read: > >1,012 microphones = 1 megaphone > >106 bicycles = two megacycles > >Clearly these have been erroneously copied. Someone, through whose hands >this passed, knew little or nothing about scientific notation (powers of >ten), or perhaps knew that but didn't know how to type exponents. > >The above two "conversions" should have been: > >(10 to the 12th power) microphones = 1 megaphone > >(10 to the 6th power) bicycles = two megacycles > >I have written out the powers of ten to avoid having the same problems >that my unknown predecessor had. the only way I know to reliably type >them in email (without using HTML or something) is to use the caret mark >(^) to indicate an exponent, so I would have had to write: > >10^12 microphones = 1 megaphone > >10^6 bicycles = 2 megacycles > >It is interesting that, after the power of ten had been incorrectly >written in the first example, the error was compounded by adding a comma >to separate the thousands from the hundreds. That is: > >10^12 erroneously became 1012 which then became 1,012 > >This clearly shows that, at some point, someone did not just mistype >something, but he or she really thought it was supposed to be one >thousand twelve instead of ten to the twelfth power. > >At least there was only one error when 10^6 erroneously became 106. > >By the way, there are many more of those humerous "conversions". There >is even a list in the college physics book I taught from over many >years. > >Regards, >Bill Hooper >Fernandina Beach, Florida, USA >
