Re: Windows Vista is slowing the Navy down ??

On Sat, 17 May 2008 09:12:13 -0600, Bruce Grubb wrote:

> In article <9t96hqagi7vh.172qilsj253n$.dlg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>  Moshe Goldfarb <brick.n.straw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 19:55:15 -0600, Bruce Grubb wrote:
>> 
>>> In article <1l1i4zt4ow56w.1le5ew7pmd4of$.dlg@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>>  Moshe Goldfarb <brick.n.straw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 17:00:21 -0500, Ivan Marsh wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 17:57:01 -0400, Moshe Goldfarb wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 16:47:58 -0500, Ivan Marsh wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Fri, 16 May 2008 14:06:43 -0700, The Ghost In The Machine
wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Ivan Marsh <ivanmarsh@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>>>>>>>>  wrote
>>>>>>> At least Java went to Mars.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Was Java running the innards of that 40 million dollar Tonka Toy
that
>>>>>> went brain dead on Mars 10 minutes after it landed?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Suggesting that hitting Mars much less landing safely on the surface
is
>>>>> trivial?
>>>> 
>>>> Not at all.
>>>> 
>>>> The thing fscked up.
>>>> 
>>>> I'm just wondering if Java was what fscked it up.
>>> 
>>> Might have been who ever NASA used as the subcontracter. Remember how 
>>> Lockheed Martin went off and put English standard units into equations

>>> designed for Metric units and got the Mars Climate Orbiter clobbered?
>> 
>> I believe they did a similar thing with the Hubble as well.
>> One team was using English the other metric.
>> 
>> Personally, as an Engineer, I could never understand the reasoning for
>> Englsih vs MKS.
>> 
>>> When I went to college in the mid 1980's our physics book used metric
so I 
>>> couldn't understand this.  I mean why on Earth would anyone outside
the 
>>> automotive industry use English standard units?!
>> 
>> The problem is thinking and converting.
>> 
>> Example: Typical American (like me) knows a foot is *this long*
(stretch
>> your arms out) but has no idea how big a meter is.
> 
> I guess it is all a matter of when you grew up.  My youth was filled
with 
> those little metric shows on PBS that were basically 30 min PSAs.  I
still 
> remember that a meter is just a little longer than a yard, a dime is
about 
> 1 mm in thickness, and that a cubic decimeter = 1 liter = 1 kilogram
which 
> is around 2.2 pounds.  I also remember the old pint is a pound (ie 16 
> ounces) of the common system as well.
> 
>> They are constantly trying to convert which makes a mess of things.
>> 
>> If they were taught in terms of MKS their would be no problem.
> 
> Strange thing is that the University of Utah taught ALL its physics
courses 
> in metric in the mid 1980's.  I guess I thought that is the way all 
> universities of that time taught their courses.

They taught both systems when I was in engineering school in the late 70's
but the MKS system was used for the courses and the English system was
just
taught to illustrate the differences.

-- 
Moshe Goldfarb
Collector of soaps from around the globe.
Please visit The Hall of Linux Idiots:
http://linuxidiots.blogspot.com/