13 May
2010
13 May
'10
2:15 a.m.
On 10 May 2010, at 21:29, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Message: 26
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 13:28:32 -0700
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Subject: Re: Greatest videogame device (was Re: An option - Re:
thebeginningof
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <4BE80A00.31785.DF06BA at cclist.sydex.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
On 10 May 2010 at 19:11, Andrew Burton wrote:
About ten years ago the BBC made an official statement that when talking about money, a
billion would mean a thousand million but elsewhere it would mean a million million.
To me a number is a number and that was b......t but the problem is US has a bit too much
influence on broadcasting, you only have to look at the questions on the UK version of
'who wants to be a millionaire' where they asked what you would do with a
'brown betty' in a fairly low value question. The contestant and I guess 75% of
the audience had no idea. Of course the other 25% might have just guessed randomly.
Actually there is really no excuse for creating confusion as they could just as easily
talk about GigaPounds or GigaDollars or for 10^12, TeraPounds/Dollars.
I have no problem with the many americanisms in my life but to me numbers are sacrosanct.
Just because a single US journalist made a mistake in the 1930s should not make us all
roll over and play dead on a matter of principal.
Roger (UK born and bred)
So if someone in the US orders a billion
<insert item here> from a
company in the UK, how many of the item should they expect to
receive?! Is that why orders are given in numbers and not words, and
why cheques have both?
Well, as I mentioned, I listen to the BBC World Service a lot and
today they were taling about the ECB bailout fund as being one
Trillion dollars.
Economics aside, I don't think they were talking about 10**18
simoleons, unless they were Zimbabwean simoleons.
If the BBC uses the short form billion, trillion, then it's pretty
safe to assume that the long form is sunsetting.
--Chuck 
13 May
13 May
5:22 a.m.
At 04:15 AM 5/13/2010, Roger Holmes wrote:
To me a number is a number and that was b......t but
the problem is US has a bit too much influence on broadcasting, you only have to look at
the questions on the UK version of 'who wants to be a millionaire' where they
asked what you would do with a 'brown betty' in a fairly low value question.
Another phrase with a British meaning and a USAian meaning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Betty
I have no problem with the many americanisms in my life
but to me numbers are sacrosanct. Just because a single US journalist made a mistake in
the 1930s should not make us all roll over and play dead on a matter of principal.
Principal? Are we talking about money again, or values? There's a principle at
stake!
- John
5:49 a.m.
You mean, kind of like "aluminium?"
I will never, ever refer to a kilo-, mega-, giga-, ... bytes in kibi-, mibi-, gibi, ...
that sounds dumb. Oh, and Pluto is still a planet. ;)
On May 13, 2010, at 4:15 AM, Roger Holmes wrote:
On 10 May 2010, at 21:29, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Message: 26
Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 13:28:32 -0700
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Subject: Re: Greatest videogame device (was Re: An option - Re:
thebeginningof
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <4BE80A00.31785.DF06BA at cclist.sydex.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
On 10 May 2010 at 19:11, Andrew Burton wrote:
About ten years ago the BBC made an official statement that when talking about money, a
billion would mean a thousand million but elsewhere it would mean a million million.
To me a number is a number and that was b......t but the problem is US has a bit too much
influence on broadcasting, you only have to look at the questions on the UK version of
'who wants to be a millionaire' where they asked what you would do with a
'brown betty' in a fairly low value question. The contestant and I guess 75% of
the audience had no idea. Of course the other 25% might have just guessed randomly.
Actually there is really no excuse for creating confusion as they could just as easily
talk about GigaPounds or GigaDollars or for 10^12, TeraPounds/Dollars.
I have no problem with the many americanisms in my life but to me numbers are sacrosanct.
Just because a single US journalist made a mistake in the 1930s should not make us all
roll over and play dead on a matter of principal.
Roger (UK born and bred)
So if someone in the US orders a billion
<insert item here> from a
company in the UK, how many of the item should they expect to
receive?! Is that why orders are given in numbers and not words, and
why cheques have both?
Well, as I mentioned, I listen to the BBC World Service a lot and
today they were taling about the ECB bailout fund as being one
Trillion dollars.
Economics aside, I don't think they were talking about 10**18
simoleons, unless they were Zimbabwean simoleons.
If the BBC uses the short form billion, trillion, then it's pretty
safe to assume that the long form is sunsetting.
--Chuck 
6:21 a.m.
On 13 May 2010 13:49, Geoff Oltmans <oltmansg at bellsouth.net> wrote:
You mean, kind of like "aluminium?"
Humphry Davy wanted to call it Aluminum but apparently that didn't sound
'Classical' enough.
Or was that what you meant?
--
Pete Edwards
"It looks just like a Telefunken U-47" - Frank Zappa
6:55 a.m.
Just pointing out other areas of contention with nomenclature. ;)
It's not like there aren't plenty of other elements in the periodic table that
ended in -um instead of -ium. Never have figured out what the fuss was about this one.
________________________________
From: Pete Edwards <stimpy.u.idiot at gmail.com>
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thu, May 13, 2010 8:21:29 AM
Subject: Re: Greatest videogame device (was Re: An option - Re: thebeginningof
On 13 May 2010 13:49, Geoff Oltmans <oltmansg at bellsouth.net> wrote:
You mean, kind of like "aluminium?"
Humphry Davy wanted to call it Aluminum but apparently that didn't sound
'Classical' enough.
Or was that what you meant?
--
Pete Edwards
"It looks just like a Telefunken U-47" - Frank Zappa
11:37 a.m.
> You mean, kind of like "aluminium?"
On Thu, 13 May 2010, Pete Edwards wrote:
Humphry Davy wanted to call it Aluminum but apparently
that didn't sound
'Classical' enough.
Or was that what you meant?
Being able to spell competantly is no longer a graduation requirement.
The license plate frame on my car says, "UC Berkeley Aluminum"
But, I also had an aluminium one made for my doctoral advisor, who is
British.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
8:50 a.m.
On 13 May 2010 at 10:15, Roger Holmes wrote:
Actually there is really no excuse for creating
confusion as they
could just as easily talk about GigaPounds or GigaDollars or for
10^12, TeraPounds/Dollars.
I have no problem with the many americanisms in my life but to me
numbers are sacrosanct. Just because a single US journalist made a
mistake in the 1930s should not make us all roll over and play dead on
a matter of principal.
Principle? Or is that another Americanism of which I'm not aware?
In my lexicon, money is a matter of principal, as is the leader of a
group.
With the increasing proliferation of terms describing our prowess in
making things smaller, faster, and less valuable (yotta, exa, zetta,
zepto, yocto, etc.) nomenclature has gotten completely out of hand.
What we really need is a word denoting the base-10 logarithmic scale
of a number. Something could be coined that's akin to "point" ("ten
to the..." is just too verbally cumbersome). A nice short word, like
"burp" would do. So we could talk about a "burp 6" euros or "5
burp
10 Zimbabwean dollars"
It's really a shame that we introduce "scientific notation" so late
in school mathematics as if it's something peculiar to the test tube
and telescope set. I think it should be taught right from the outset
with basic counting. The result might be a better comprehension of
numeric precision (another pet peeve of mine).
--Chuck
11:18 a.m.
On Thu, 13 May 2010, Chuck Guzis wrote:
What we really need is a word denoting the base-10
logarithmic scale
of a number. Something could be coined that's akin to "point" ("ten
to the..." is just too verbally cumbersome). A nice short word, like
"burp" would do. So we could talk about a "burp 6" euros or "5
burp
10 Zimbabwean dollars"
It's really a shame that we introduce "scientific notation" so late
in school mathematics as if it's something peculiar to the test tube
and telescope set. I think it should be taught right from the outset
with basic counting. The result might be a better comprehension of
numeric precision (another pet peeve of mine).
40+ years ago, superscripts were rather awkward to do with a typewriter,
so many working scientists started using E (not as appealing as "burp").
6.02 E 23
5 E 10
etc.
11:35 a.m.
40+ years ago, superscripts were rather awkward to do
with a typewriter,
so many working scientists started using E (not as appealing as "burp").
6.02 E 23
5 E 10
etc.
fwiw 9and to make this marginally on-topic), HP 9800 calcualtors accept
that notation when reading a string of characters from an interface
device. 1.2E3 would be taken as 1200. The HP11203 BCD interface actually
produces that sort of string in hardware from the BCD lines coming from a
measuring instruemtn.
Of course you get idiots who think '1 million is ten to the sixth. So
that's 10E6' Of course ti's 1E6 really...
-tony
1:46 p.m.
On 13 May 2010 at 11:18, Fred Cisin wrote:
40+ years ago, superscripts were rather awkward to do
with a
typewriter, so many working scientists started using E (not as
appealing as "burp"). 6.02 E 23 5 E 10 etc.
You know that I know that, Fred. Shall we use "D" for the base to a
double-precision exponent. But "burp" is easy to say and can be
spelled in most languages. "E" maybe not so much.
(Which sidetracks me to the pronounciation of "euro". It must really
grate on various nationalities that it's not pronouced "oy-ro". But
I digress).
Similarly, we need another simple one-syllable designator for
negative exponents. How about "pop"?
--Chuck
11:07 a.m.
On Thu, 13 May 2010, Roger Holmes wrote:
About ten years ago the BBC made an official statement
that when talking
about money, a billion would mean a thousand million but elsewhere it
would mean a million million.
To me a number is a number and that was b......t but the problem is US
has a bit too much influence on broadcasting, you only have to look at
. . . and IBM has a Megabyte of disk space is 1,024,000 10^3*2^10
a megabyte of memory is 1,048,576 2^20
a megahertz is 1,000,000 10^6
a number is a number and that is b......t but the problem is IBM has a bit
too much influence, . . .
5337
days inactive
5337
days old
12 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
oltmansg＠bellsouth.net -
roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk -
stimpy.u.idiot＠gmail.com