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From: Adrian Tuddenham on 19 Mar 2010 05:34 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > Adrian Tuddenham <adrian(a)poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote: > > > T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: > [snip] > > I presented a programme on "Resonance FM" > > <http://resonancefm.com/faq> > > Interesting sounding station - although that address: > > "144 Borough High Street, London SE1 1LB," > > Makes 'em sure to be a bunch of crooks[1]. Me, biased due to having > been brought up in the leafy suburbs of NW London? Surely not? That's the registered office address, the studio was in Denmark Street until my series ended and the roof fell in. -- ~ Adrian Tuddenham ~ (Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply) www.poppyrecords.co.uk
From: J. J. Lodder on 19 Mar 2010 08:52 Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > J. J. Lodder <nospam(a)de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > > > > > > [snip] > > > > > > > > Of course the worktop was 25 *mm* thick and that I guess is the price > > > > > for not working in std units (I thought you weren't supposed to use cm > > > > > or something, just mm, m , km etc?). > > > > > > > > For scientific publication, yes. > > > > > > Since `cm' is perfectly standard SI from prefix to unit, I don't see > > > that that can be right. > > > > SI guidelines say nowadays that use of non 10^3 powers > > is to be discouraged. > > Hmm - I've not been able to find such a guideline from the SI people > proper. Can you provide a link? I want to read what the SI people are > actually saying in detail - your claims being unreliable, you see. If that's your attitude you can google for yourself. > Thing is, `to be discouraged', yeah, generally - that's been obvious to > me ever since I first me SI prefixes, way back when. > > But your claim of `to be discouraged' (vague passive tense stuff like > that is usually bullshit) is not the same as `these are now off-limits'. The CIPM offers guidelines, not laws. > Some of the non-to-the-power-of-three multiples are very useful in a > human world where human beings need to understand the numbers. Sure. Applies to science and technology only. > > > One doesn't use `cm' in science, normally. But there's no ban on doing > > > so even in publication - unless particular publications *do* set such > > > rules, but I've never heard of anyone bothering to do so. > > > > The millibars and the hectopascals are also on the way out, > > Eh? What? Hectopascals? Who ever found them useful? Ah. 1 bar = 100 > kilopascals, it says here. Bars are out, hence so are millibars. So millibars were renamed to hectopascals, which are now out too. > Durr. Yeah, okay[1]. > > Getting rid of millibars is silly. They're a very useful unit - but > hardly a part of SI. And so hectopascals are also just as useful. I've seen the first weather maps labelled in kPA. In another 100 years or so they all will be. > Anyone wanting to get rid of them is making a big mistake, because they > are very useful and totally standard. As were psi and bar. Yet my tires have Max. Press. in kPA on them nowadays. (about 300 of them, iirc) Jan
From: Phil Taylor on 19 Mar 2010 14:48 In article <1jflapf.134itgp1y7ue9N%peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk>, Peter Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > Do you understand that, Peter? > > As usual, long before you mentioned it. > > Everything I mentioned stands. But it appears quite clear that you have > never had to use Imperial measurements in real life, except in a > microscopic way. And that your ability to do reality checks is seriously > impaired. I'm with Roland here Peter. I'm nearly as old as you, so I was taught both systems at school. At work (as a research scientist) I used exclusively metric (or SI units [1]), but for most other things I still prefer Imperial. For example, nowadays I do a lot of woodwork, and (with one exception[2]) I measure everything in feet and inches. It's simply faster and more accurate to work in conveniently sized units, especially when they divide up in a binary fashion. The metre is too big and the millimetre too small. And like it or not, the imperial system is still going strong when it comes to raw materials. Last year I built a boat, using Lloyds-certified marine plywood. Sizes of plywood sheets are quoted in mm - lots of mm long and wide and 6mm or 3mm thick, but it turned out that those measurements were only nominal - actually the sheets were exactly 8' x 4' x 1/4" or 1/8". Imperial measures evolved separately for each trade, producing the most convenient sized units for the purpose, so carpenters used feet and inches, farmers used yards and furlongs, greengrocers used pounds and ounces and coal merchants used cwts and tons. The problems came only when these units were all used together as one system, because you then had to do the arithmetic using multiple base systems. I really don't think that learning to do that held back my education in the slightest though. At least it meant that when the time came I had no trouble with hexadecimal! [1] I'm the only person (that I know of) that ever found a use for the ato- prefix. I once developed an assay for serotonin whose sensitivity was measured in atomoles. I notice that the spelling chucker on this newsreader doesn't like the word atomole:-) [2] The exception is measuring the fret positions on guitars. Metric is definitely more convenient where you have to use a computer to calculate a whole series of measurements. Phil Taylor
From: Elliott Roper on 19 Mar 2010 16:24 In article <190320101848153800%nothere(a)all.invalid>, Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> wrote: > In article <1jflapf.134itgp1y7ue9N%peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk>, Peter > Ceresole <peter(a)cara.demon.co.uk> wrote: > > > Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig(a)flur.bltigibbet.invalid> wrote: > > > > > Do you understand that, Peter? > > > > As usual, long before you mentioned it. > > > > Everything I mentioned stands. But it appears quite clear that you have > > never had to use Imperial measurements in real life, except in a > > microscopic way. And that your ability to do reality checks is seriously > > impaired. > > I'm with Roland here Peter. I'm nearly as old as you, so I was taught > both systems at school. At work (as a research scientist) I used > exclusively metric (or SI units [1]), but for most other things I still > prefer Imperial. For example, nowadays I do a lot of woodwork, and > (with one exception[2]) I measure everything in feet and inches. It's > simply faster and more accurate to work in conveniently sized units, > especially when they divide up in a binary fashion. The metre is too > big and the millimetre too small. And like it or not, the imperial > system is still going strong when it comes to raw materials. Last year > I built a boat, using Lloyds-certified marine plywood. Sizes of > plywood sheets are quoted in mm - lots of mm long and wide and 6mm or > 3mm thick, but it turned out that those measurements were only nominal > - actually the sheets were exactly 8' x 4' x 1/4" or 1/8". That's just the blight of soft conversions. I grew up Imperial in Australia and was teaching high school maths when they went metric all at once. It worked beautifully. The kids loved it, the changeover process was pitched at getting everyone to think metric and never do conversions. Even for the oldies, it was over in a year. Took a bit longer for residents of Blacktown and Campbelltown (pommy ghettos for the hard of thinking on the outskirts of Sydney) Here in leftpondia they started earlier and are still about 10% of the way to going sensible. Typical polite muddle through. It has its charm, but efficient it ain't. Meter and millimeter are brilliant conventions. As is the whole engineering convention of leaping units by a factor of 10^3 Nobody gets tripped up by decimal points in practice. Just like you extol all those binary vulgar fractions. The sheer joy of working in exponents is right in your face in metric. Tell me again about how many square yards in an acre! Today I was ordering MOT Type 1 screenings to spruce up my drive. The bloke doing the work struggled in Imperial and was out by a factor of 2. I got it right in seconds. > Imperial measures evolved separately for each trade, producing the most > convenient sized units for the purpose, so carpenters used feet and > inches, farmers used yards and furlongs, greengrocers used pounds and > ounces and coal merchants used cwts and tons. The problems came only > when these units were all used together as one system, because you then > had to do the arithmetic using multiple base systems. I really don't > think that learning to do that held back my education in the slightest > though. At least it meant that when the time came I had no trouble > with hexadecimal! > > [1] I'm the only person (that I know of) that ever found a use for the > ato- prefix. I once developed an assay for serotonin whose sensitivity > was measured in atomoles. I notice that the spelling chucker on this > newsreader doesn't like the word atomole:-) I'm not surprised by that. Everyone else spells it 'atto' Attoboy! > [2] The exception is measuring the fret positions on guitars. Metric > is definitely more convenient where you have to use a computer to > calculate a whole series of measurements. Right on. That's what computers are for. Oh and for remembering it was Aldo Ray who was the third "No Angel" -- To de-mung my e-mail address:- fsnospam$elliott$$ PGP Fingerprint: 1A96 3CF7 637F 896B C810 E199 7E5C A9E4 8E59 E248
From: Peter Ceresole on 19 Mar 2010 16:31
Phil Taylor <nothere(a)all.invalid> wrote: > It's > simply faster and more accurate to work in conveniently sized units, > especially when they divide up in a binary fashion. The metre is too > big and the millimetre too small. Who's talking about metres and millimetres? I do furniture shifting/fitting and all kinds of work about the house and garden. I use metres, centimetres and millimetres as a seamless continuum. Whichever is most convenient, I use. The metric system is far and away more flexible than Imperial, where unless you are prepared to do mind-boggling conversions (12 times if you want to go from feet to inches- god give me strength) you are stuck in one scale. No such problems in metric. All you have to be able to do is to count, and to do simple arithmetic. No, I think in this case although you may be used to doing things your way, and nobody would stop you, I would find Imperial a strangulating handicap. And I was educated to use both, just like you... -- Peter |