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Metric and how not to use it.

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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by Randomiser   » Fri Oct 19, 2018 4:45 pm

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Over here in the UK I started working in the System Software development department of the remaining large computer manufacturer in 1978. It's a long time ago, but I reckon we probably had about 5-10% women. Back in those days that company recruited on potential not degree subject and one of our best women programmers had a History degree. My sister-in-law who, at that time, programmed for the UK end of large US company has a Geography degree.
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by Theemile   » Fri Oct 19, 2018 5:03 pm

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Randomiser wrote:Over here in the UK I started working in the System Software development department of the remaining large computer manufacturer in 1978. It's a long time ago, but I reckon we probably had about 5-10% women. Back in those days that company recruited on potential not degree subject and one of our best women programmers had a History degree. My sister-in-law who, at that time, programmed for the UK end of large US company has a Geography degree.


Let's not forget, that historically, many "computers" who manually ran and checked mathematics at universities and government agencies prior to digital computers, were females. It was considered an administrative level job, just a step up from typist, operator, or receptionist; and while most held college degrees, but was still a menial level position. Many of the pioneers in the early days of digital computing were such women, who made the leap from "computer' to programming their electronic replacements.
******
RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by TFLYTSNBN   » Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:44 pm

TFLYTSNBN

Bill Woods wrote:
cthia wrote:Thirty years ago, finding a female applying for a career in the computer industry was much of an oxymoron as a blonde with brains.
Actually, in the mid-'80s about a third of the people majoring in computer science were women.

https://jaxenter.com/women-in-computer- ... 33646.html



I have an attorney who had a previous career as a systems analyst. Rumor has it that she put herself through college to get her degree in computers by working at Hooters.

The moral of the story is that a woman's IQ is not inversely proprtional to their bra size.
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by stewart   » Fri Oct 19, 2018 9:27 pm

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Bill Woods wrote:
cthia wrote:Thirty years ago, finding a female applying for a career in the computer industry was much of an oxymoron as a blonde with brains.
Actually, in the mid-'80s about a third of the people majoring in computer science were women.

https://jaxenter.com/women-in-computer- ... 33646.html


----------------

What was the natural color of Grace Hopper's hair ?

-- Stewart
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by tlb   » Sat Oct 20, 2018 9:54 pm

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cthia wrote:Thirty years ago, finding a female applying for a career in the computer industry was much of an oxymoron as a blonde with brains.

Bill Woods wrote:Actually, in the mid-'80s about a third of the people majoring in computer science were women.

https://jaxenter.com/women-in-computer- ... 33646.html

stewart wrote:What was the natural color of Grace Hopper's hair ?

What is the natural hair color of the women in this forum?
I assume some of them were slandered.
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by JohnRoth   » Sat Oct 20, 2018 10:02 pm

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cthia wrote:Thirty years ago, finding a female applying for a career in the computer industry was much of an oxymoron as a blonde with brains.

Bill Woods wrote:Actually, in the mid-'80s about a third of the people majoring in computer science were women.

https://jaxenter.com/women-in-computer- ... 33646.html

stewart wrote:What was the natural color of Grace Hopper's hair ?

tlb wrote:What is the natural hair color of the women in this forum?
I assume some of them were slandered.


Yep. When I got into the field in the mid 60s, about a third of the programmers on the floor were women. In the last gig I had before retiring, the same was true.

By the way, my mother is (was) a natural blond. She worked as a tab machine operator (punched card systems) and did some programming on the IBM 650. Both of her programs worked correctly the first time. Then she decided there was no future in it and went back to the accounting department.
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by phillies   » Sun Oct 21, 2018 3:17 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:
Lord Skimper wrote:I under stand that RFC doesn't really under stand metric, I lived through the conversion times in Canada and in Canada we still use Miles and think of Km as a type of distant similar to a mile, even though it isn't.

a Km is 1000 metres. a Mile is 1 mile.

14,000,000 Km is 14,000,000,000 metres or 14 Giga metres or 14 Gm.

1,000 Km is 1,000,000 metres or 1 Mega metre or 1 Mm

1,000,000,000 Km is 1,000,000,000,000 metres or 1 Tera metre or 1Tm.

The speed of light is ~186,000 miles per second or 300 Mm per second.

Metric is based on the metre for distance. and 10's 100's and 1000's or many 1000's or 1000th of a metre not a Kilo metre.



Oh, I understand it. I'm just writing primarily for an audience that doesn't use it and would have had a hell of a time if I used the correct prefixes for the metric units above "kilo." Please recall that I started writing these books 25 years ago, when most people didn't think in terms of "mags" and "gigs" for their home computers. In fact, when I started writing this, I was writing on an Osborne portable computer with a pair of 92K single-side floppy drives. Yes, yes — I started the books that long ago. In fact, I'd written the first two books before Al Gore got around to inventing the Internet. :roll:

As a result, while most of us poor benighted Amuricans could get as far as kilo = 1,000 even back in the day, the majority didn't think in mega or giga or tera because they didn't get used in day-to-day life. If you'd like, I could do a global reedit that fixes them all just for the metric crowd, but I didn't see the point when I started writing for a (rather smaller) purely US audience who wouldn't automatically recognize the proper numbers of units referenced. So I talked in terms of "thousands of kilometers" or "megameters," and I even spelled both "metre" and "tonne" incorrectly for the same reason. So my present usage is sort of grandfathered in, in addition to (probably) still making more sense to a lot of my readers.

I am sure that a fair percentage of my US readership would have been able to take it in stride even 25 years ago; I frankly doubt that the majority of my US readership could have. In any case, I'm not going to change equines in mid-watercourse, so I'm afraid you're all stuck with it. :lol:


Once upon a time, even farther back in time, there was a distinguished SF author of whom most of you have heard whose idiotor did not approve of the units the author was using.

So the idiotor converted them for the author.

For a zeppelin, "take us up to 11,000 feet" makes sense as an order. "Take us up to 4013.2 meters" sounds suspect.
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by Lord Skimper   » Sun Oct 21, 2018 5:24 pm

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4013.2 metres is 13166.64 feet.
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by Bill Woods   » Sun Oct 21, 2018 5:43 pm

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phillies wrote:Once upon a time, even farther back in time, there was a distinguished SF author of whom most of you have heard whose idiotor did not approve of the units the author was using.

So the idiotor converted them for the author.

For a zeppelin, "take us up to 11,000 feet" makes sense as an order. "Take us up to 4013.2 meters" sounds suspect.
PJF's Riverworld 2?
----
Imagined conversation:
Admiral [noting yet another Manty tech surprise]:
XO, what's the budget for the ONI?
Vice Admiral: I don't recall exactly, sir. Several billion quatloos.
Admiral: ... What do you suppose they did with all that money?
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Re: Metric and how not to use it.
Post by cthia   » Thu Oct 25, 2018 8:58 am

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cthia wrote:Thirty years ago, finding a female applying for a career in the computer industry was much of an oxymoron as a blonde with brains.

Bill Woods wrote:Actually, in the mid-'80s about a third of the people majoring in computer science were women.

https://jaxenter.com/women-in-computer- ... 33646.html

stewart wrote:What was the natural color of Grace Hopper's hair ?

tlb wrote:What is the natural hair color of the women in this forum?
I assume some of them were slandered.


JohnRoth wrote:Yep. When I got into the field in the mid 60s, about a third of the programmers on the floor were women. In the last gig I had before retiring, the same was true.

By the way, my mother is (was) a natural blond. She worked as a tab machine operator (punched card systems) and did some programming on the IBM 650. Both of her programs worked correctly the first time. Then she decided there was no future in it and went back to the accounting department.


I never said that women couldn't be found in the industry in the infant years of computing. As I stated, I had even heard of the rare creatures myself. But there seemed to be NONE found in Silicon Valley, where the truly lucrative salaries were. Six figure incomes were a dime a dozen in the seventies. I'm talking about truly lucrative careers, not jobs.

I certainly never meant to agree that blondes aren't intelligent. They are, well. . . some. My friend Andreea from Ro is a brilliant blonde neurosurgeon - but still an oxymoron. Who always calls me a moron for the statement. Besides, beautiful blondes don't have to be smart to have fun.

In fact, there was an inside joke raging back then that they were all densely populated and gathered together only in one area, Silicone Valley - at the company parties when profits came out for the quarter.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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