Sure, here in the UK you can easily buy rulers that show centimetres - particularly the (plastic) kind used in schools, but the more serious kind too. But wouldn't that fall under the "a poor workman..." case?
I guess I'm not being clear. Every tape measure that I've seen in the US has both inches and cm. When I say 'tooling' I'm not refering to measuring devices, but to actual machine tools designed and built with the intent to be used with a particular part, in turn designed to fit withing a particular system of measurement. A common example is a socket wrench set. Ah, got it - dodgy tool manufactures using metric but labelling in AS. In my defence it's been a long day... What fractions in particular? Father McGruder mentioned decimalised inches, which would be 2.54mm for 1/10th of an inch, and seems fairly useless to me.
He's not talking about conversion from AS to Metric, but about the division of an inch into hundredths. At least that is what I thought that he was talking about. That's what I thought, too, I just imagined it as 10th of an inch. 100ths make more sense, particularly in light of the callipers/micrometer comment later. I'm assuming something in the order of 1/32" or 1/64"? I remember rulers with inches divided into 12s and 16s, but powers of 2 seem logical (possibly due to too much binary) - is that how it works?
Inches are normally shown divided into eighths on a common ruler, which is simply three halvings. Furthur precision is gained by continuing this process; one-sixteenth, one thirty-secondth, one sixty-fourth, and so on. The precision is base 2 and infinite. I've not seen a tweevlth used on any such measuring device within my career. I'm not saying that they don't exist, but they are not really an American Standard issue, perhaps a throwback to British Imperial? Ah, not sure I've ever seen 8ths of an inch on a British ruler. Base 2 makes sense, though. I wouldn't swear to seeing 12ths, though I'm reasonably certain - it was 16ths (which makes sense to me) and something "odd" - probably 12ths, possibly something else that wasn't a power of 2. Anyway... apologies for dragging this hugely off-topic, and thanks for providing your insight. |
|
|
|
mm would be used almost exclusively
Almost being the operative word. I know for a fact that not all metric tool manufacturers stick with mm, and not all of them are up front about it. Chinese tool manufacturers are particularly bad about this, in addition to sloppy fit in general, but they also happen to be the cheapest toolmakers in the world. In my experience, Chinese tools following the American Standard aren't as bad about fit, but that might just be me. Sure, here in the UK you can easily buy rulers that show centimetres - particularly the (plastic) kind used in schools, but the more serious kind too. But wouldn't that fall under the "a poor workman..." case? When I measure something I make sure I'm using the unit I should be using. Anyway, my point was that - while a ruler might show centimetres and inches, the serious worker would stick to mm. - I had a crusty old carpentry teacher who shouted at the class if anyone used centimetres!
I can imagine why. This can only be because he has experienced the order of magnitude error that can occur because of this. Indeed. That, for me, is the main reason to avoid the non-standard SI units - centimetres, decimetres, etc. I presume there are (commonly used) fractions of inches that are smaller than millimetres, and that's where the precision comes from?
Well, there is no such thing as 'common' sizes smaller than a mm in any context, but yes. The procession of dimminishing sizes is very orderly, and can be understood intuitively to anyone that has experience with the larger tools that use fractions of an ich. What fractions in particular? Father McGruder mentioned decimalised inches, which would be 2.54mm for 1/10th of an inch, and seems fairly useless to me. I'm assuming something in the order of 1/32" or 1/64"? I remember rulers with inches divided into 12s and 16s, but powers of 2 seem logical (possibly due to too much binary) - is that how it works? I always found mm precise enough, but I was never much of a carpenter...
That pretty much says it all, right there. |
|
|
|
There are no special words for 10 metres or 0.1mm, for example. 10 metres = decametre Doh! I knew that. It's not a unit I've ever encountered outside primary school, however. I suspect when Britain "went metric" (ahem!) back in the early 70s they assumed we'd need and use centimetres, decimetres and decametres, but only centimetres stuck (probably due to the - rough - correlation with inches). Do people tend to work in feet, or use mixtures? I see things like 1' 2" which suggests units get mixed, but I don't know if that's just when written or if people think in mixtures as well). Honestly, I don't measure enough to work in any unit really. When I measure stuff, I find something I can easily work with (eg, pillow-lengths to measure bedrooms) on the spot. I do plan to order some nice Tonal rules, though...  My problem with AS is that the "number" keeps changing: 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and I can never remember how many yards (or feet) in a mile. I can see potential advantages in using 12 instead of 10 - if there was a system that had 12 inches to a foot, 12 feet to a "bigyard", and 12 bigyards to a "twelvemile" then I could see some value in that. But 10, or - better - 1000, seems perfectly usable to me. There is such a system. It's called TGM.Why does that not surprise me? ;-) If it had the traction that AS has, I'd consider it - to my mind it's preferable to AS but metric's widespread usage still wins out for me. Except when it comes to beer: 500ml of beer is just wrong. |
|
|
|
Length is an exception to the 'generally halving' rule, which is why I didn't include it. It could stand to be fixed, and yes, most such measurements are mixed. However, fine measurements are always measured in fractions of an inch (tool sizes for example) and tend to be significantly more precise and easier to think about than metric units, which can be rated in cm or mm and often do not mark which upon the tool.
Ah, interesting about mixing. For fine measurements in metric, (I assume you mean for something like carpentry or metalworking?) mm would be used almost exclusively - I had a crusty old carpentry teacher who shouted at the class if anyone used centimetres! I presume there are (commonly used) fractions of inches that are smaller than millimetres, and that's where the precision comes from? I always found mm precise enough, but I was never much of a carpenter... |
|
|
|
In the course of my life I've had to use both systems quite extensively. Base 10 and base 2 are great with regard to engineering and computers. Yet they, at best, add nothing to the (general) halving of measurements that American Standard uses, and at worst make thinking in such metrics more difficult and therefore more prone to error. This has nothing to do with Bitcoin, of course, since it's a computerized metric; but think about it....
Even the metric system is based upon entirely arbitrary units, such as the meter, liter and gram. AS is mostly taking an arbitrary unit and repeatedly halving it. Some examples...
Dollar, half-dollar, quarter, bit (no longer used) (The dime and nickel were introduced only due to decimalization, the same is generally true in British Pounds)
Peck (2 gallons), gallon, half-gallon, quart, pint, half-pint, cup, gill (4 fluid ounces)
If you grew up using meters as your primary unit of length, have you ever found yourself thinking in half-meters instead of 50 cm? For example, measuring a wall of your house with a tape measure, if you need precision you write down meters and centimeters, but then you are really measuring in centimeters. But if you are just shooting for a general measurement, say for example, judging the area of a flat you intend to rent to see if your funiture will fit, do you think in half meters?
For that matter, have you ever thought in half centimeters?
What about when you buy petrol? Sure, the pump measures in liters and hundredths of a liter, but when the pump says 11.51 liters, do you think "eleven and a half liters"?
While driving, do you think of a driving distance as km's and meters? Or do you think, "it's about 3 and a half kilometers to the next turn"?
I'll concede that metric is much more uniform, and there is much to be said for that, but AS is easier to think within.
Couple of points (from someone who's pretty exclusively metric, but lives in a country that hasn't ever completely adopted the metric system - it still uses pints for beer, and miles for long distances). Sterling isn't quite like the dollar, it uses 1, 2 and 5 rather than doubling. So... 1p, 2p, 5p, ... 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, £2, £5 for coins (£5 coins aren't that common), and for notes it follows the same pattern: £5, ... £10, £20, £50. Centimetres are something of an aberration: normally SI units focus on 1000s. There are also decimetres, which don't seem to have gained any traction but which I remember from school rulers in the 1970s. This aberration only seems to exist with measuring distances, and only at the >1mm to <1m scale. There are no special words for 10 metres or 0.1mm, for example. I tend to focus on one, appropriate, scale and stick to it. So I would never think of "1 metre and 50 centimetres" - it would always be 1.5 metres (or, I'll concede, 1 and a half metres - though to be honest I do tend to think in decimals rather than fractions: "half" is just short-hand for "0.5" to me). I wouldn't think of centimetres when dealing primarily with metres. (Incidentally, is that true for AS folk? Do people tend to work in feet, or use mixtures? I see things like 1' 2" which suggests units get mixed, but I don't know if that's just when written or if people think in mixtures as well). My problem with AS is that the "number" keeps changing: 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, and I can never remember how many yards (or feet) in a mile. I can see potential advantages in using 12 instead of 10 - if there was a system that had 12 inches to a foot, 12 feet to a "bigyard", and 12 bigyards to a "twelvemile" then I could see some value in that. But 10, or - better - 1000, seems perfectly usable to me. |
|
|
|
Interesting Note: The company I work for just moved my office over to their proxy and now bitcoinpool.com is being blocked under the reason of "Games". I haven't found any other bitcoin related cites that I visit that have been blocked.
I assume it's due to "pool" - might be worth checking Bitcoin Darts! :-) |
|
|
|
I can get along now without BitCoin currency by using other ones.
But if you will start selling love in BitCoins only - I bet exchange rate for it will skyrocket and the Beatles will need to change "Money can't buy me love"....
Until this happens - BitCoins will be just another e-currency.
I don't mean it would not be used - it will be if a lot of people would be eager to buy/sell it for services.
But I don't understand why it will grow in value?
OK, I've caught up! Thanks for bearing with me. Broadly, you're quite right. A recurring theme here is that we need to build the economy by providing more and more services - either bitcoin-only or by convincing existing shops to accept bitcoins as well as whatever currency/ies they currently accept. However, bitcoin does have some advantages that other e-currencies and traditional currencies lack. It's comparatively fast - it can take several days to send funds in a conventional currency from one bank to another in my country (the UK), whereas international bitcoin transfers are nearly instant (I'd expect it to take an hour or so for any transfers of bitcoins). A subtle but major advantage is that there is ultimately a fixed and limited supply of bitcoins. With a traditional currency (say, US dollars) the supply of currency can be expanded, devaluing existing holdings. With e-currencies that are pegged to a traditional currency this is true, too. With bitcoins there's a diminishing supply: every 10 minutes or so another 50 bitcoins enter the money supply, for the next few years. Then it's 25 bitcoins every 10 minutes, then... until, once 21 million bitcoins are circulating, the supply stops increasing. That's a large factor in why bitcoins grow in value (relative to other currencies) - because the number is limited, and the supply of other currencies is generally assumed to increase every so often (devaluing those currencies). Finally: we all expect bitcoins to grow in value. But that's a long term bet. Recently we've seen a few months where bitcoin fell against the dollar fairly consistently. It's picked up now, but don't regard anything I say as investment advice! |
|
|
|
|
Is this solely for US Uncut? (Sorry, you did mention US Uncut but it wasn't clear if you still supported them, or would be supporting other "legitimate demands").
|
|
|
|
Ok. let's try this way..
Given:
I love milk and bread. There are two shops on the street that sell standard milk+bread package. I have $100. There is a guy that sells 1BTC=1USD.
1st of January:
Shop A sells it for $5. Shop B sells it for 5 BTC. Final - I buy it from Shop A cause I have USD in my pockets.
7th of January:
Shop A sells it for $5. Shop B sells it for 4 BTC. Final - I buy it from Shop B cause I changed my 4 USD to 4 BTC and saved 1USD.
14th of January:
Shop A sells it for $5. Shop B sells it for 6 BTC. Final - I buy it from Shop A cause its cheaper.
Can you comment on this post please?
No, still not getting it. I agree with all the three decisions above, but I don't see how that leads you to think that a currency can only go up above a certain point if there's a product that's only available in that currency. |
|
|
|
I mean there must be SOMETHING priced in BTC ONLY to make price of BTC to go up..
otherwise it will always be a chance to buy it using different currency thus making BTC useless above certain exchange price with major currencies.
To be honest, that's exactly what I thought you were suggesting last time. I still don't understand why you feel this will occur. Could you give an example? |
|
|
|
Imagine you are buying books at Amazon and it says.
Total to pay: $50USD or 50BTC? If 1BTC > 1USD you will choose to pay $50, correct?
Variant B:
Total to pay: $50USD or 25BTC?
It means that 1 BTC = 2 USD but how can it be? There must be something
1) that you can buy only with BTC
2) is scarce
3) is in big demand by millions ( to provide smooth exchange rate)
Point me where I'm wrong...
PS. Bitcoin idea is simply amazing!
I'm not sure I agree with the logic behind scenario B. Two USD is currently worth around one GBP (roughly...) - that doesn't mean that there's anything you can only buy with GBP, that's scarce or in big demand. In both scenarios, BTC is only worth $1 or $2 because Amazon say that what's they consider 1 BTC to be worth, and a customer accepts that. Amazon might use a figure that differs from the exchange rate for several reasons, just like some shops charge less for cash and debit cards, compared to credit cards and cheques. Shops selling in multiple currencies often buy currency in advance, or use "futures" to hedge against exchange rate changes - Amazon might do that, too, in these (hypothetical) scenarios. |
|
|
|
(nginx/0.7.65 .... come on, 1.0 was released awhile ago!).
Well, five days ago. Seriously, though, many OSs don't run with the latest and greatest. Debian Lenny (old stable) is still using Nginx 0.6.32-3, and Debian Squeeze (current stable) is on 0.7.67. Edit: This looks to be just a problem with the website: I've just started mining against Slush's pool and all seems fine. |
|
|
|
Edit: and now that I've seen the results: Switzerland? Really?! The countries with major currencies will be the last to surrender.
Switzerland already tolerates a non-government currency, albeit a heavily regulated one. WIR is internal to Switzerland and is "book-keeping only" - there's no scrip. So no foreign country holds reserves of WIR. |
|
|
|
"anonymous"
i don't think that word means what you think it means...
Or perhaps you don't realize that it is optional. And... "anonymous" came from the NY blurb, not necessarily mcqueenorama... |
|
|
|
Edit: and now that I've seen the results: Switzerland? Really?! The countries with major currencies will be the last to surrender. To my mind, that rules out Switzerland, the UK, the US, and every country in the Euro-zone (I suspect that they might want to dump the Euro, but I equally suspect that they may not have much of a choice...) (Also: Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
Note it says official reserves, but it doesn't say exclusive reserves - i.e. the first country to start strategically hoarding bitcoins, regardless of what other currencies and commodities they may also hoard. I don't think it's any less likely that would be a country with a major currency. My thinking is that the countries with major reserve currencies are a club, and won't want to antagonise other members of the club. If the UK, say, started holding bitcoins alongside CHF and USD, Switzerland and the US might be less inclined to hold GBP in their reserves. However... a mass sell off of GBP could be what the UK government wants, as it'll improve the UK balance of trade. I guess I don't know, I just tend to regard the major reserve currency states are fairly conservative. My money's still on Somalia! :-) |
|
|
|
1. It can be scaled downwards as far as needed
2. It is based on divisions of 1000 like the SI system
3. It uses the familiarity of 100 "subcoins" per "coin".
My preference, and I'm not sure yet how many share this opinion, is to leave cents in the past where they belong and have something like: 1 = 1 bitcoin 0.001 = 1 millicoin 0.000001 = 1 microcoin 0.000000001 = 1 nanocoin 0.000000000001 = 1 picocoin My preference is to keep it as simple as possible, to avoid barriers to entry, and I think avoiding "cents" achieves that. Beyond that, let users decide based on usage and custom. I daresay that there will be places - online and in meat-space - where people use "cents", because it makes sense for them to do so. I don't think we should encourage that, however, because it will serve to discourage other users, for whom "cents" is meaningless. Equally, I daresay there will be places where people never need to go below the decimal point. They'll use their own terminology, too. Where I am (the UK) it's become customary to refer to £1000 as "a grand", or, more recently, "1K". There's nothing official about that, but they're useful, just as "buck" and "quid" are useful, even though they're completely unofficial. Our default position should be: "there is a bitcoin, and it can be subdivided. Do your worst, people!" It's not helpful to replace that with, at the worst extreme, something like: "there is a bitcoin. One hundredth of a bitcoin is a cent, and 0.00000001 bitcoins is a satoshi and - are you writing this all down? Good! - when cents or satoshis aren't appropriate we use SI units." |
|
|
|
|
Is it just me, or did anyone else think this was a news item about a group of native Canadians using bitcoins instead of Canadian dollars? :-)
I'm going to go with Somalia. Apparently Somalia has the best mobile telephone system in Africa, and I can see bitcoin catching on there first. I don't think it'll be good for PR, but it'll be interesting.
Edit: and now that I've seen the results: Switzerland? Really?! The countries with major currencies will be the last to surrender. To my mind, that rules out Switzerland, the UK, the US, and every country in the Euro-zone (I suspect that they might want to dump the Euro, but I equally suspect that they may not have much of a choice...) (Also: Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
