On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 4:18 PM, John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> wrote: All true, but in terms of the price, when I was at school in the UK for a Summer, a pint of lager was 95p, a pint of bitters was a more affordable 87p. A mate of mine (who is slightly younger than I) was shocked that I'd ever been able to buy beer for under "a pound a pint", 'cause he never had. I in turn was shocked on my last visit to London (2005) to see prices approaching *three* pounds for a pint. I do regret that I won't be able to attend VCF-UK - between not yet having seen BP, and missing out on the chance to grab a pint and curry (and, of course, missing the great face-to-face interaction that happens at a VCF or a Hamfest or whatever). We have beer and Indian food in Ohio, but it's not the same. Have fun folks, -ethan

On Wed, 26 May 2010 22:53:35 +0200, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: ... I'm just back from Tokyo, the only place I've been where beer costs the same as in Oslo. That is, around 6 pounds/pint. -- -bv

On 26 May 2010 at 15:18, John Foust wrote: Exactly the rule of thumb I learned it as a kid. To this day, it has told me that a 250 gallon tank filled with water sitting in the back of my pickup weighs about a ton, plus whatever the (PVC) tank weighs. A little 50 gallon water-filled tank weighs more than 400 lbs. ...another rule of "thumb" is that the distance from the tip of your thumb to the knuckle is about an inch. In my case, it's more accurate than "three barleycorns, dry and round" from my pantry, which measured only about 3/4 of an inch. --Chuck

On 28 May 2010 at 9:02, Liam Proven wrote: This from someone who lives in a country where body weight is still quoted in stone; horse stature in hands--and I still hear announcers on the Beeb referring to distances in miles. I'm sure other examples abound. So I take any UK-related claims of the metric system being wonderful with a crannock of salt. While I'm equally comfortable in Imperial or SI units for most things, I find that the imperial units have a better relation to the human scale. The measurement of a thumb is a case in point; a yard is about the distance between the tip of my thumb and my nose, as is the length of my stride. A foot is a unit not enjoyed by the metrics- -you get your choice between a meter (too big) and the ridiculously small centimeter--even a decimeter is too small. The height of a ceiling or the spacing between rails on a railroad is conveniently expressed in whole feet. A very warm day is 100 degrees; the same reflects that I'm running a slight fever (apparently Fahrenheit was when he set the 100 degree point). 0 degrees is a very cold day and the temperature of my home freezer. "Man is the measure of all things" - Pr?tagoras of Abdera --and not some erroneous measurement of the earth's meridian. With the Imperial system, I feel a kinship with centuries of history dating back to the ancient Romans rather than some idealistic 18th- century French revolutionaries who couldn't quite get their measurements right. --Chuck

Pete Edwards wrote: Yes. 4'8.5". "Standard gauge". Peace... Sridhar

Chuck Guzis wrote: Remember the rail cars are wider. I think the rail road width was from the width of the ruts from roman roads in England. How ever since rail roads started out hauling freight rather than people, you tended to have a narrow width to save on road bed costs as you ran from the mines to the industrial cities.

I read also that Werner Von Braun scaled the V-2 to the railroad and tunnel clearance available. Did Microsoft scale Windows to the available memory? Cause 640K is all anybody will ever need... _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:…

Randy Dawson wrote: No, it was scaled to the available money.

In the US, it was not until the early 1900 that things finally settled upon "standard gauge". The earlier wide gauge lines had converted sometime after the Civil War, and the various narrow gauges went away as the lines went bankrupt, with a few converting to standard. Except for light rail, underground, and tourist lines, there is only one narrow gauge line left, and it is obviously an isolated system. Keep in mind that wide gauge is not as good an idea as it seems - the wider you get, the more difficult it is to make long wheelbases track properly. The Russians figured this out the hard way. -- Will

Yet further OT, but still vintage computer-related. Back in the mid-80's, some friends from Lockheed produced an orbital mechanics modeling package (hope I've got that right) for the PC AT. When I saw the demo, I was surprised that mass was quoted in slugs. I was informed that Imperial units was how the defense industry measured things. I hadn't seen slugs quoted as a mass unit since high-school physics-- and even then, it was mostly to emphasize that "pound" was a unit of weight, not mass, not for any practical use. --Chuck

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 11:07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: ... about one meter. So the relationship between two human scales is not a nice factor of 10. What's wrong with "about 30 cm"? How many bits of ones body need their own unit? Hang on a microforthnight, you are complaining about the abritrary-ness of the metric system while extolling the Fahrenheit scale? Seriously? Celsius is very convenient (and I daresay human) here in Canada: If it's below 0 outside, snow will stick around. Sidewalks will be slippery. -- Joachim Thiemann :: http://www.tsp.ece.mcgill.ca/~jthiem

On Fri, 28 May 2010, Ben wrote: Yeah. When the temperature is -40 degrees, you no longer need to care which of the two common systems it is.

On Fri, 28 May 2010, Ben wrote: There's not a lot of difference between -40 degrees Fahrenheit and -40 degrees Celsius (nor even Centigrade) If you are dealing with Kelvin or Rankin, then you have other issues to deal with! I think that Canada can recover from that

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: And in great swaths of North America, Northern Europe and Russia. I'm pretty sure Fred meant -40.0 degrees, not -40 and lower. -ethan

Fred Cisin wrote: No... That is reseved for when Hell freezes over.

And the mercury in my thermometer is frozen anyway... -tony

Consdiiering the idfiot EU Bureaucrats have banned mercury-in-glass thermometers (I believe), I might just have to :-( What if I need to measure the temperature of a liquid where there's no mains power around?... I do have a digital termometer set-up. Of course it's related to a classic computer (HP41 + Data Acquisition ROM + HPIL + HP3421 + thermocouple or Pt resistance thermomneter) -tony

On Sat, 29 May 2010, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote: What can I put into that glass thermometer to replace the mercury? Won't I have to recalibrate it? What can I put into the vial to replace the mercury in my thermostat?

I thoiught metalic mercury wasn't all that harmful, it's the salts that are very toxic. There must have been a good reason for using mercury in the first place, and it wasn;t cost ;-).And therefore I douibt the alternatives 'do the job just as well'. Actually, for reasons of cost, moist thermometers don't use mercury anyway. The ones that did, did so for, I suspect, technical reasons. I don';t beleive there was enoguh mercury used in thermomneters to be a hazard, but when it was used, it was used because it was the best material to use, And that's what bothers me about the ban. But there is one plaec I would not use a mercury thermomneter. Checking the temperature of an electromagnetic device such as a transformer or a motor. It's quite possible to induce eddy currents in the mercury and have the thermometer read too high. The UV lamp in my EPROM eraser is a 6" long hot-cathode dischage tube, similar ot a flouresecent tube with a special envelope (to transmit the UV light) and no phosphor coating. I can see a quite a few droplets of mercury insde that lamp when it's cold. I susepct the CFLs run at a lower pressure, but I still suspet the total amount of mercury in use in all the CFLs is a sizeable amount. Oh, and don;t get me started on the lightbulb ban... -tony

This is certainly not my subject, but if that were the case, why were mercury-in-glass thermometers made until very recently. There must be a good reason for usning it. Which is normally only used to couple the 2 little indicators. The main temperature-sensitive substace is alcohol (or something similar) in the tube/bulb above the 'min' inidcator. Ans yes, the coupling liquid in such thermometes certainly used to be mercury. I guess I should keep my comments on such people to myself... I did. I wasn't talking about hygrometers :-) :-) :-) I don;t beleive that swallowing that amount of liquid mercury would be that harmful.. Yes, but mercury cells did not contain liquid mercury, but rather mercury componds. And those are certainly very toxic. Exactly. You get I^2R heating in the mercury itself. Oh so have I, I actually prefer them for most applciations. That is, in all but 4 locations... 1) Over my lathe (the stroboscopic effect does seem to be noticeable) 2) In the darkroom (the CFLs have a long enouhg afterglow to fog film after being turned off for quite some time) 3) In the copying stand (the light spectrum from a CFL is useless for colour photography) 4) As ballast resistors (you don't seriously think a CFL will work there, do oyu?) Now what do I do in those 4 places when I can no longer get filament lamps? -tony

That, actually, is the only place I wouldn't worry too much about using CFLs. The stobe effect isn't that major [1] and since I'm the only person in the workshop, I can hear the motor of the machine I am using running. It's more of a problem in a workshop with many people working where you may hear a motor and think it's somebody else's machine. [1] As an aside, some months back I needed a stroboscope to check the performance of a couple of rewound motors (in an HP9125A plotter). I made a simple unit using a 55 timer, a divider chain and 4 white LEDs. It worked well. For a laugh (!), I made a second model using a crystal osciallator an divider chain which would produce 100 or 120 flashes per second, thus simulating a US or European mains lamp. I dug a spare floppy drive out of my junk box, got it spinning and noticed the strobe divisions on the spindle pulley were not that clear under the (strip light type of flourescent lamp, choke ballast) light over my bench. But wit hthe LED strobe they were very clear. So perhaps the srobe effect I thought I'd seen those listed fairly recently.. Fliament lamps tend to be a fairly close approximation to a black body radiator, and thus it's not too hard to filter the output to give something approaching daylight. Some flourescents have a horrible spectrum with all sorts of gaps in it that is almost impossible to filter to anything close to daylight. Quite apart from the fact that CFLs do not work with a series/parallel switch :-) So quite how I repair SMPSUs when I can no longer get filament lamps is another problem... Does anyone know the exact terms of the ban? I understand that the ban only covers domestic ligthing, and it;s legal to sell filament lamps for other applications, Is it legal for me to import them myself for my own use (particularly id that use is not 'domestic lighting')? -tony

On 31 May 2010 at 20:06, Pete Turnbull wrote: Just as a sanity check, does anyone have the figures of the portion of domestic (non-industrial/non-governmental) power consumption is due to incandescent lamps? 75W 120V lamps abound here--they're one of the more common sizes. I believe that they also exist in 250V Edison and mogul-based varieties here also. --Chuck

And those filters don't give as good a result as filtering tungsten filament lamps using the normal colour correction filters. I've not tried a photographic colour temperature meter with CFLs. Does it give any meaningful reuslts at all? frontpanel bulbs for classic computers are OK), car bulbs, torch (flashlight) bulbs, projector bulbs (I hope!), and thigns like that. I wodner if it applies to photofloods? What I find crazyy is that yuu can still (legally) buy and sell candles for domestic illumination. A filament lamp produces a lot less polution (fr a given light output) than a candle... -tony

Exactly. The spectrum of most CFLs (and other fluorescent lamps) is all over the place, which makes it mildly useless for colour photography. Good!. If all else fails I'll use photofloods then. If necessary on a step-down transformer to counteract the fact that they are designed to be overrun. I believe it doesn't apply to tungsten halogen bulbs either, so I should be able to get the bulbs for my slide projectors, enlarger, etc. -tony

It's not the dummy load, it's the 'series lightbulb trick'. A filament lamp as avery nice positive temerpature coefficient of resistance. You connecto one in series wtih the HV DC lione to the chopper and run the supply on minimum load. If the supply is OK, the lamp remains cold,low resistance, and does no harm. If there's a major failure. the lamp will limit the current. It probably won't save the chopper transistor, but it will prevent trraces from being blasted off the PCB, and it will certainly save my nerves. They;'re even useful when sorting out linear PSUs. My HP9826 arrived with the mains fuse blown, the LT fuse was OK. I tested te plug-in PSU module on my hom-made test rig, it was fine. Put that back in the machine and applied 20V or so ot the termianls of the smoothign capaacitor (the one strapped to the fan mounting. The machine powered and worked fine, so I knew al lthe logic was OK, All I needed to do was sort out the transformer/rectifier/capacitor circuit. Pulled the PSU again, put a new fuse in, connected a bulb in series with the mains input and powered up with the fan remvoed and the transformer secondary disconnected from thr rectifier. Lamp totally dull, sensible AC voltages on the secondary. Conencted the fan (it's a 120V AC fan running off the transformer primary in this machine), lamp a dull red, fan runs. Connect the secondary wires and try again, this time get a glow from the lamp as the capacitor charges, then abck to dull red . So everythig looks fine, and indeed the machine works perfectly when I remvoe the lamp and refit the regulator PCB. To this day I have no idea hy that fuse was blown But the point is that lamp would ahv eprotected me and the machine from more damage if there had been, say, sherted turns (or a shorted RF filter capacitor) in the transformer. I'd heard 'domestic _lightiing_ applications'. There is a significant differnece, at least for what I do :-) Well, that's a start :-). I iwll have to parallel up 25W oven bulbs or something :-). And fromat what I've heard, it doesn't apply to anything other than mains lighting bulbs, so things like the 24V bulb for my paper tape reader don't come under it. Hopefully muy local electrical wholesaller will keep them (it's the sort of place that doens't ask questions, they just sell you what you ask for). They have a big sign over their trade counter which basically says it's the customer's responsibilty to comply with all the regulations. The sort of place I like :-)) -tony

Also, rough service bulbs (they are used on ships and railroad applications) tend to last quite a lot longer. -- Will

This is why I want to see the exact terms of the ban in the UK and rest of the EU. If rough service bulbs are exempt, then there is no problem at all. It's no problem at all. The bulb is going to last a long time used as a series limiter, and aanyway it problaby saves its cost many times over every time I use it. Right... So just what is the point of this ban? :-) Maybe, maybe not. I think it's simpler to just go and ask for the rough service bulb. After that, what I do with it is my business and nobody need know :-) And what on earth is the point of 'no more than 2 bulbs per box', other than to ensure the use of excessive packaging which will need to be recylced. I thought they were trying to cut down waste, not increase it... Is it similar to that ridiculous law that you can only buy Aspirin tablets in boxes of 16 (or 32 from a registers pharmacy)? The idea behind that was you couldn't buy enough to fatally overdose on. But if I was daft enough to want to commit suicide that way (and I will assure you I am not), I would have the sense to visit several shops to get enough pills... Well, considiering I saw new _carbon filament_ bulbs advertised on a web site quite recently, I suspect that rough serve bulbs will be around for quite some time.. True, and I guess for much the same reasons. There are applications where there is no alternative to lead/tin solder. -tony

On Wed, 2 Jun 2010, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote: or at least give you a headache!

What I have heard from all this lightbulb talk, as well as other issues - in the US, everything you read is crap, unless you are looking at the text of the law. There are many people with axes to grind, and will even use lightbulbs to do it. Lightbulb cops? No, there is no monitoring. Pretty much like the various copy protection systems software has used over the years. -- Will

I would be a lot happier if I knew what the law actually said... Argh!. So perhaps we'd better not stock up on rough service bulbs... Err, no. As somebody pointed out, the laws on aspirin mean you have to take time to take an overdose, by which point you might get fed up and decide to take your life in some other way. But nobody (that I know of) fits domestic light bulbs in bulk. They fit a new one when the old one fails. So extra pacakaging is not an inconvenience, it's just a wast. So is sodium chloride, and I've had no problems buying that recently... But a lot of totally harmless checmicals are now very hard to get, which is a great pity... -tony

On 1 Jun 2010 at 12:31, Ray Arachelian wrote: A pet peeve of mine--almost the only thing making CFLs affordable is manufacturing in China--and many in my experience have a real lifetime shorter than their incandescent relatives. Some failures are due undoubtedly to bad design, but I think another factor is the actual application. Most CFLs are engineered to be used in a base-down application so the head-producing components are cooled by convection. Yet very few of these things, in my experience are used in any position except base- up, trapping the heat and causing premature failure. I hope that when useful and affordable LED versions become available, this also won't be a problem, but I'm not holding my breath. --Chuck

On 6/1/10 3:42 PM, Eric Smith wrote: I dunno, the Home Depot (large consumer-grade hardware store chain in the US), as of my trip there yesterday, carries quite a wide variety of LED-based incandescent replacements. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On 1 June 2010 22:35, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: LED's are rapidly replacing incandescents for bicycle lights, too, and thankfully, more and more places I play replace the stage lights with LED models. They tend to illuminate the musicians, rather than fry them. .tsooJ

On 6/1/10 4:45 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: No clue, I didn't look closely. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Eric Smith wrote: There must be a way to engineer it so that the fixture to which the LED "bulb" is attached acts as a heatsink for the LEDs. Peace... Sridhar

On 06/01/2010 02:38 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote: Certainly that's how it's done. But when you screw it into an enclosed base-up fixture, to where is that heatsink going to dissipate the heat? That's a fundamental problem with both CFLs and LEDs, leading to significantly shortened lifetimes for both, and no one has a good solution yet. Eric

Jochen Kunz wrote: FWIW, there is a move toward LEDs in pinball machines to replace the incandescent bulbs. Perhaps this site might provide suitable replacements? https://bcspinball.com/index.php?cPath=83&osCsid=3f607f2993df7b7eed914e… Barry

The ones I've seen over here are very low power consumption (<2W) but also very dim. They may well be efficient, but you'd need about 10 of the replacement 'bulbs' instead of a filament bulb in the average room. Which makes them look a lot less attractive to me. -tony

Chuck Guzis [cclist at sydex.com] wrote: But you'll hear kg for most other weights: it's really only body weight that is measured in pounds. Get measured in hospital and it will be recorded in kg (unless you've just been born, must be something special about midwives I guess). Is that Imperial vs Metric or just weird? That's the other common one (we certainly cannot afford to change all the road signs right now). Like it or lump it it's the law. Except in pubs, where you will be served pints not litres (and certainly never, ever liters :0). So a fingernail must be about 1cm? and so is a metre (unless you have some unusual definition of "about" kicking around there). ditto It's not in my house. (I've not yet built an engine, but if I decide to spend my Sundays at Cutteslowe park, I'll be sure to check). I'd be boiling then. I don't think that there's much to choose between 97.8 and 37.5. Whereas my 0 is when the car will skid slightly more than normal. Your zero doesn't happen where I live (luckily). Isn't C vs F a separate off topic pointless argument? Antonio

Andrew Burton [aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk] wrote: Doubt it. There are plenty of UK cars on old car rallys on the continent. Certainly here your vehicle needs to comply with the regs as they were when it was built (no seat belts required in your 1921 jalopy etc.). Keeping to the speed limit is your problem. You've not been able to do that for a number of years now. Don't worry, the feeling will pass as you learn the new units :-) There's decametre too (another now obsolete unit). Never heard centameter so I've no idea if that exists. The usual rules of not confounding the populace don't apply in betting: as a bookie you're fleecing idiots (who are assumed to know that they're being fleeced) so it doesn't really matter whether you fleece them in decimals, fractions or transcendentals :-) Antonio

On Friday 28 May 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote: km signs indeed do exist. I-19 from Tuscon, AZ south to the Mexico border is an example.. distances and exit numbers are given in km. I can't remember for sure if speed limits are give in km/h at all, but I think they aren't. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

From: arcarlini at iee.org Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 2:52 PM That's hektameter[1]. The names of fractionals are loosely derived from Latin; the names of larger units are loosely derived from Greek. / Latin * Greek 10 decem deka 100 centum hekaton 1000 mille khilioi ("kh" = the letter _chi_) Thing is, the Greek 100 is a compound, _he-katon_. The second part is directly cognate with Latin _centum_, while the first part means "1". [1] Not to be confused with "hexameter", which is 6 feet in a measure. I could wax poetic about that. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Chuck Guzis [cclist at sydex.com] wrote: No, we can cope with measuring distances in metres whilst simultaneously reading both a gas meter and iambic pentameter. It's all good training for working on engines (and computers) that are held together by fasteners whose dimensions are derived from various different systems :-) Antonio

Thanks, it's been since high school (that is, more than 40 years) since I worried about the decameter and hectometer. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Joost van de Griek Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 12:04 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: A Shakespearean comedy [was RE: Anyone off to VCF-UK] On 29 May 2010 02:44, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote: Hectometer. .tsooJ

Am I the only person who objects to a _weight_ being quoted in kg? When I was asekd for my body weight, I gave it in newtons :-) Odd.. When I was weifght in a hosptial, it was measured in stones and pounds (and the nurse had a conversion table to kg). And it's one of the most stupid laws we have! Provided both parties involved in the transaction agree on what is being traded, the governemnt should not interfere. If I want to buy 5 yards of cable, and the shop is prepared to cut me that length, what is the problem? -tony

I think we should adopt the Weights and Measures system proposed by The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24/vulture_central_standards/ Regards Rob

On 28 May 2010 at 18:36, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: Beverages are a mixed picture here. Beer is sold by the ounce, but distilled spirits in 750 ml. bottles, sometimes called "fifths"--but that's a cheat--a true "fifth" is 0.8 quarts or 757 ml. The distillers didn't change their prices when the conversion was made. Soft drinks are another matter--large containers are 2L, instead of 0.5 gallon, so that's a plus. But small containers are still 8, 16 or 20 oz. Fortunately, drug prescriptions are now written in metric instead of drams, minims and scruples. I can remember when they weren't. Conversion of recipes for cooking can be a nightmare. What the heck is a Gas Mark? US cooks tend to measure by volume, UK by weight (I have never owned a kitchen scale and I've been cooking for a long time). Even those things that appear to be straightforward very often aren't. A "half pint" of water is 8 liquid ounces in the US, but 10 in the U.K. I'll stop here. --Chuck

Chuck Guzis [cclist at sydex.com] wrote: And here. As I don't drink spirits I've no idea how much a "measure" mightn be ... I just assume that local Trading Standards know and check. The pint glasses and half pint glasses have a mark (I assume those are checked too). It's a number on the knob on an old style oven - the newer ones are in C (or F or both). On the odd occasion that I cook I find that the numbers don't really make much difference to the output ... that's one of the reasons I stick to computers :-) Antonio

And if you ever try to calibrate an oven thermostat you will find those figures bear absolutely no relationship to any normal temperature scale. -tony

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 9:22 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: Precisely my point. The alleged Imperial "standard" isn't even standard: pints, quarts, gallons and so on all mean different things on either side of the Atlantic. AFAICT America doesn't really use things like stones and hundredweight, and frankly, I'll be buggered if I am going to try to remember how many of one meaningless contrived unit fits into another meaningless contrived unit. I don't know how many ounces are in a pound, pounds in a stone, yards in a mile or any of that nonsense. Never have, never will. The argument about "human scales" is utterly specious and based merely on parochiality. As for things like basing the 0 of the temperature scale on one arbitrary quantity and 100 on something utterly unrelated - if anyone proposed this to me as a system, I'd laugh them out of court. It's risible. At the very least, use the same substance! Metric makes sense. Everything's in tens and hundreds and thousands; unit conversion is trivial. The different measurements are all connected - 1 litre = a 10 x 10 x 10 cm cube, and that much water is 1kg. Freeze it, that's 0?C; boil it, that's 100?. It all interlocks like clockwork, no fooling around with 24 of this makes 1 of those but three-fourteenths of one of them, and a unit of weight depends on what you're weighing and suchlike nonsense. It's about as sensible, practical and useful as Roman numerals. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

Chuck Guzis wrote: 10(base 10) plus 10(base 2) spare for breakage.

Chuck Guzis [cclist at sydex.com] wrote: Was it RSTS/E that had (minimal) support for star dates? (Sorry if I'm almost straying back on topic ... bad habit, must stop). Sorry was that eggs or ergs? (6, 10, 12 or 24, but YMMV, as always). Antonio

On 29/05/10 03:46, Chuck Guzis wrote: Half a dozen in a small box, a dozen in a medium box, two dozen in a large box and 48 if you buy by the tray (IIRC). The 48-egg trays aren't often seen outside of farmer's markets and bakeries IME, 6/12-egg boxes are the norm for your average street-corner off-license or supermarket. -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

---snip--- Hi The only problem is that decimal don't fit the physical world well. Thing in the physical world are fraction of powers of fractions. 1/8 and 1/32 make more sense in the physical world. Decimal is just what you learned in school. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:…

On 29 May 2010 at 7:28, dwight elvey wrote: Exactly so! 10 in the natural scheme of things, other than being a notational convenience for people using base ten is not terribly useful other than being able to count on your fingers (the Mayans, with their base twenty system, evidently used their toes as well). My question about eggs attempted to show why there are other numbers that make more sense. Twelve is a number that's even divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, meaning that one can pack a dozen eggs as 1 row by 12 eggs, or 2 rows by 6 eggs or 3 rows by 4 eggs... It also means that I can purchase a half-dozen eggs by simply dividing a 2x6 or 4x3 carton in half--with 10 eggs, you have a loose single egg. Similarly, it's easy to sell a third, quarter or a sixth dozen--or three-quarters, two-thirds and five-sixths. Western music has a richness of harmonies that can be ascribed to a 12-tone system, rather than, say a 10 or 16 tone one. The Babylonians didn't get it wrong. A metric system based on 12 or 30 might have made life easier. Does anyone still make a calculator that works in fractions (ratios) instead of decimals? There used to be one, mostly intended for carpenters. --Chuck

Tony Duell wrote: My Sharp EL-W521 scientific seems to default to fractions, and yeah it does sem to handle them exactly AFAICT. Even has a key to cycle between proper fraction, vulgar fraction and decimal fraction e.g. 3/2 = 1 1/2 = 3/2 = 1.5 Phill. -- Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric ! "You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.

From: Chuck Guzis Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 9:26 AM There is a language in the Amazon Basin, I believe Pirah?, (and this is not like the "1,2,many" urban legend--there are write-ups in linguistic journals) which works in base 19. Each finger joint, the back of the hand, the wrist, the forearm, the upper arm, and the shoulder are the counting points. In human language, there is no such thing as "the natural scheme of things". Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

I have never gone that far, but (seriously) I routinely count to 31 on one hand... I have never managed to use ternary or symmetric ternary (place valeus of -1, 0, 1) on my fingers, for all 3 states of each finger seem easily possible. Nor have I ever managed to get the base -2 sequeence (it starts 00000 00001 00110 00111 00100...) flowing nicely on my fingers. -tony

Hey, 132 to you, too, buddy. -- Will

On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote: This intrigued me and I went straight off to read about it. The Wikipedia article on Pirah? is pretty poor, but I've done lots of digging on the fascinating Prof Dan Everett and the Pirah? people and it's an intriguing story. Thanks for the pointer. However, from Everett himself, the Pirah? have no numbers or counting at all. They do have 1/2/many but Everett now reckons these are purely relative assessments, not counting. 2 small fish are "h?i" (few, because less) than one large fish ("ho?"). http://machineslikeus.com/interviews/machines-us-interviews-daniel-l-everet… It's amazing. The language, he argues, even lacks recursion and thus violates Chomsky's UG. Chomsky is thus infuriated and has disowned Everett, who he calls a charlatan. Ain't that the truth... -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

Liam Proven [lproven at gmail.com] wrote: There's at least one New Scientist article that covers this particular group. I read it on dead tree, but I assume that subscribers could just search the archives for Everett and see it for themselves. one/two/many does seem to be for real, but there are many other fascinating things about these people and their language and how it seems to have shaped their thought processes. I guess they'd at least be able cope with binary (at least for sufficiently small numbers). Antonio

Liam Proven [lproven at gmail.com] wrote: Let me try again ... they can do 00, they can do 01, then they get stuck. That's "sufficiently small" in my book :-) One other thing I (think I) remember from the article is that it is (apparently) impossible assert affect without also stating how it is that you have knowledge of it: you can say (the equivalent of) "I saw John leave" or "I've been told that John has left" but you cannot say "John has left" without saying how it is you think you know. Perhaps we should hire them as politicians? (No expenses scandals :-)) Antonio

Liam Proven wrote: Maybe the unit of measure is the meal? Doc, only half-joking

On Sat, 29 May 2010, dwight elvey wrote: . . . and based on the very arbitrary basis of number of fingers. Q: then why not base 20? A: because the more dominant (agressive) cultures came from climates where feet were kept bundled up for warmth, and stank too much to expose them publicly As to the 8 egg holders in the fridge, perhaps it is related to why hot dogs are sold 10 to a pack, and hot dog buns are sold 8 to a pack. One cynical answer to that would be a deliberate attempt to force you to buy 40 at a time. Or maybe it is due to the same cause for number of appetizers tending to be realively prime with the number of diners? Or perhaps it is a natural function within the earth, attempting to adjust towards 6 * 7 to get 42? 'course the arrival of our Golgafrincham ancestors cocked that all up.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2010 5:20 PM Subject: Re: OT: Anyone off to VCF-UK where There is a woman that became famous on YouTube, by using only her *feet* to peel a banana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu1PY8PIrYA I haven't watched the video yet, so perhaps she cheated somehow? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

You mean number of finger _plus thumbs_. If it was the number of fingers only, we'd use octal, which IMHO is a much nicer number system. [Base 8 is just like base 10 really, if you're missing 2 fingers -- Tom Lehrer] -tony

On 30 May 2010 at 20:12, Roger Pugh wrote: My parents used a counting-on-the-knuckles scheme for remembering the days in each month. I don't recall the details, however. And if you want to see a musical application of counting on finger segments, see "guidonian hand". Very old. --Chuck

On 31 May 2010 at 0:08, Angel Martin Alganza wrote: Thank you, that sounds about right. I can imagine that this scheme is employed frequently in many non-English languages. (My parents spoke Lithuanian, which uses its own names for the months, not the names of Roman emperors and gods). --Chuck

On May 31, 2010, at 11:01 AM, Tony Duell wrote: (hmm...I didn't get that post, but saw Tony's reference to it) My dad taught me that method around 1960 or so. Using your right first finger as a pointer, point to the first knuckle (closest to palm) on your first finger of your left hand ... we'll be counting to the left (towards the little finger). Touch the knuckle, and say "January". Touch the valley between the first and second finger, ad say "February". Touch the knuckle of the second finger, ad say "March". When you hit the knuckle of the little finger, it's July. Since you've run out of fingers, go back to the first finger, touch the knuckle and say "August". Continue until you run out of months. The knuckles are 31 days, the valleys are 30 (except Feb, of course). Stan

----- Original Message ----- From: "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 2:55 AM Subject: Re: Anyone off to VCF-UK Actually, I think Roman Numerals are pretty cool. Ok, I only understand the particular format usually used for dates (e.g. MMVII = 2007), but I am aware there are (atleast) two other formats for Roman Numerals (neither of which I have learnt to understand yet - as I haven't tried to). Without Roman Numerals, would we ever have had sexadecimal / hexadecimal?? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

The Roman merchants and engineers had a fairly standard abacus thing, so math for them was not as bad as one might think. -- Will

On 31 May 2010 at 1:27, Andrew Burton wrote: You may be thinking of the way the ancient Greeks represented numbers. (there were at least two systems--one similar to the Roman and the other using letters for 1-9, 10-90, 100-900, with special modifiers for 1000-9000. After that the modifier for a myriad (10,000, quite literally) was used with each letter.) Archimedes devised a system where extremely large numbers (10**8, 10**16, etc.) could be represented. I don't know how the Romans translated his works, particularly his calculation of the number of grains of sand that would fit into the universe was around 10**64. Smart people, those Greeks. --Chuck

From: Chuck Guzis Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2010 6:04 PM Is Andrew thinking of the sexagesimal (base 60) system? That arose in Mesopotamia a millennium or more prior to the Romans. Which the Greeks inherited in turn from the Phoenicians; ancient Hebrew also used such a system. The origin of the numeral system in Greek is in fact earlier than some of the changes leading from the late Bronze Age dialects to the classical ones: The letters wau (later called "digamma" for its shape F, when the sound was long lost in all Greek dialects), qoppa, and sampi were used for "6", "90", and "900" respectively. The Semitic languages from whom this system was borrowed had (have) more than one s-like sound, and two k-like sounds; Greek mixed the names of some of the Phoenician letters to yield the names sigma and san (the "lunate sigma" used in some inscriptions and manuscripts). Note that the Indo-European linguistic ancestors of the Greeks, Romans, etc., used a decimal counting system which some daughter groups tweaked. (The Germanic group, for example, partially adopted a 12-based system on top of the decimal, naming the next values after "10" as "one-left" and "two-left".) Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

From: Andrew Burton Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 10:23 AM OK, I did a little research on this via Google. "Sexadecimal" is cited in a number of on-line dictionaries as a synonym for "hexadecimal", and there is a cite on one page indicating that Bendix used the term in documentation. However, "hexadecimal" dates from 1954 and is considered to be perfectly good scientific nomenclature in form (mixed Greek and Latin roots, and all that). I also ran across the 1862 book on "tonal" math, written by an engineer who created an adding machine c. 1850. This involved adding 6 symbols to the usual 10, placing one between "8" and "9" to represent the value 9, and assigning the value 10 to the symbol "9". He also assigned monosyllabic names to each number from 1 to 16 (the latter being "ton") so that each number could be pronounced as a (possibly very long) word. I sincerely doubt that this influenced the development of hexadecimal math to any great degree. As I noted in my response to Ben, I'm an Indo-Europeanist by training. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

Andrew Burton wrote: I think the Greeks used the letters of the alphabet as well for numbers. But who used numbers over a 100 when you think about it.

From: Ben Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2010 8:50 PM Herdsmen, for example, unless you don't believe that more than 100 cattle, sheep, or horses were ever gathered in one place. Ships. Members of an army. Members of a tribe (see, for a non-Greek example, the numbering of the descendants of Jacob in a classic text). Alfred Kroeber, when studying Ishi, believed that the Yahi (Ishi's branch of the Yana) had no large numbers for a long time--then came upon Ishi counting the dollars he had saved from his pay at the museum where he was housed in Berkeley. Ishi simply didn't see any reason to count in the abstract and got bored; when counting things important to him personally, he had vocabulary to do the job. Another linguistic truism: There has been no such thing as a "primitive language" since early in the evolution of modern humans. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

From: Ben Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 5:26 PM Please have more care with the placement of new material. *You* said that, not I. Yes, but do you understand how long humans have been using language? At least 50,000 years, and probably more than 200,000. It's even likely that Australopithecines had language. Oh, that's simply nonsense, and I doubt that you read that. (You may have misunderstood something you read to say that, I'll grant.) The horse was domesticated roughly 7,500 years ago, or anywhere from 7 to 25 times more recently than language in humans. Are you refering to _The Horse, the Wheel, and Language_? The author is an archaeological anthropologist, and both his linguistics and his use of Zoroastrian mythology is shaky (to be kind). I can only hope that the archaeology holds up better than the other two; I'm not qualified to judge its merits (only one arch. anthro. course in college). Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

From: Ben Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 8:46 PM Seriously???? Will you cite Jean Auel next? By training, I am an historical linguist specializing in Indo-European languages, with additional studies in Algonquian, Siouan, and Kartvelian linguistics. I thought we were having a real discussion of real data on (off) the topic. I admire Piers Anthony's facility with language, but he is entertainment rather than academics. I agree. The problem is that his missteps with the linguistics, and anachronistic use of Zoroastrian mythology, casts grave doubts on the interpretations he gives to the data he reports from Soviet-era digs. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

From: Ben Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010 12:44 PM Whatever. http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ Start with any of the links referring to Indo-European. Lehmann is a well- respected scholar in the field, even by those who do not agree with him. Most of what you will find on the Web having to do with Indo-European linguistics is crap. That includes the Wikipedia pages, too. Mostly, go to a university library and start reading. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

On Tue, 1 Jun 2010, Ben wrote: I've heard that VALTREP was the predecessor. (Sorry, Dan. I just couldn't resist)

Jules Richardson wrote: Nay ...

Did you know that Mr.Ed was actually a ZEBRA? If you don't believe it, check it out on SNOPES.COM http://www.snopes.com/lost/mistered.asp Snopes.com is almost as much of an authority as Wikipedia! :-) False Authority Syndrome

(emoticons when referring Mr. Ed reference to "Zebra" should have been more obvious) On Thu, 3 Jun 2010, John Foust wrote: Howzbout: http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/jailcall.asp http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/809.asp http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/triangle.asp I object to labelling "Mixture of True and false information" a lying fictitious story that contains a partial true story in its origins. The whole thing is a lie, not a "mix". Ever met a PBX that would do a call transfer to an outside line, or ANYTHING, by pressing 9 while on a call? Ever notice that your PHONE BOOK has an explicit statement that you can refuse to pay fo calls that you were not aware would be charged? "$24,000" V ~$10 (actual) ? That is NOT a "mix" of true and false. No recourse, nor compliance with USA laws, because it is a foreign company billing in USA? Yes, phone scams exist. Even "call back at 900- " and "Hello, Microsoft, this is Bill Gates out in the field, please transfer me to an outside line". But that is NOT enough to declare completely bogus "WARNINGS" to be "half true". Barbara does a great job. But there are some topics where she is over her head.

On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 1:27 AM, Andrew Burton <aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote: Hardly! The Romans nicked it off the Etruscans. The Romans are quite recent, you know. Only a couple of thousand years ago. Human societies of people identical to us have been around for about 40,000 years. The oldest buildings known so far are some 12,000 years ago - about 5 times longer before ancient Rome than Rome was before us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe We have written records from Pharoaonic Egypt from circa 7000-8000 years ago, which is just one of the more fun bits of evidence that the young-Earth Creationists are a bunch of deranged loonies. The Phaistos Disk shows that there was *print* long before ancient Rome. One or two hundred thousand years before the Cro-Magnon, the ancestors of the Europeans and most of the us, the Neanderthals had societies right across the world, hunting mammoths and so on. They left little trace other than fossils, so we know very little about them, but they had a human society that spread across Eurasia about a hundred times longer ago than ancient Rome. Roman numerals are no ancestral to anything much. They're a recent peculiarity! -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote: Fair enough. (That led to an interesting half an hour on Google on its own.) Well, yes, OK, conceded, but it's a decent quick run-down on the site. Yes, well, they are insane by any reasonable definition. It's why I don't bother even playing at debating with them any more; I just mock them. Well, it's contentious, and not only does nobody know what it means (if anything), without more examples, I doubt anyone ever will. But it looks to my fairly uneducated eye, as well as that of many domain experts, to be more like some kind of script than a decorative pattern, and if so, then its makers had stamps or seals for 45 different symbols, which although circumstantial suggests that at least the basic concept of movable type had been invented in 2000BC. Fair enough. I am no anthropologist. Thanks for the clarification. Conceded. Poor wording of mine there. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 9:01 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: You should read a couple of short essays by the great Frederik Pohl: "How to Count on Your Fingers," 1956 "On Binary Digits and Human Habits," 1962 -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508

Hi Continuing the off topic: When I ran my Rover TC2000 until almost empty, I found that the tank was Imperial gallons and not US. As for Tony, he can do what ever he likes and doesn't owe anyone an explanation as to why he doesn't want to go. Dwight _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:…

From: Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 12:22 PM Fred, That saying refers to weight, not price, and is American to boot--the British pint is 20oz, not 16. There is a similar rhyme there, the which I don't recall off hand. (Wait, maybe I do: "A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter", innit?) But yes, a pint will probably run you GBP2.50-4.00 ($DEITY, I miss L/s/d), based on what Ian and I were paying last month. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.PDPplanet.org/ http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

On Thu, 27 May 2010, Tony Duell wrote: In this context, and with the current state of my cochlea, I meant it figuratively in terms of lack of interruptions, rather than the audiological meaning. It certainly was. . . . wait until you meet her Outlive me, and lend a hand to "get rid of all that useless obsolete crap" -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

If it ain't broke, why ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of RodSmallwood [rodsmallwood at btconnect.com] Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 9:15 PM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only' Subject: RE: Anyone off to VCF-UK Of course we could join TNMoC en-mass and do a Mike Holmes on it. Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: 27 May 2010 20:50 To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Anyone off to VCF-UK On Thu, 27 May 2010, Tony Duell wrote: In this context, and with the current state of my cochlea, I meant it figuratively in terms of lack of interruptions, rather than the audiological meaning. It certainly was. my to . . . wait until you meet her Outlive me, and lend a hand to "get rid of all that useless obsolete crap" -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" has always struck me as being a particularly stupid saying. It would appear I should wait for my engine to seize before I change the oil, for example. In any case, some of us feel there are certainly thing about TNMoC that could be improved. -tony