Decimal Time

[rickman]

Jeff Liebermann wrote on 9/2/2017 7:35 PM:

On Sat, 2 Sep 2017 18:10:00 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

Jeff Liebermann wrote on 9/2/2017 3:03 PM:

Why don't you just declare that the ratio of the circumference to the
diameter of a circle is exactly 3.0 instead of 3.14159...? I think it
would be easier than changing to decimal time.

I'm for it.

Excellent.

How will you get the circle to agree?

Not a problem. Just put a flat spot (chord) somewhere on the
circumference. That will shorten the circumference sufficiently so
that the ratio equals exactly 3.0. Please feel free to name such a
flattened circle in my honor. The newly established Bureau of
Decimation should then declare that the official US circle will have a
flat spot.

I think that circle is already in use. I've seen shafts that shape and once
in awhile I see tires that shape. Heck, I saw one the other day that was on
a wheelbarrow. The story was that it was filled with polyurethane foam
instead of air and sat too long while curing. lol

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

 

[rickman]

Clifford Heath wrote on 9/2/2017 7:37 PM:

On 01/09/17 12:36, rickman wrote:
Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 10:16 PM:
On 8/31/2017 10:00 PM, rickman wrote:
Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened by
about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.

I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of changes
in society. We presently have a large number of convenient time
increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.

First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no convenient
unit about the same length of time as the hour. The closest would be the
quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The deci-hour would be
pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a quarter hour. The old half hour
would now be about a fifth of a new hour, so we could call it a "fifth"
which might become confused with a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a
gallon which has since become 750 ml in metric.

The inconvenience would come from the need to totally recalibrate every
type of measurement we use that considers time... speed limits, work days,
time zones... Would we extend this change to measurements of angles which
often are done in degrees, minutes, seconds?

How would we adjust the work day? Do we go to 3 hour work days which
would be about 7.2 old hours? Shift work would have to split hours to get
three shifts while some businesses that use two 12 old hour shifts would
hum along just fine with 5 new hour shifts. Many businesses opening at 9
AM would now open at 4:00 (I assume we would just count 0 to 9 hours
rather than the annoying AM/PM thing), folks would take a lunch break at
5:00 and banks would close around 6:00 while retail would remain open
until 9:00 or 9:50 (hmmm, that is still about the same).

The minutes gets pretty whacked gaining 26.4 old seconds. So "give me a
minute" becomes a quarter more weighty of a request. The original pulse
was conceived to match the human pulse so our normal pulse rate will
become 86 bpm instead of 60 bpm.

In science the changes would be enormous. With a redefinition of the
second every time related measurement would have to change including many
in EE such as capacitance/charge/current, heck, the definition of the
gravitational constant and even the speed of light would have to change.
Every text book would change and every instrument. This would create so
much confusion that we really would need new names for the second, minute
and hour.

This could go on all day (the one measurement that doesn't change) with a
huge list of changes we will have to make and the many adaptations we as a
society would need to accommodate. Then, in the end, we would still have
leap years.

Anyone old enough may remember when the USA tried to go metric. The
people just would not go for it and it was abandoned.

I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't recall
much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at other levels.

We had little resistance here in Australia too, and plenty of people
who would "not have gone with it". But it was mandated; all aspects of
industry and commerce were evaluated and placed on a time-line. By
a certain date, all green-grocers were required to display prices in
both pounds and kilograms. Some time later, prices had to be charged
by the kilogram. Some time after that, it became illegal to display
prices in pounds. Etc... and so for every part of life, on a schedule
that was planned ahead to assist people in learning the new system.
It was not just recommended as "a good idea".

My understanding is that "the land of the free"(*) failed because they
did not make it mandatory.

Yes, everything here is "free, for a small fee".

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

 

[Jon Elson]

rickman wrote:

Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened by
about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.

A large number of physical units are based on the second, especially in
electrical engineering. Watts and Coulombs come to mind immediately, how
about frequency and inductors/capacitors. it would screw up everything.

In Physics, how about acceleration?

In mechanics, how about RPM?

Jon

 

[rickman]

Jon Elson wrote on 9/5/2017 3:27 PM:

rickman wrote:

Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened by
about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.

A large number of physical units are based on the second, especially in
electrical engineering. Watts and Coulombs come to mind immediately, how
about frequency and inductors/capacitors. it would screw up everything.

In Physics, how about acceleration?

In mechanics, how about RPM?

Yep, that's what happens when a unit is changed. Same with converting from
English units to metric, many constants change.

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:

Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened
by about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.

I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of
changes in society. We presently have a large number of convenient
time increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.

First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no
convenient unit about the same length of time as the hour. The
closest would be the quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The
deci-hour would be pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a
quarter hour. The old half hour would now be about a fifth of a new
hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which might become confused with
a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a gallon

So that's where that term comes from! I've heard it in American movies / TV
and read it in books but couldn't work out how a bottle that wasn't much
more than a pint (~600ml) got the name 'a fifth'. I forgot about the Merkin
gallon being less than a real gallon. In fact it's almost exactly 'a fifth'
short!

> which has since become 750 ml in metric.

Nah that is what the rest of the world called a 26oz bottle before metric.
Of course in the US that would be closer to 25 fluid ounces. <shakes head>
US water must be heavier.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

 

[rickman]

~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 12:55 AM:

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:
Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is shortened
by about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10 hr/day.

I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot of
changes in society. We presently have a large number of convenient
time increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.

First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no
convenient unit about the same length of time as the hour. The
closest would be the quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The
deci-hour would be pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a
quarter hour. The old half hour would now be about a fifth of a new
hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which might become confused with
a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a gallon

So that's where that term comes from! I've heard it in American movies / TV
and read it in books but couldn't work out how a bottle that wasn't much
more than a pint (~600ml) got the name 'a fifth'. I forgot about the Merkin
gallon being less than a real gallon. In fact it's almost exactly 'a fifth'
short!

which has since become 750 ml in metric.

Nah that is what the rest of the world called a 26oz bottle before metric.
Of course in the US that would be closer to 25 fluid ounces. <shakes head
US water must be heavier.

A pint's a pound the world around!

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:

Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 10:16 PM:
On 8/31/2017 10:00 PM, rickman wrote:
Someone was talking about decimal time where the second is
shortened by about 15% allowing 100 secs/minute, 100 minutes/hr, 10
hr/day. I think the utility of this is limited and it would cause a lot
of
changes in society. We presently have a large number of convenient
time increments which would not be so convenient in the new system.

First, the hour would be 2.4 times longer leaving us with no
convenient unit about the same length of time as the hour. The
closest would be the quad-deci-hour which would be 0.96 old hours. The
deci-hour would be pretty convenient about 4% shorter than a
quarter hour. The old half hour would now be about a fifth of a
new hour, so we could call it a "fifth" which might become confused
with a non-metric liquor measure, a fifth of a gallon which has
since become 750 ml in metric. The inconvenience would come from the
need to totally recalibrate
every type of measurement we use that considers time... speed
limits, work days, time zones... Would we extend this change to
measurements of angles which often are done in degrees, minutes,
seconds? How would we adjust the work day? Do we go to 3 hour work days
which would be about 7.2 old hours? Shift work would have to split
hours to get three shifts while some businesses that use two 12 old
hour shifts would hum along just fine with 5 new hour shifts. Many
businesses opening at 9 AM would now open at 4:00 (I assume we
would just count 0 to 9 hours rather than the annoying AM/PM
thing), folks would take a lunch break at 5:00 and banks would
close around 6:00 while retail would remain open until 9:00 or 9:50
(hmmm, that is still about the same). The minutes gets pretty whacked
gaining 26.4 old seconds. So "give
me a minute" becomes a quarter more weighty of a request. The
original pulse was conceived to match the human pulse so our normal
pulse rate will become 86 bpm instead of 60 bpm.

In science the changes would be enormous. With a redefinition of
the second every time related measurement would have to change
including many in EE such as capacitance/charge/current, heck, the
definition of the gravitational constant and even the speed of
light would have to change. Every text book would change and every
instrument. This would create so much confusion that we really
would need new names for the second, minute and hour.

This could go on all day (the one measurement that doesn't change)
with a huge list of changes we will have to make and the many
adaptations we as a society would need to accommodate. Then, in
the end, we would still have leap years.

Anyone old enough may remember when the USA tried to go metric. The
people just would not go for it and it was abandoned.

I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't
recall much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at other
levels. We had a partnership with Canada to change together and had
a multi-step program. We completed the first two or three steps and
quit. That's why metric is taught today in schools, it was part of
step two or three. When we had to take a step that would actually
change something (I think it was highway signs) we told Canada to go
on without us and we'd catch up later... *much* later.

I can't believe that even today we still use English units in many

"English Units"?

Like an American gallon?
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

engineering fields. Mechanical engineers often use inches and feet. God
knows what civil engineers use, probably rods. It was just
recently that I learned the acre comes from 160 square rods.

Actually I just looked it up and the acre was defined as 1 chain by 1
furlong while a rod is a quarter of a chain. A chain is 0.1 furlong,
so they are all a related system of measurement.

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet Tom Biasi wrote:

On 9/1/2017 3:57 AM, rickman wrote:
Tom Biasi wrote on 8/31/2017 11:13 PM:

Well you and I remember differently. I was involved in the teaching
of the
metric system to the people of the USA. There was great resistance
and money
for the project soon got thin. When I studied engineering in the
70's we used the metric system exclusively. We didn't call it SI,
it was just the way the scientific community did it.

What teaching were you involved in? I assume it was companies asking
you to educate employees? That is not related to the government. It
also has nothing to do with the "resistance" from the average person.
No one was overly enthusiastic about it since it was a big change,
but people were willing to go with the flow. Mostly they just didn't
understand it as there had been only notification that it would
happen and the education was only in the schools. I believe it was
industry that resisted the change much to our detriment over the
decades. I don't know what you mean about metric not being "SI". I didn't
know
diddly about metric until I was in college (before the conversion
program started) and was taught the SI system. I believe prior to SI
there was a metric system that had a few units that were different
from today's SI by some powers of 10. CGS and dynes come to mind.

I gave you my experience and you disagree. That's it.
Here is a cut from a Wiki article of which seems to be my experience
also.
"The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement a
carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric system
over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to
coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the
United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United
States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination,
and public education. The public education component led to public
awareness of the metric system, but the public response included
resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule."

"Voluntary conversion" is doomed to failure due to inertia so it's a failure
of the legislators not the public. It should have been made compulsory as it
was in most other countries which changed over.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 22:36:09 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't
recall much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at
other levels.

Yep. At the time (about 1975), I was working for a company that tried
to switch to metric. This was aided by having the drafting manager
and mechanical designer also serving on the metric conversion council
(or whatever it was called). At one point, we started sending metric
fabrication drawings to various vendors. They were immediately
returned. The problem wasn't understanding the new metric way of
doing things, it was that they would need to replace all their English
lead screws, measurement instruments, gauges blocks, programming, etc
before they could cut metal. They also claimed that they needed
considerable staff training to handle the change (because someone
tried to simultaneously switch to true position dimentioning). We
would need to wait until the shops converted before we could orders
parts in metric.

So, we went back to English units and waited for the "inevitable"
conversion that never happened. It seems that most of the other
customers followed the same pattern. They tried metric, failed, and
went back to English.

Ok second guy in this thread to use the term "English units". Am I to assume
it's an Americanism then? In England, Australia and New Zealand (the
countries I've lived in) non-metric units are reffered to as "imperial".
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

So, we asked the various fab shops why the
delay? They answered that since everyone seemed to be going back to
using English measurements, they must have run into some problem with
metric. Therefore, the fab shop saw no reason to convert. After
getting approximately the same story from ALL our vendors, we gave up
in disgust.

"Why hasn't the U.S. adopted the metric system?"
http://www.popsci.com/why-hasnt-us-adopted-metric-system

The idea of decimal time has been around for centuries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_time
The big problem is that time, astronomical, and navigational units
that are based on nautical miles, degrees, minutes, seconds, will end
up with some rather odd looking numbers. Right now, 1 degree is equal
to 60 nautical miles at the equator. It's too hot right now to think
about what decimal time would do to all those. Of course, we could
make things look better by switching from 360 degrees per circle, to
400 gradians per circle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradian
When in doubt, change everything.

Everything that deals with time will need to be tweaked. That's going
to be a problem since we have many ways to keep accurate time:
http://leapsecond.com/java/gpsclock.htm
Notice the difference in seconds. Some smartphone vendors are still
having problems keeping accurate time:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/GPS-vs-UTC.jpg
More ways to keep time, all of which will need to be decimalized or
maybe decimated:
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/systime.html

This is what happened when most everyone assumed that NASA was totally
metric, but wasn't:
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/
I suspect that a decimal time change will have similar transition
problems.

Why don't you just declare that the ratio of the circumference to the
diameter of a circle is exactly 3.0 instead of 3.14159...? I think it
would be easier than changing to decimal time.

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:

Look165 wrote on 9/2/2017 3:42 AM:
The sun comes back nearly every 24h !

Animals , like us, live based on circadian rythm.


rickman a écrit :
Look165 wrote on 9/1/2017 4:28 AM:
It is worthless.

The animal bodies are regulated by the 24h system.

Not sure what you are talking about. Animal rhythms are related to
a daily cycle, it has nothing to do with "hours".


And it would be necessary to redefine the reference second which
is now related to the cesiuaam atom.It is the international
reference like the meter also related to this atom

The second is defined as vibrations of the cesium atom in the same
way the yard is defined in feet. If we wish to change the
definition of the yard to four feet we do that and are done. Likewise we
can change the definition of the second in the same way
to a different number of vibrations of the cesium atom.

Has anyone pointed out that top posting is hard to reply to?

So what does that have to do with hours, minutes and seconds??? You
do know there are 24 hours in a day, right? Changing the length of
the hour won't change the length of the day.

The top-posting should have given you the clue you needed there....
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Fri, 1 Sep 2017 05:55:52 -0700 (PDT), Tim R <timothy42b@aol.com
wrote:

During the time of the pyramids and pharaohs, the Egyptian calendar
had 5 days "out of time" at the beginning of the year, then 12 months
of 30 days each.

That still makes more sense than what we do now.

Then there is the Hebrew lunar calendar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
which adds an extra leap month in 7 out of every 19 years (3, 6, 8,
11, 14, 17, and 19):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar#Leap_months
Being able to handle such an ugly calenadar might explain why Jews are
quite good at finance. Can you imagine what a loan amortization
schedule looks like under such a calendar?

No, jews are good at finance because the catholic church banned christians
from usury - lending money and charging interest. As money became more and
more important it became necessary for there to be financiers but christians
weren't going to risk lending their money free of charge. So jews were
invited into most catholic / christian countries to be the financiers as
they had no such rule in *their* holy book. Without jews stepping in to
finance large projects we'd still be in the dark ages.

Yet how do we thank them? By making thinly-veiled anti-semetic jokes in
electronics repair groups (and probably other places as well).
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

 

[pfjw@aol.com]

On Friday, September 1, 2017 at 10:35:42 AM UTC-4, rickman wrote:

Look165 wrote on 9/1/2017 4:28 AM:
It is worthless.

The animal bodies are regulated by the 24h system.

Not sure what you are talking about. Animal rhythms are related to a daily
cycle, it has nothing to do with "hours".

Further to this, Circadian Rhythm is very approximate, that is, it adjusts with the seasons, day/night length, temperature, in some cases the phases of the moon, and more. Try setting train schedules from a process that may alter by tens of minutes on any given day.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA

 

[Mike Coon]

In article <ebcb2871-13da-4e5e-a3fb-a3e249980fe1@googlegroups.com>,
pfjw@aol.com says...

Further to this, Circadian Rhythm is very approximate, that is, it

adjusts with the seasons, day/night length, temperature, in some cases
the phases of the moon, and more. Try setting train schedules from a
process that may alter by tens of minutes on any given day.

You could have pointed out that is what the "circa" means!

Mike.

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 07/09/17 21:26, ~misfit~ wrote:

Once upon a time on usenet Tom Biasi wrote:
"The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement a
carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric system
over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to
coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the
United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United
States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination,
and public education. The public education component led to public
awareness of the metric system, but the public response included
resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule."

"Voluntary conversion" is doomed to failure due to inertia so it's a failure
of the legislators not the public. It should have been made compulsory as it
was in most other countries which changed over.

The legislators were true to the American ideal of liberty.
This was a failure that ideal, not of the legislature.
All ideals fail at the edges; that's why we call them ideals.

 

[rickman]

~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 7:33 AM:

Once upon a time on usenet Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 22:36:09 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't
recall much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at
other levels.

Yep. At the time (about 1975), I was working for a company that tried
to switch to metric. This was aided by having the drafting manager
and mechanical designer also serving on the metric conversion council
(or whatever it was called). At one point, we started sending metric
fabrication drawings to various vendors. They were immediately
returned. The problem wasn't understanding the new metric way of
doing things, it was that they would need to replace all their English
lead screws, measurement instruments, gauges blocks, programming, etc
before they could cut metal. They also claimed that they needed
considerable staff training to handle the change (because someone
tried to simultaneously switch to true position dimentioning). We
would need to wait until the shops converted before we could orders
parts in metric.

So, we went back to English units and waited for the "inevitable"
conversion that never happened. It seems that most of the other
customers followed the same pattern. They tried metric, failed, and
went back to English.

Ok second guy in this thread to use the term "English units". Am I to assume
it's an Americanism then? In England, Australia and New Zealand (the
countries I've lived in) non-metric units are reffered to as "imperial".

Imperial units are not quite the same. An imperial gallon is larger than
the gallon used in the US. I don't know if there are other differences, I'm
pretty sure the inch, foot and yard are the same. I'm not sure if a
fortnight is the same on both sides of the Atlantic...

We use the term "English units" because like many of our customs, laws and
general ways of life, they came to us by way of England.

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

 

[rickman]

~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 7:26 AM:

Once upon a time on usenet Tom Biasi wrote:
Here is a cut from a Wiki article of which seems to be my experience
also.
"The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement a
carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric system
over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 "to
coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric system in the
United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated, and the United
States Metric Board (USMB) was established for planning, coordination,
and public education. The public education component led to public
awareness of the metric system, but the public response included
resistance, apathy, and sometimes ridicule."

"Voluntary conversion" is doomed to failure due to inertia so it's a failure
of the legislators not the public. It should have been made compulsory as it
was in most other countries which changed over.

This country can be pretty idiotic about "compulsory" issues. The federal
government has a regulation that children must wear life vests in federally
controlled waters. The State of Virginia has a similar law, but it only
applies to the waterways that are regulated by the Coast Guard (federal
laws). So the law is no additional regulation, it simply allows the state
authorities to enforce it. Meanwhile it is perfectly legal in the state
controlled waters to not put a life vest on your children. Allegedly this
is because the legislators get tremendous push back when they pass laws that
add new regulations.

How fooking stupid is that?! *Everyone* should have to wear a life vest any
time they are in a boat underway. Just this past July 4th weekend someone
died when he fell overboard while not wearing a life vest. They do nothing
for you if you don't wear them. Cutting a tree down with your six year old
next to you would be considered child endangerment even though there is no
specific law against it. By the same reasoning allowing children to ride in
a boat without a life vest should be child endangerment regardless of the
law. But we legislate according to the push back from fears of "over
regulation".

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998

 

[Ralph Mowery]

In article <oouoe6$t4r$2@dont-email.me>, gnuarm@gmail.com says...

This country can be pretty idiotic about "compulsory" issues. The federal
government has a regulation that children must wear life vests in federally
controlled waters. The State of Virginia has a similar law, but it only
applies to the waterways that are regulated by the Coast Guard (federal
laws). So the law is no additional regulation, it simply allows the state
authorities to enforce it. Meanwhile it is perfectly legal in the state
controlled waters to not put a life vest on your children. Allegedly this
is because the legislators get tremendous push back when they pass laws that
add new regulations.

How fooking stupid is that?! *Everyone* should have to wear a life vest any
time they are in a boat underway. Just this past July 4th weekend someone
died when he fell overboard while not wearing a life vest. They do nothing
for you if you don't wear them. Cutting a tree down with your six year old
next to you would be considered child endangerment even though there is no
specific law against it. By the same reasoning allowing children to ride in
a boat without a life vest should be child endangerment regardless of the
law. But we legislate according to the push back from fears of "over
regulation".

I can see laws like the life vest for children and seat belts or safety
seats for children.

What I would really like is for the insurance companies to get togetner
with the law makers and not pay off to the people over 21 that do not
follow those laws. I do not care if some one of reasonable age falls
off the boat without the life vest and drowns. Just don't expect his
life insurance to pay off. Or is someone gets hurt in a car crash
without the seat belt, just do not pay off for medical bills or to get
his car repaired.

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:

~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 7:33 AM:
Once upon a time on usenet Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Thu, 31 Aug 2017 22:36:09 -0400, rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com
wrote:
I don't remember that "people just would not go for it". I don't
recall much resistance at all. I think the "resistance" was at
other levels.

Yep. At the time (about 1975), I was working for a company that
tried to switch to metric. This was aided by having the drafting
manager and mechanical designer also serving on the metric
conversion council (or whatever it was called). At one point, we
started sending metric fabrication drawings to various vendors. They
were immediately returned. The problem wasn't understanding
the new metric way of doing things, it was that they would need to
replace all their English lead screws, measurement instruments,
gauges blocks, programming, etc before they could cut metal. They
also claimed that they needed considerable staff training to handle
the change (because someone tried to simultaneously switch to true
position dimentioning). We would need to wait until the shops
converted before we could orders parts in metric.

So, we went back to English units and waited for the "inevitable"
conversion that never happened. It seems that most of the other
customers followed the same pattern. They tried metric, failed, and
went back to English.

Ok second guy in this thread to use the term "English units". Am I
to assume it's an Americanism then? In England, Australia and New
Zealand (the countries I've lived in) non-metric units are reffered
to as "imperial".

Imperial units are not quite the same. An imperial gallon is larger
than the gallon used in the US.

In the rest of the world is 4.54 litres. Only in the US is 'gallon'
different (approximately 3.75 litres?).

I don't know if there are other
differences, I'm pretty sure the inch, foot and yard are the same. I'm not
sure if a fortnight is the same on both sides of the
Atlantic...
We use the term "English units" because like many of our customs,
laws and general ways of life, they came to us by way of England.

Likewise in Australia and New Zealand we owe a lot of our heritage to
England - however we don't call the units "English". It just seemed odd to
me <shrug>
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

 

[~misfit~]

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:

~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 7:26 AM:
Once upon a time on usenet Tom Biasi wrote:
Here is a cut from a Wiki article of which seems to be my experience
also.
"The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement
a carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric
system over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of
1975 "to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric
system in the United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated,
and the United States Metric Board (USMB) was established for
planning, coordination, and public education. The public education
component led to public awareness of the metric system, but the
public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes
ridicule."

"Voluntary conversion" is doomed to failure due to inertia so it's a
failure of the legislators not the public. It should have been made
compulsory as it was in most other countries which changed over.

This country can be pretty idiotic about "compulsory" issues. The
federal government has a regulation that children must wear life
vests in federally controlled waters. The State of Virginia has a
similar law, but it only applies to the waterways that are regulated
by the Coast Guard (federal laws). So the law is no additional
regulation, it simply allows the state authorities to enforce it.
Meanwhile it is perfectly legal in the state controlled waters to not
put a life vest on your children. Allegedly this is because the
legislators get tremendous push back when they pass laws that add new
regulations.
How fooking stupid is that?! *Everyone* should have to wear a life
vest any time they are in a boat underway. Just this past July 4th
weekend someone died when he fell overboard while not wearing a life
vest. They do nothing for you if you don't wear them. Cutting a
tree down with your six year old next to you would be considered
child endangerment even though there is no specific law against it. By the
same reasoning allowing children to ride in a boat without a
life vest should be child endangerment regardless of the law. But we
legislate according to the push back from fears of "over regulation".

Very fooking stupid. Are seat belts compulsory yet? It seems an odd mix.
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

 

[rickman]

~misfit~ wrote on 9/9/2017 2:52 AM:

Once upon a time on usenet rickman wrote:
~misfit~ wrote on 9/7/2017 7:26 AM:
Once upon a time on usenet Tom Biasi wrote:
Here is a cut from a Wiki article of which seems to be my experience
also.
"The U.S. Metric Study recommended that the United States implement
a carefully planned transition to the principal use of the metric
system over a decade. Congress passed the Metric Conversion Act of
1975 "to coordinate and plan the increasing use of the metric
system in the United States". Voluntary conversion was initiated,
and the United States Metric Board (USMB) was established for
planning, coordination, and public education. The public education
component led to public awareness of the metric system, but the
public response included resistance, apathy, and sometimes
ridicule."

"Voluntary conversion" is doomed to failure due to inertia so it's a
failure of the legislators not the public. It should have been made
compulsory as it was in most other countries which changed over.

This country can be pretty idiotic about "compulsory" issues. The
federal government has a regulation that children must wear life
vests in federally controlled waters. The State of Virginia has a
similar law, but it only applies to the waterways that are regulated
by the Coast Guard (federal laws). So the law is no additional
regulation, it simply allows the state authorities to enforce it.
Meanwhile it is perfectly legal in the state controlled waters to not
put a life vest on your children. Allegedly this is because the
legislators get tremendous push back when they pass laws that add new
regulations.
How fooking stupid is that?! *Everyone* should have to wear a life
vest any time they are in a boat underway. Just this past July 4th
weekend someone died when he fell overboard while not wearing a life
vest. They do nothing for you if you don't wear them. Cutting a
tree down with your six year old next to you would be considered
child endangerment even though there is no specific law against it. By the
same reasoning allowing children to ride in a boat without a
life vest should be child endangerment regardless of the law. But we
legislate according to the push back from fears of "over regulation".

Very fooking stupid. Are seat belts compulsory yet? It seems an odd mix.

Of course seat belts are compulsory. Where do you live that they aren't?

--

Rick C

Viewed the eclipse at Wintercrest Farms,
on the centerline of totality since 1998