Dori Schmetterling

I am a bit unclear here about the thrust of you post (so to speak!)

Are you agreeing with me that the duodecimal system is past it and that the
Dozenal Society is on a hiding to nothing?

DAS
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"Jim..." <a@b.c> wrote in message
news1nsgv4mgcnmr78tdrrth9g4da2j7415dv@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 9 Jul 2003 13:37:28 +0100, "Dori Schmetterling"
> <ng@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >I looked at the site and I read one of the articles on the website "Let's
> >not go metric".
> >
> >The more interesting-sounding one, Twelve and Ten:The Case Against the
> >System of Decimalization
> >could not be opened -- 'file damaged' error msg.
> >
> >Firstly I note you have followed the society in using a made-up word
> >"dozenal". Nothing wrong with that if you can persuade the rest of the
> >world to use it...
>
> not going to happen in my lifetime.
> >
>
> >The article in question looks as though it was written some time ago and,
> >even if it wasn't, manages, in my opinion, to exaggerate and to omit; it
is
> >self-serving after all, let's be clear about that.
> >
> >Just two examples:-
> >
> >It is true that in some countries the pound (weight) is used, but it is
> >clearly derived from the metric kg and to claim otherwise is misleading.
> >The 500-g pound is half a kg, not any relation to the 453-g Imperial lb.
>
> what countries? i can't think of more than one country that still uses
> the archaic pound. the rest of the world has moved on.
> >
> >It is true that many engineering measurements are derived from Imperial.
> >Not surprising since the Industrial Revolution began in Britain. But you
> >try screwing an Imperial quarter-inch nut on a metric 6 mm screw!
> >Related: Try giving an engineering drawing in Imperial to any European
> >engineer. With what is he/she going to measure the rooms? A measuring
tape
> >imported from the United States or UK? Yes, in Germany there are still
> >references to a Zollstock (an inch-stick or ruler) but it's only
> >metaphorical.
>
> is it actually possible that there's an engineering drawing made
> anywhere in the world in anything but the ISO system? including the
> USA?
> >
> >There were many units/measures in Europe, which are still found in the
> >languages. The old French sous is one (20 old centimes, a fifth of a
franc,
> >IIRC) But that doesn't mean it passes an So What? test.
> >
> >Metric rules (outside the USA), ok?
> >
> >DAS
>
> use rot13 on
> snezrewvz@vvarg.arg.nh
> to find me

Dori Schmetterling

See below.

DAS
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"Ricardo" <sovietjamaicanguy@spamfreezone.yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:3f1060b5.43538482@news...
> On Wed, 9 Jul 2003 13:37:28 +0100, "Dori Schmetterling"
> <ng@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Firstly I note you have followed the society in using a made-up word
> >"dozenal".
>
> It's a simpler word than "duodecimal" and also signifies twelve as a
> sacrosanct cardinal rather than pandering to ten ("duodecimal"
> pertains to two upon ten).

You skated round my main point in that you would need to get that word
widely understood to communicate meaning with it.

>
> >Metric rules (outside the USA), ok?
>
> Metric isn't the problem; decimalization (kind of) is. Now
> personally, I don't have any problems working in base ten; one of
> the strongest cases given for switching to base twelve is the fact
> that it is neatly divisible by three and therefore reflects the real
> world more accurately (idem the "awkwardness" of working with five
> in base twelve). However, given that [ten]^n / 3 MOD [ten] = 1 where
> n>0, and [ten]^n / 3 always yields 3[...].3 recurring, it isn't that
> hard to handle threes in decimal base. Plus, decimal makes fives a
> breeze (fancy 0.2497249724972497... in base twelve? Neither
> decimal nor dozenal make sevens any easier to work with; 1/7 is a
> full period prime in both bases, although the dozenal fraction
> 0.186T35 makes drawing a hexagram freehand on a "clockface" circular
> diagram a whole lot easier, for what that's worth. :}
>
> All in all, while a dozenal metric system could arguably be
> considered "easier" and more convenient and suitable for everyday
> use, it is much tougher to make a concrete case for actually
> wholeheartedly converting to it from our current decimal system.
> Otoh, maybe people could get used to using both side by side...
>
"Arguably"?? If you come to the real world I think the voices on the side
of the duodecimal system are pretty faint, or at least there are few of
them. I am very glad I no longer have to add up farthings, ha'pennies,
shillings, guineas etc.

I am glad to see the back of them, together with the rod, the perch, the
furlong, the long ton, the short ton and the whole lot of them. I know, of
course, that may still exist, such a furling in horse-racing, the chain (22
yards) in cricket, the nautical mile and feet in aviation, but these are
minor applications.

And in answer to the comments about Radio Shack converters, for those of you
who have Palms, try this free download:
http://www.mattmarsh.net/computing/palmpilot.shtml

DAS

> --
> ricardo, ex-euroslav vancouver bc canada
> e-mail: remove spamfreezone to reply
> for liability purposes: I *always* obey the law.
> '89 grand am le, garaged; '91 mx6 gt

Ricardo

On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 23:56:11 GMT, "Philip®"
<chipstate@earthlink.net> wrote:

>> A rod? Actually names aren't that critical; my point is that a
>> dozenally based metric system is still a metric system. And such a
>> system based on ft. and in. is really easy to conceive.
>>
>> Using base twelve (10=twelve, 100=gross, 1000="liriad", etc.):
>> 10 inches = 1 foot 3 feet = 1 yard
>> 10 feet = 1 rod = 4 yds 100 ft = 10 rods = 40 yds
>> 100 rods = 1 furlong = 1000 ft = 400 yds
>> 3 furlongs = 1 mile = 3000 ft = 300 rods = 1000 yds
>>
>> Now, here cometh the interesting comparison between this and the
>> imperial system:
>>
>> 1 imperial mile = decimal 1760 yds = decimal 5280'
>> 1 dznl metric mile = 1000 yds = dec. 1728 yds = 3000' = dec. 5184'
>
>Where's my Pyramid "inch" and "cubit?"

Given the relative flexibility of the system and base twelve in
general, the finer details can easily be formalized at a later point
in time.

--
ricardo, ex-euroslav vancouver bc canada
e-mail: remove spamfreezone to reply
for liability purposes: I *always* obey the law.
'89 grand am le, garaged; '91 mx6 gt

Dori Schmetterling

As I said, I was glad to see the back of the Imperial system, whatever
'elegance' the duodecimal bits may have had. I just like to shift decimal
points...

Of course non-decimal counting systems are entrenched, such as in counting
of time, but it doesn't make working with it easier. Adding up hours and
days etc is a pain in the butt. My Lotus 1-2-3 v9 can't even handle it
(though here I say, "shame on the programmers"); havn't tried MS Excel.

Admit it, Ricardo, you're a geek. You love bloatware, too, I suppose...

:-))
DAS
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"Ricardo" <sovietjamaicanguy@spamfreezone.yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:3f12ee0a.76916045@news...
> On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 16:06:07 +0100, "Dori Schmetterling"
> <ng@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >> >Firstly I note you have followed the society in using a made-up word
> >> >"dozenal".
> >>
> >> It's a simpler word than "duodecimal" and also signifies twelve as a
> >> sacrosanct cardinal rather than pandering to ten ("duodecimal"
> >> pertains to two upon ten).
> >
> >You skated round my main point in that you would need to get that word
> >widely understood to communicate meaning with it.
>
> Sorry, I took that as being a given. But, uhh, what would be the
> complication? "Dozen" = twelve; "dozenal" = pertaining to twelve;
> uhhh, that's, uhhh, it. :} Where's the inherent difficulty?
>
> >> All in all, while a dozenal metric system could arguably be
> >> considered "easier" and more convenient and suitable for everyday
> >> use, it is much tougher to make a concrete case for actually
> >> wholeheartedly converting to it from our current decimal system.
> >> Otoh, maybe people could get used to using both side by side...
> >>
> >"Arguably"?? If you come to the real world I think the voices on the
side
> >of the duodecimal system are pretty faint, or at least there are few of
> >them.
>
> The problem in the real world is inertia. Plus some people ASSume
> that dozenal can't be easier because twelves are harder to count:
> 12, 24, etc. But that is only due to the bassackwards decimal
> numbering in the first instance! Notice how, for example, using
> dozenal base, that e.g. 5am remains 05h (on the 20h clock) but 5pm
> is 15h rather than decimal 17h. Preceding "0" for am, preceding "1"
> for pm. Twelve and multiples thereof are the order of the day, here
> in the real world. The Babylonian affectation with sixty panders to
> decimalism, of course, although combining bases five/ten and
> six/twelve isn't actually a bad compromise all in all. Clever bunch,
> those Babylonians. :}
>
> >I am very glad I no longer have to add up farthings, ha'pennies,
> >shillings, guineas etc.
>
> I agree that they're a pain to work with in *decimal* base. In
> dozenal, they're a cinch:
>
> 10 old pennies in a shilling. Sure there are 18 shillings in a
> pound, but that again (decimal 20) panders to decimalism. Therein
> lies the flaw: when one tries to shoehorn a world of twelves into a
> system of tens.
>
> When did you last by eggs by the box of ten? :}
>
> >I am glad to see the back of them, together with the rod, the perch, the
> >furlong, the long ton, the short ton and the whole lot of them. I know,
of
> >course, that may still exist, such a furling in horse-racing, the chain
(22
> >yards) in cricket, the nautical mile and feet in aviation, but these are
> >minor applications.
>
> Imperial is silly because it doesn't use a consistent base, and many
> of the bases/subdivisions other than those based on twelve are
> almost worse than useless in practical terms, not to mention
> completely and utterly illogical beyond comprehension. But an
> imperial based system using ONLY base twelve would, in fact, be a
> metric system pure and simple, just like our current decimalized
> metric system with ten cubed metres in a kilometre, etc. In the
> example system I envisaged and just posted about, three lots of
> twelve cubed feet equalling a mile is almost perfectly equivalent to
> five lots of ten cubed plus two lots of ten squared plus eight lots
> of ten feet equalling an imperial mile. But which is simpler?
>
> --
> ricardo, ex-euroslav vancouver bc canada
> e-mail: remove spamfreezone to reply
> for liability purposes: I *always* obey the law.
> '89 grand am le, garaged; '91 mx6 gt

Ricardo

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 15:47:00 +0100, "Dori Schmetterling"
<ng@nospam.co.uk> wrote:

>Outside Britain, Singapore and a few places like
>that Imperial might as well be Martian.

So why are metric versions of traditional customary measures still
so popular in so many countries?

When living back in Europe, I knew that a "pint" of beer was a half
a litre, but still thought of it as a "pint" of beer nonetheless.
Similarly the decimal 250ml glasses are "half pints". A half kilo is
a "pound" and so forth.

Customary units are not dead, nor are they necessarily undesirable.
They are sometimes at odds with a decimal metric system, although
the decimal rounding of popular customary units is a reasonable
compromise if we are to remain trapped in the base ten straitjacket.

--
ricardo, ex-euroslav vancouver bc canada
e-mail: remove spamfreezone to reply
for liability purposes: I *always* obey the law.
'89 grand am le, garaged; '91 mx6 gt

Larry Kessler

"Dori Schmetterling" <ng@nospam.co.uk> wrote:

>Of course non-decimal counting systems are entrenched, such as in counting
>of time, but it doesn't make working with it easier. Adding up hours and
>days etc is a pain in the butt. My Lotus 1-2-3 v9 can't even handle it
>(though here I say, "shame on the programmers"); havn't tried MS Excel.

Excel seems to handle hours pretty well.

Liam Devlin

Ricardo wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 13:38:34 +0100, "Dori Schmetterling"
> <ng@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>As I said, I was glad to see the back of the Imperial system, whatever
>>'elegance' the duodecimal bits may have had. I just like to shift decimal
>>points...
>
> How would shifting duodecimal points be any different, other than
> "coping" with the digits T and E?
>
>>Of course non-decimal counting systems are entrenched, such as in counting
>>of time, but it doesn't make working with it easier.
>
> Mainly because we shoehorn it into base ten.
>
>>Adding up hours and
>>days etc is a pain in the butt.
>
> In base twelve there are 50 seconds in a minute and minutes per
> hour, 20 hours in a day and 26 days in September, April, June and
> November. In base ten, 24 is a bit more awkward to work with, for
> sure, at least for everyday "layman" purposes. To figure that a 9 to
> 5 workday lasts eight hours, in decimal you have to take the 5 hours
> after noon and add them to the decimal 12-9 hours before noon,
> giving 5+3=8, or convert 5pm to decimal 17h and then subtract 9 from
> 17. This is simplified by the dozenal equation 15-9=8.
>
>>My Lotus 1-2-3 v9 can't even handle it
>>(though here I say, "shame on the programmers"); havn't tried MS Excel.
>>
>>Admit it, Ricardo, you're a geek.
>
> Probably more of a pragmatist. :}
>
>>You love bloatware, too, I suppose...
>>
>>:-))
>
> Lol.

Are you on a mission from God or something, Ricardo?

Ricardo

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 08:23:45 GMT, Liam Devlin
<LiamD@XXXX.optonline.net> wrote:

>Are you on a mission from God or something, Ricardo?

Quoi, moi?

--
ricardo, ex-euroslav vancouver bc canada
e-mail: remove spamfreezone to reply
for liability purposes: I *always* obey the law.
'89 grand am le, garaged; '91 mx6 gt

HP_BRS

I find your signature regarding "how dumb the average guy is" to be
curious. The average guy does not represent the half-way point in a
distribution - you would use the median (not mean) for that measure.

Good luck,

HP_BRS

Omphalos <omphalos@xmsg.com> wrote in message news:<AgiNa.17418$ic1.317121@twister.tampabay.rr.c om>...
> There is a lot of talk about BMW, VW and American sedans. Has
> anyone ever considered the Nissan Maxima or the Toyota Camry? These
> two sedans fully loaded and optioned down are cheaper, faster, more
> reliable, better handling and more comfortable and practical than your
> typical VW, BMW, or Brand X American sedan.
>
> You could buy a fully loaded Camry and have a pile of money left over
> to spend. You would also have a lot more room than your typical VW or
> BMW. The German sedans just do not have any room in them for larger
> people. Fitting 4 or 5 people in them would be a stretch of the
> imagination.
>
> --
> __________
> ==\ /================================
> ===\ /==You know how dumb the average==
> ====\ /===guy is? Well half of everyone==
> =====\ /======is even dumber than that=====
> ======\/====================================
>
> http://31337.pl

Aaron Solochek

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 05:35:03 -0700, HP_BRS wrote:

> I find your signature regarding "how dumb the average guy is" to be
> curious. The average guy does not represent the half-way point in a
> distribution - you would use the median (not mean) for that measure.
>
> Good luck,
>
> HP_BRS
>


I would bet that the intelligence distribution is right skewed, so it
would be correct to say "At least half of everyone is even dumber than
that."

-Aaron



> Omphalos <omphalos@xmsg.com> wrote in message news:<AgiNa.17418$ic1.317121@twister.tampabay.rr.c om>...
>> There is a lot of talk about BMW, VW and American sedans. Has
>> anyone ever considered the Nissan Maxima or the Toyota Camry? These
>> two sedans fully loaded and optioned down are cheaper, faster, more
>> reliable, better handling and more comfortable and practical than your
>> typical VW, BMW, or Brand X American sedan.
>>
>> You could buy a fully loaded Camry and have a pile of money left over
>> to spend. You would also have a lot more room than your typical VW or
>> BMW. The German sedans just do not have any room in them for larger
>> people. Fitting 4 or 5 people in them would be a stretch of the
>> imagination.
>>
>> --
>> __________
>> ==\ /================================
>> ===\ /==You know how dumb the average==
>> ====\ /===guy is? Well half of everyone==
>> =====\ /======is even dumber than that=====
>> ======\/====================================
>>
>> http://31337.pl

HP_BRS

No betting required. Not to split hairs, but the median is the
midpoint by definition, the mean is not. There are plenty of
mean/median iq population studies available, and there almost always
is a statistically significant difference.

Good luck,

HP_BRS


Aaron Solochek <aarons-news@aberrant.org> wrote in message news:<pan.2003.07.16.15.49.20.206373@aberrant.org> ...
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 05:35:03 -0700, HP_BRS wrote:
>
> > I find your signature regarding "how dumb the average guy is" to be
> > curious. The average guy does not represent the half-way point in a
> > distribution - you would use the median (not mean) for that measure.
> >
> > Good luck,
> >
> > HP_BRS
> >
>
>
> I would bet that the intelligence distribution is right skewed, so it
> would be correct to say "At least half of everyone is even dumber than
> that."
>
> -Aaron
>
>
>
> > Omphalos <omphalos@xmsg.com> wrote in message news:<AgiNa.17418$ic1.317121@twister.tampabay.rr.c om>...
> >> There is a lot of talk about BMW, VW and American sedans. Has
> >> anyone ever considered the Nissan Maxima or the Toyota Camry? These
> >> two sedans fully loaded and optioned down are cheaper, faster, more
> >> reliable, better handling and more comfortable and practical than your
> >> typical VW, BMW, or Brand X American sedan.
> >>
> >> You could buy a fully loaded Camry and have a pile of money left over
> >> to spend. You would also have a lot more room than your typical VW or
> >> BMW. The German sedans just do not have any room in them for larger
> >> people. Fitting 4 or 5 people in them would be a stretch of the
> >> imagination.
> >>
> >> --
> >> __________
> >> ==\ /================================
> >> ===\ /==You know how dumb the average==
> >> ====\ /===guy is? Well half of everyone==
> >> =====\ /======is even dumber than that=====
> >> ======\/====================================
> >>
> >> http://31337.pl

Greeneyed

Wow, what a fascinating thread... looks like this has gone from soup
to nuts, NY to China, to hell and back. ;-)

Just thought I'd add my .02, having been a consumer of both Japanese
and German automobiles. Things have definitely changed over the
years... German engineering has been finding its way into Japanese
cars, and Japanese reliability has been finding its way into German
cars; but the stereotypes are still noticeable.

Still, I see the basic breakdown GENERALLY as this:

Nissan/Infiniti: Highly reliable, excellent price/value, economical to
operate and maintain. Varying by model: decent handling,
fair/excellent performance, decent/excellent ride, and good/excellent
passenger comfort. NOTE: Infiniti service is excellent, Nissan
service is average/poor.

BMW/Audi: Fairly reliable, expensive to maintain (if outside service
plan), fair to poor economy/efficiency, and excellent handling.
Varying by model: average price/value, good to excellent performance,
fair to good passenger comfort (usually firmer than Japanese). NOTE:
Comparatively BMW service is average/good, Audi is excellent.
IMPORTANT NOTE: BMW RWD is poor in snow/rain, and although AWD has
been introduced, it is only available in one or two models.

All in all, if you've got the money to burn and handling is more
important to you than ride (sports sedan vs. luxury sedan), go with
BMW or Audi. Otherwise, the Japanese are still winning in the
price/value arena.

Btw, I left off Mercedes because the "C" class comparative to
Nissan/Infiniti/BMW(3)/Audi(A4) is unreliable junk to be avoided.

Ricardo

On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 19:36:54 GMT,
sovietjamaicanguy@spamfreezone.yahoo.ca (Ricardo) wrote:

>However, given that [ten]^n / 3 MOD [ten] = 1

Oops, my bad, this ought to be [ten]^n MOD 3 = 1 (i.e. cast out the
threes from any positive integer power of ten and the remainder is
always one - what was I eating/drinking/smoking when I typed the
above?)