OT.... but I need help

In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 19:07:56 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:


Though I still regret the US's aborting the shift to the metric
system...


Me too, although it was never even started sensibly. Changing a speed
limit from 55 mph to 88 kph made no sense, as far as I'm concerned; it
should have been changed to 60 kph.

That would have been awfully slow (-:

And selling things like milk in .9463 liter bottles instead of 1 liter
bottles made no sense either.

We seem to manage OK with milk: a UK pint is somewhat more than half a
litre, so our milk is sold in one point something litre bottles (2
pints), and has been for some time. And jam (US: jelly) in 454g jars,
and ...

These kinds of things (and there were many others) weren't really
changing to the metric system.

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".

We should change to the metric system primarily because our
measurement system should be the same as the rest of the world's, and
secondarily because the metric system is much easier to do arithmetic
in.

Very true.

As far as I know, the only thing that we use the metric system for is
wine and liquor bottles.

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.)

And we should also change to using Celsius for temperatures, because
the rest of the world does. Most people seem to think that's part of
the metric system, but I don't.



Well, it is a "centigrade" system - 100 degrees between freezing and
boiling, or at least that was the intention, and is still close enough
to that for practical purposes.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the
law." - Winston Churchill.

On 11/4/2012 8:27 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ed Cryer
writes:
[]
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 !!

Fokke Nauta wrote:
On 04/11/2012 14:32, Ed Cryer wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ed Cryer
writes:
[]
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 ...

No, valves.
I started on ICL machines with ferrite-core rings as memory bits; second
generation mainframes.

Ed


Oh God, the old memory cards with ferrite rings. How amazing and
wonderful they were ...

4K or something?

Fokke

The largest I worked on was a 1906A; a massive 250KB memory, for which
we had to modularise all programming, even though it ended up being
front-ended by a 1904S.

Ed

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
Ken Blake wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 05:29:08 -0500, Paul 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.

It's had a rough life. It stays on my wrist, except
for incidents where it flies off my wrist and hits
a wall :-) (Racquet sports...) The watch is on its third
strap.

For some reason, the face of the watch is a bit scratched up.

Paul

On 11/4/2012 2:24 PM, Fokke Nauta wrote:
On 04/11/2012 16:36, Ken Blake wrote:
On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 19:07:56 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:


Though I still regret the US's aborting the shift to the metric
system...


Me too, although it was never even started sensibly. Changing a speed
limit from 55 mph to 88 kph made no sense, as far as I'm concerned; it
should have been changed to 60 kph.

And selling things like milk in .9463 liter bottles instead of 1 liter
bottles made no sense either.

These kinds of things (and there were many others) weren't really
changing to the metric system.

We should change to the metric system primarily because our
measurement system should be the same as the rest of the world's, and
secondarily because the metric system is much easier to do arithmetic
in.

As far as I know, the only thing that we use the metric system for is
wine and liquor bottles.

And we should also change to using Celsius for temperatures, because
the rest of the world does. Most people seem to think that's part of
the metric system, but I don't.


The US use still Fahrenheit, don't they?
Though it's got nothing to do with the metric system.
Fokke


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

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
slide rule accuracy and interpolation.

On 11/4/2012 5:21 PM, Ed Cryer wrote:
Fokke Nauta wrote:
On 04/11/2012 14:32, Ed Cryer wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ed Cryer
writes:
[]
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 ...

No, valves.
I started on ICL machines with ferrite-core rings as memory bits; second
generation mainframes.

Ed


Oh God, the old memory cards with ferrite rings. How amazing and
wonderful they were ...

4K or something?

Fokke

The largest I worked on was a 1906A; a massive 250KB memory, for which
we had to modularise all programming, even though it ended up being
front-ended by a 1904S.

Ed


One of the last gasps of core memory I remember was "plated wire memory"
in the 1970s. I worked for GE back then, and we used rejected Mil Spec
memory planes (After thorough testing) for memory in some of our machine
control systems. They were interesting in that one computer could run
multiple numeric control machines, using Daisey chained I/O modules.

If you had a two computer system, and one failed, the other could
automatically sub for the failed one, and even be used to diagnose the
failure.

The memory was purchased from one of GE's military divisions.
When we went into actual production line operation, GE had purchased
what were then advanced memory test systems.

After the test systems were delivered, setup, and accepted, the
OEM's installation crew was told that they were laid off, and the
systems were the last off the production line. I have no idea how they
got back to California.

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 03:22:23 +0000, choro wrote:

On 04/11/2012 01:18, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Fri, 02 Nov 2012 22:27:45 -0400, Paul wrote:

Quartz oscillators can have a trimmer cap in the design. And
that can be used to trim out the initial tolerance. My digital
watch has one of those in it.

The last time I looked inside a quartz watch, I couldn't find a trimmer,
to my (mild) annoyance.

It was a Timex, if that is in any way relevant.

What do you need a trimmer for IF it has been set properly at the
factory. --
choro
*****

Your question implies its answer.

Obviously.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

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 , Ed Cryer
writes:
[]
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 :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 04/11/2012 22:29, Paul wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Paul writes:
Ken Blake wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 05:29:08 -0500, Paul 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.

It's had a rough life. It stays on my wrist, except
for incidents where it flies off my wrist and hits
a wall :-) (Racquet sports...) The watch is on its third
strap.

For some reason, the face of the watch is a bit scratched up.

I wonder why?! ;-)
--
choro
*****

Paul

On 04/11/2012 19:46, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 19:07:56 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:


Though I still regret the US's aborting the shift to the metric
system...


Me too, although it was never even started sensibly. Changing a speed
limit from 55 mph to 88 kph made no sense, as far as I'm concerned; it
should have been changed to 60 kph.

That would have been awfully slow (-:

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.


And selling things like milk in .9463 liter bottles instead of 1 liter
bottles made no sense either.

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. In fact a lot
of places sell milk in littre bottles nowadays. Supermarkets in general
still stick to pints (UK pints of course!) but also declare the exact
equivalent in littres as required by law.


We seem to manage OK with milk: a UK pint is somewhat more than half a
litre, so our milk is sold in one point something litre bottles (2
pints), and has been for some time. And jam (US: jelly) in 454g jars,
and ...

These kinds of things (and there were many others) weren't really
changing to the metric system.

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".

It's all a question of fooling the customers and trying to keep prices
attractive. To the customer 500g and 454g quantities look the same but
to the manufacturer/retailer "cheating" by 46g per pack is significant!
I doubt that it is old machinery refusing to wear out! That's a lot of
bull**** after all these years!


We should change to the metric system primarily because our
measurement system should be the same as the rest of the world's, and
secondarily because the metric system is much easier to do arithmetic
in.

Very true.

As far as I know, the only thing that we use the metric system for is
wine and liquor bottles.

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


And we should also change to using Celsius for temperatures, because
the rest of the world does. Most people seem to think that's part of
the metric system, but I don't.

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



Well, it is a "centigrade" system - 100 degrees between freezing and
boiling, or at least that was the intention, and is still close enough
to that for practical purposes.

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

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.
--
choro
*****

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 08:36:17 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote:

On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 19:07:56 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

Though I still regret the US's aborting the shift to the metric
system...

Me too, although it was never even started sensibly. Changing a speed
limit from 55 mph to 88 kph made no sense, as far as I'm concerned; it
should have been changed to 60 kph.

I sure hope that "60 kph" was a typo! 55 MPH was bad enough, but 35
MPH would have been brutally slow. Texas just opened a road between
San Antonio and Austin with an 85 MPH speed limit. That's something
I'd like to see a lot more of. I already drive that speed more often
than not, but it would be nice if it were legal.

--

Char Jackson

On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 19:33:01 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Paul
writes:
Ken Blake wrote:
On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 05:29:08 -0500, Paul 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?

--

Char Jackson

On Sun, 04 Nov 2012 20:24:28 +0100, Fokke Nauta
wrote:

On 04/11/2012 16:36, Ken Blake wrote:
On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 19:07:56 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:


Though I still regret the US's aborting the shift to the metric
system...


Me too, although it was never even started sensibly. Changing a speed
limit from 55 mph to 88 kph made no sense, as far as I'm concerned; it
should have been changed to 60 kph.

And selling things like milk in .9463 liter bottles instead of 1 liter
bottles made no sense either.

These kinds of things (and there were many others) weren't really
changing to the metric system.

We should change to the metric system primarily because our
measurement system should be the same as the rest of the world's, and
secondarily because the metric system is much easier to do arithmetic
in.

As far as I know, the only thing that we use the metric system for is
wine and liquor bottles.

And we should also change to using Celsius for temperatures, because
the rest of the world does. Most people seem to think that's part of
the metric system, but I don't.


The US use still Fahrenheit, don't they?


Yes.


Though it's got nothing to do with the metric system.


Right.

On Sun, 4 Nov 2012 19:46:05 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

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.

--

Char Jackson

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 01:08:24 +0000, choro wrote:

On 04/11/2012 19:46, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Ken Blake
writes:
On Sat, 3 Nov 2012 19:07:56 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:


Though I still regret the US's aborting the shift to the metric
system...


Me too, although it was never even started sensibly. Changing a speed
limit from 55 mph to 88 kph made no sense, as far as I'm concerned; it
should have been changed to 60 kph.

That would have been awfully slow (-:

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.




And selling things like milk in .9463 liter bottles instead of 1 liter
bottles made no sense either.

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.