Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
[QUOTE=Kraken;187732]I learned English so I could troll on American Internet forums 
It’s been a fun Thread, off topic but fun.[/QUOTE]
I agree, it may be time to end this discussion. It has been fun and brought out some useful comment, as well as some friendly banter and some not so relevant or friendly replies.
We are NEVER going to convince the majority here that adapting the metric system would save time, money and the agony of trying to figure out the eternal question of what is best?
All I can say is that I agree with KPChief and Kennebeck Captain that for those who have used both system for years this is not a problem. They are able to visualize both system without having to go looking for a conversion table to “understand” how long a foot or a meter is, or the volume of a liter or gallon. (US or Imperial)
The sad fact is that the majority in America can NOT do so. They have to convert to the unit they are used to.
Likewise for the rest of the world when it comes to US or Imperial units. (They are not the same)
I also agree that any official change will not be instant. Singapore went metric in 1975, but size of properties are still quoted in Sq.ft. in the property market, but in Sq.m. in official documents.
Before the change there were also some Chinese measures in common use, like the Kati for weight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catty
There are still a very few that give their order in Kati at the wet markets, but only the very old.
As an aside: At the change to metric in Singapore and Malaysia, speed limit in Singapore changed from 30 m/h to 50 km/h. In Malaysia the signs in built-up areas read; “48.3 km/j” (j= Jam = Hour)
I have problem “seeing” the length of small boats given in meters still to this day, since it was commonly given in feet in my young days. You still see boats advertised for sale in feet in Norway. Most older people talk about “a 24-footer” to describe a pleasure boat of abt 7.3 m. LOA.
That is last word from me on this subject, I promise. (Unless someone provoke an answer that is)
Next our friend Ombugge will troll Chinese mariner forums to attempt to convince ignorant Chinamen to abandon their inefficient logographic system of picture characters to represent words for a simple phonemic alphabet. Think of all the time, money and agony they would save if they only wrote like the rest of the world. No wasting years of children’s lives memorizing symbols. No printing and typing complications. And there’s so many of them - imagine the efficiency gains!
[QUOTE=DeepSeaDiver;187639]Great technical stuff mates. Kennebec Captain what type of firemain system was on the ship that got the new gauge?[/QUOTE]
No changes to the fire main, the old analog gauge failed, it was in bar/kPa. It was replaced by digital which read in MPa. Which is another interesting point (to me anyway) about gauges in general.
Analog gauges convey information on an intuitive level by comparison to “full”. If you glance at a gauge and see it is at 50% to 75% more or less it conveys intuitively that the reading is about right. Most gauges are designed this way, the ones in a car for example.
This is the other problem with showing the fire main pressure in MPa (as opposed to kPa), a digital reading of 0.xx suggests, based on everyday experience, that it’s too low.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;187737] Analog gauges convey information on an intuitive level by comparison to “full”. If you glance at a gauge and see it is at 50% to 75% more or less it conveys intuitively that the reading is about right. Most gauges are designed this way, the ones in a car for example. [/QUOTE]
Now you’re talking! A mechanical dial gauge is way more informative to a human being than a flat digital read-out. As was pointed out earlier, being able to capture the readings and display trends is obviously the most useful way, but a flat digital read-out is the worst. THE WORST! Who can have faith in that number? Is it normal or not? Is it higher or lower than the last time I walked by? Is it within the range where good readings are possible? Needles give you information based on how they move and what their range is, and weather or not they are obviously broken.
Really. Dials are friendly: they talk to you, tell you a story. Captured readings that display trends tell a story. You can get a feel for them. You LIKE to look at them because they are story-tellers. Flat numbers are unfriendly, unhelpful, and ugly.
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[QUOTE=DeckApe;187736]Next our friend Ombugge will troll Chinese mariner forums to attempt to convince ignorant Chinamen to abandon their inefficient logographic system of picture characters to represent words for a simple phonemic alphabet. Think of all the time, money and agony they would save if they only wrote like the rest of the world. No wasting years of children’s lives memorizing symbols. No printing and typing complications. And there’s so many of them - imagine the efficiency gains![/QUOTE]
OK you have provoked an answer. No I will not try to teach the Chinese anything, they already have a pretty efficient system, incl. written language. I may try to teach Americans a little about China and Chinese, since that it clearly lacking. No, not you only and not only Americans, but Westerners in general.
When you read this post, do you spell every letter, or have you learnt to recognize most common words?
The Chinese learns to recognize the characters just the same, so the children doesn’t waste their time by learning to do so.
As for phonetics it has it’s advantage, but also it’s limitations. You can only read the words in the language it is written, while characters has a meaning and can be read in whichever of the many “dialects” used by Chinese in China and world wide. Japanese and Koreans can understand much of it too, although they use a mix of characters and phonetics.
Want to know more about it, here is your first lesson: www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/characters/characters_howmany.shtml
There also an official way of writing Mandarin using the Roman Alphabet. It is known as Hanyu Pinyin, but that has the same limitation as any other phonetic writing: http://www.chinese-outpost.com/language/pronunciation/mandarin-chinese-romanization-systems.asp
Many Westerners seams to think that nearly every province and town in China changed name some years ago in some Communist plot to eradicate the history of Western domination. Far from it, they just adapted Mandarin as the common language and Hanyu Pinyin as the way to spell the names in Roman letters. Until then the romanization was by a system developed by Westerns, some of it using local dialects as base. (Peking/Beijing, Canton/Guangdong, Tsingtao/Qīngdǎo etc.)
Here is some tips about learning Mandarin Chinese via Pinyin from one that has done so: http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/blog/2014/01/11/learn-chinese-pinyin/
PS> If you want to continue this let us move to Scuttlebutt.
[QUOTE=Emrobu;187740]Now you’re talking! A mechanical dial gauge is way more informative to a human being than a flat digital read-out. As was pointed out earlier, being able to capture the readings and display trends is obviously the most useful way, but a flat digital read-out is the worst. THE WORST! Who can have faith in that number? Is it normal or not? Is it higher or lower than the last time I walked by? Is it within the range where good readings are possible? Needles give you information based on how they move and what their range is, and weather or not they are obviously broken.
Really. Dials are friendly: they talk to you, tell you a story. Captured readings that display trends tell a story. You can get a feel for them. You LIKE to look at them because they are story-tellers. Flat numbers are unfriendly, unhelpful, and ugly.[/QUOTE]
Yes, the “feel” of something, interesting idea.
Nautical Slide Rule - More Then Meets the Eye
At first glance the Nautical Slide Rule is simply a tool used to solve speed-time-distance problems. The real power of the tool though, is hidden, consider this: (from Hutchins (PDF))
“At this end of the technological spectrum at least, the computational power of the system composed of person and technology is not determined primarily by the information-processing capacity internal to the technological device, but by the way the technology exploits the cognitive resources of the task performer.”
“Cognitive resources of the task performer” - that’s the key. In practical terms, when I arrive on the bridge at 3 a.m. prior to port arrival I check the speed required before I have that first cup of coffee, cognitive resources are sometimes short of what is required to reliably solve the problem. Using the slide rule gives me confidence that I fully understand the situation in just seconds. I can hold the solution in my hand and by moving the dials slightly I can literally get the “feel” of the problem and solution. Using the slide rule has been compared to the practice of rearranging scrabble tiles to search for words.
This was written pre-ECDIS, don’t use the speed wheel as much as I used to.
[QUOTE=Emrobu;187740]Now you’re talking! A mechanical dial gauge is way more informative to a human being than a flat digital read-out. As was pointed out earlier, being able to capture the readings and display trends is obviously the most useful way, but a flat digital read-out is the worst. THE WORST! Who can have faith in that number? Is it normal or not? Is it higher or lower than the last time I walked by? Is it within the range where good readings are possible? Needles give you information based on how they move and what their range is, and weather or not they are obviously broken.
Really. Dials are friendly: they talk to you, tell you a story. Captured readings that display trends tell a story. You can get a feel for them. You LIKE to look at them because they are story-tellers. Flat numbers are unfriendly, unhelpful, and ugly.[/QUOTE]
Digital has value if it can be trended (As KPChief mentioned). If you walk by a gage every day, you will learn it’s normal ranges. It’s also good if you can verify any measurement with a second method.
[QUOTE=Kennebec Captain;187743]Yes, the “feel” of something, interesting idea.[/QUOTE]
In the 1980’s Brattvaag Hydraulik worked on developing a hydraulic Drew-works for drilling rigs in competition with the DC electric type that was the norm. Of course it came with Cyber controls, including a small Joystick for the break.
They invited some experienced Drillers to test the function on a test rig they set up at their factory.
The main complain was that they didn’t have a “feel” of the break.
Solution? Introduce variable vibrations in the joystick to indicate how hard the break was applied. Bingo, everybody happy.
[QUOTE=Rafterman;187744]Digital has value if it can be trended (As KPChief mentioned). If you walk by a gage every day, you will learn it’s normal ranges. It’s also good if you can verify any measurement with a second method.[/QUOTE]
Clearly KPChief has his head on right. It’s wonderful to have those graphs available, and easy, especially when you’re diagnosing something. But I think there’s also something to be said from walking around the machine spaces and writing down readings a couple of times a day, especially when you’re learning. Insite can enter through the fingers, and rarely strikes people who aren’t actively paying attention.
Having numbers magically pop up is fine, if you need something done quickly. Kennebec Captain’s point about slide rules is spot-on. Kids are encouraged to do their math in their heads; with a pencil; or, when that becomes too complex, with a digital calculator. I was lucky because I learned a few finger tricks to do arithmetic. Abacus and slide rule are rarely taught (I wasn’t taught them), and I think it’s a shame and a waste. I think more people would like math if they could hold it in their hands and manipulate it, at least as a learning tool. Slide rules are relatively quick and powerful, less vulnerable to user error, and work in red light (unlike a solar pocket calculator). It was men and (a few women?) with slide rules who figured out how to get the Apollo XIII guys home.
Edit: Can we count the Antikythera mechanism as one of these hands-on math tools?
And now the most interesting poster in the world will give us an Asian language lecture.
The best part, to me anyways, was the Norwegian giving a Japanese-American (me) a lecture about Asian pictograph writing. If I need to learn more I won’t use Google, I’ll ask family.
But that aside, he ignored the point which is people do things that are not efficient and rational. Americans measure inefficiently, Chinese (and Japanese) write inefficiently. We translate between languages and we convert between measurement standards.
Interesting how the multilingual Norwegian professes the value of many languages but says there should be only one way to measure the circumference of his noggin.
You can measure the circumference of a square?
Stern. Stern, but fair.
I vote this come-back of the year, only narrowly edging out deckape in this thread.
Nice, Fraqrat to the rescue of the circle jerk.
But who cares about the plebs.
The smart people in USA uses metric:
http://www.space.com/3332-nasa-finally-metric.html
I’ve been trying to tell your boy that, but can’t get it through his (square) head. It’s used in any university, hospital or laboratory…or for that matter grease monkey mechanic’s shop!
[QUOTE=Fraqrat;187753]And now the most interesting poster in the world will give us an Asian language lecture.[/QUOTE]
I like Buggy’s stories.
[QUOTE=Fraqrat;187753]And now the most interesting poster in the world will give us an Asian language lecture.[/QUOTE]
I could, but it would be a total wast of time on some with no interest in anything other their own little world.
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[QUOTE=Fraqrat;187757]You can measure the circumference of a square?[/QUOTE]
Yes, measure one side and multiply by four. (Using calculator are allowed)
Squaring a circle is a bit harder.
[QUOTE=ombugge;187772]Yes, measure one side and multiply by four. (Using calculator are allowed)[/QUOTE]
He is calling you a squarehead, it’s a racial slur directed against us Scandinavians. Why we should be offended by that name is beyond me.
Sounds unbelievable right? Could it possibly be because this Norwegian has spent most of his life in Asia, over 40 of those years as part of a large Chinese family?
Using Google is a simple way to lead others to info already available on just about any subject. You should try it.
Yes if you WANTED to know more about it you COULD have asked family, but do you and did you??
But that aside, he ignored the point which is people do things that are not efficient and rational. Americans measure inefficiently, Chinese (and Japanese) write inefficiently. We translate between languages and we convert between measurement standards.
Interesting how the multilingual Norwegian professes the value of many languages but says there should be only one way to measure the circumference of his noggin.
No I did NOT ignore the fact that people does thing that is irrational and inefficient.
On the contrary, I have pointed out that sticking to an archaic measuring system is irrational and inefficient, for which I have received all kind of abuse, but also some agreement, even from people that do so.
(Hey, I promised I would NOT post any more on this subject. Now watch what you provoked me to do)
As for the inefficiency of writing in Chinese characters, yes, I agree it would be better to switch to Pinyin, maybe not so much for the 1/4 of the world’s population that use it, but for the 3/4 that doesn’t, or have any idea about how it works.
When you look at young Chinese texting you wouldn’t think it was all that difficult, or time consuming. I don’t know if there has been any competition to see who can convey a message fastest, a Chinese or Westerner whizkid. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Chinese using simplified characters would win.
Besides, even if YOU don’t need anybody to tell you about the subject, or even feel offended that somebody do, there may be others that enjoy being guided towards thing they would otherwise not know, or even think about.
Again, if we are to continue this discussion, it should be on a different thread.