Surely my jokes are not that bad?

[Alec Cawley]

I crack a couple of admittedly feeble jokes, and afp goes quiet. Surely you
are made of stronger stuff than that?

In other news, I am watching outside my bedroom window hoping that the pair
of ducks checking the neighbourhood out will decide to nest. Watching them
first thing in the morning would be a definite bonus.

The clocks having changed, I now have a light evening, and suddenly living
on a note makes complete sense. It is only a month since I was worrying
about my coal supplies, and now I have gloriously sunny evenings.
Wonderful.

[Nigel Stapley]

Alec Cawley wrote:
> I crack a couple of admittedly feeble jokes, and afp goes quiet. Surely you
> are made of stronger stuff than that?

Shhh! We're plotting revenge.

> suddenly living
> on a note makes complete sense.

You live in A Flat?

--
Regards

Nigel Stapley

www.thejudge.me.uk

<reply-to will bounce>

[Larry Moore]

Sorry, we went into premature estivation induced by a week of
temperatures 20 degrees above normal and the unreasonably early
starting of the Daylight Time.
The temperatures have reverted to seasonal normals and we have reawakened.

BTW, where would Thornford Regis TC9 6QX, be, if it existed?

--
I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an
email address. I'd used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15
years of email is plenty for one lifetime. Donald Knuth

[Nigel Stapley]

Larry Moore wrote:
> On 2012-03-26, Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:
>> I crack a couple of admittedly feeble jokes, and afp goes quiet. Surely you
>> are made of stronger stuff than that?
>>
>> In other news, I am watching outside my bedroom window hoping that the pair
>> of ducks checking the neighbourhood out will decide to nest. Watching them
>> first thing in the morning would be a definite bonus.
>>
>> The clocks having changed, I now have a light evening, and suddenly living
>> on a note makes complete sense. It is only a month since I was worrying
>> about my coal supplies, and now I have gloriously sunny evenings.
>> Wonderful.
>
> Sorry, we went into premature estivation induced by a week of
> temperatures 20 degrees above normal and the unreasonably early
> starting of the Daylight Time.
> The temperatures have reverted to seasonal normals and we have reawakened.
>
> BTW, where would Thornford Regis TC9 6QX, be, if it existed?
>

Nowhere. There's no 'TC' postcode area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk_postcodes

[Lesley Weston]

Living on a note sounds wonderfully whimsical: I didn't know you were
musical. But I'll join you in hoping that the ducks choose the right
spot; it will be lovely for you if they do.

Lesley.

--
This address is real, but to reach me use leswes att shaw dott ca

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-26-12 6:29 PM, Larry Moore wrote:
> On 2012-03-26, Alec Cawley<al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote:
>> I crack a couple of admittedly feeble jokes, and afp goes quiet. Surely you
>> are made of stronger stuff than that?
>>
>> In other news, I am watching outside my bedroom window hoping that the pair
>> of ducks checking the neighbourhood out will decide to nest. Watching them
>> first thing in the morning would be a definite bonus.
>>
>> The clocks having changed, I now have a light evening, and suddenly living
>> on a note makes complete sense. It is only a month since I was worrying
>> about my coal supplies, and now I have gloriously sunny evenings.
>> Wonderful.
>
> Sorry, we went into premature estivation induced by a week of
> temperatures 20 degrees above normal and the unreasonably early
> starting of the Daylight Time.
> The temperatures have reverted to seasonal normals and we have reawakened.

Here in Vancouver we missed out on the unexpected Summer that you lot
had in the East. I'm still wearing my long down coat (best investment I
ever made), and now I have a heavy Winter cold despite it.

The extra daylight starting so early in the year is nice though; I wish
we could have permanent Daylight-saving Time. GMT is an artificial
construct anyway, so we should use whatever increment on it is useful to
us wherever we are in the world. All of us who suffer from SAD (the
entire population of Canada?) would benefit from having more hours of
light in the warmer part of the day, so that we could actually use them.

[Reader in Invisible Writings]

GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
eras of fast communication*. With our world wide communications "at the
speed of light", there is even more reason for having a universal time
frame.

What is artificial is our unbending obeisance to the time on the clock.
Why should workers on a site in the north of Scotland start at the
same time as ones on the south coast of England despite it being dark at
one and not at the other? Why should children go to school at the same
time Summer and Winter? Why do farmers milk by the clock and not by
sunrise? If we had a more flexible attitude to these matters then in
fact we would not need daylight saving time. Also, I note that the USA
and Canada started a week earlier than Europe. USA I can understand as
generally it is further south than most of Europe, but Canada is about
the same, so why not change when Europe does? The same reason that most
of England could be on GMT+1** and Scotland could not, so we stay on GMT
rather than break ranks.

*actually the early railways when you could get from London to Bristol
in a reasonably short time and notice that the clocks were 20 minutes
slow there!
**+DST (aka British Summer Time from when we were virtually the only
nation who kept it up after the Great War part II)

--
Reader in Invisible Writings
Something to Ponder on!

[Larry Moore]

On 2012-03-27, Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote:

> Larry Moore wrote:

>> BTW, where would Thornford Regis TC9 6QX, be, if it existed?
>>
>
> Nowhere. There's no 'TC' postcode area.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk_postcodes
>

And the village of Thornford is in Dorset but I'm not sure where
C.C. Benison 's Thornford Regis would be.
South and east of Midsomer perhaps?

--
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every
one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not.
Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
John Maynard Keynes

[Robert Carnegie]

On Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:58:57 PM UTC+1, Lesley Weston wrote:
> The extra daylight starting so early in the year is nice though; I wish
> we could have permanent Daylight-saving Time. GMT is an artificial
> construct anyway, so we should use whatever increment on it is useful to
> us wherever we are in the world. All of us who suffer from SAD (the
> entire population of Canada?) would benefit from having more hours of
> light in the warmer part of the day, so that we could actually use them.

I don't see how declaring the time to be later
than it actually is (GMT runs all year round,
we mostly don't use it but BBC World Service
radio broadcasts can give you a funny turn)
makes it warmer in the daylight time, unless
your central heating time switch is a factor.

Besides SAD, apparently most of the United Kingdom
is short of Vitamin D, which apparently you need
to have to handle calcium. Fortunately it's turned
warm here anyway. I got out the short-sleeved shirts.

[Chris Zakes]

What's*really* weird is Summer/Daylight Savings Time in places even
farther north. For example, I've been told that Finland--which gets
something like 20 hours of sunlight in the summer--has Daylight
Savings Time. Why would they need it?

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."

-Issac Asimov

[John S. Wilkins]

Chris Zakes <dont...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:33:45 +0100, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Reader in Invisible Writings <markfo...@aim.com> to write:
>

...

> What's*really* weird is Summer/Daylight Savings Time in places even
> farther north. For example, I've been told that Finland--which gets
> something like 20 hours of sunlight in the summer--has Daylight
> Savings Time. Why would they need it?
>

They're storing it away for winter, of course. Not like those lazy
Norwegians.
--
John S. Wilkins, Associate, Philosophy, University of Sydney
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

[Winterbay]

> GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
> overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
> eras of fast communication*. With our world wide communications "at the
> speed of light", there is even more reason for having a universal time
> frame.
>
> What is artificial is our unbending obeisance to the time on the clock.
> Why should workers on a site in the north of Scotland start at the same
> time as ones on the south coast of England despite it being dark at one
> and not at the other? Why should children go to school at the same time
> Summer and Winter? Why do farmers milk by the clock and not by sunrise?
> If we had a more flexible attitude to these matters then in fact we
> would not need daylight saving time. Also, I note that the USA and
> Canada started a week earlier than Europe. USA I can understand as
> generally it is further south than most of Europe, but Canada is about
> the same, so why not change when Europe does? The same reason that most
> of England could be on GMT+1** and Scotland could not, so we stay on GMT
> rather than break ranks.
>
> *actually the early railways when you could get from London to Bristol
> in a reasonably short time and notice that the clocks were 20 minutes
> slow there!
> **+DST (aka British Summer Time from when we were virtually the only
> nation who kept it up after the Great War part II)
>

Interesting point in fact: There are at least 1, I think 2, states in
the US that doesn't bother with DST. Arizona is one of them.

/Winterbay

[Nigel Stapley]

Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
> Why should children go to school at the same time
> Summer and Winter?

When I was in junior school (late 60s/early 70s) our school day ended at
15:15 in Summer and 15:00 in the winter. The start time (09:00) remained
constant.

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
> On 27/03/2012 16:58, Lesley Weston wrote:

<snip>

>> The extra daylight starting so early in the year is nice though; I wish
>> we could have permanent Daylight-saving Time. GMT is an artificial
>> construct anyway, so we should use whatever increment on it is useful to
>> us wherever we are in the world. All of us who suffer from SAD (the
>> entire population of Canada?) would benefit from having more hours of
>> light in the warmer part of the day, so that we could actually use them.
>>
>> Lesley.
>>
>
> GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
> overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
> eras of fast communication*.

There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
the man who invented it was in the British Navy.

> With our world wide communications "at the
> speed of light", there is even more reason for having a universal time
> frame.

Not at all. Everything we use that needs to be on the same time as
something elsewhere in the world is programmed to adjust automatically,
without us having to get involved at all. It's a quaint survival from
before the industrial revolution. Very occasionally, it might be useful
to be able to calculate it oneself, just as it's useful to know Morse code.

>
> What is artificial is our unbending obeisance to the time on the clock.

For companies to do business together, they all have to have someone in
the office at the same time. It doesn't hold across too many time zones
but within the tiny British Isles, which all fit comfortably into one
time zone, it makes sense.

> Why should workers on a site in the north of Scotland start at the same
> time as ones on the south coast of England despite it being dark at one
> and not at the other?

Eh? Time zones run East-West, not North-south.

> Why should children go to school at the same time
> Summer and Winter?

Why not? It makes things much easier for their parents who have to get
to work somewhere that is not part of the school system. If school and
work hours both Summer and Winter were set by DST instead of GMT, then
the kids could go home in the daylight and still have some time to play
outside.

> Why do farmers milk by the clock and not by sunrise?

Cows need milking when they need milking, which will be a certain number
of hours since they were last milked.

> If we had a more flexible attitude to these matters then in fact we
> would not need daylight saving time.

We don't. We just need for GMT to be one hour earlier.

> Also, I note that the USA and
> Canada started a week earlier than Europe.

More than a week.

> USA I can understand as
> generally it is further south than most of Europe, but Canada is about
> the same, so why not change when Europe does?

Because our major trading partner is the US, not Europe. We already have
enough difficulties with our being in five and a half time zones. I know
two people in Vancouver who trade on the Asian stock markets as well.
They have to start work at three in the morning.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, March 28, 2012 3:00:48 PM UTC+1, Lesley Weston wrote:
> On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
> > Why should workers on a site in the north of Scotland

"Land of the Midnight Sun"

> > start at the same
> > time as ones on the south coast of England despite it being dark at one
> > and not at the other?
>
> Eh? Time zones run East-West, not North-south.

See above.

IIRC, in between the "tropic" lines on the globe,
the day and the night are pretty much the same length, all the time.

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-27-12 9:19 PM, Winterbay wrote:

<snip>

> Interesting point in fact: There are at least 1, I think 2, states in
> the US that doesn't bother with DST. Arizona is one of them.

Saskatchewan, a Canadian Province that runs from Parallel 49 to Parallel
60 as most of them do, doesn't use it either. Traditionally their basis
is agriculture, so making things convenient for business and for the
workers who have to keep the hours set by their bosses doesn't interest

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-28-12 7:00 AM, Lesley Weston wrote:
> On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:

<snip>

>> Why should workers on a site in the north of Scotland start at the same
>> time as ones on the south coast of England despite it being dark at one
>> and not at the other?
>
> Eh? Time zones run East-West, not North-south.

Actually the other way round, what I mean is that the differences do.

[Kevin Wells]

In message <jkv5ih$2knr$1...@mud.stack.nl>

Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>
>There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>

Thats the reason, who invented it has the right, just as UK stamps don't
have country name, where others do, the FA is called the FA not the
English FA as it was the first.


--
Kev Wells http://riscos.kevsoft.co.uk/
http://kevsoft.co.uk/ http://kevsoft.co.uk/AleQuest/
ICQ 238580561
And did those feet in ancient time

[Alec Cawley]

What is actually wrong is that we start work when the clock says 0900. If
you have an eight hour working day, it should be symmetrically about noon
(preferably true noon) I.e. 08:00 to 16:00 not 09:00 to 17:00. With
variations for shorter or longer days. But a day shifted an hour later does
not make sense.

[Alec Cawley]

Nigel Stapley <un...@judgemental.plus.com> wrote:
> Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
>> Why should children go to school at the same time
>> Summer and Winter?
> When I was in junior school (late 60s/early 70s) our school day ended at
> 15:15 in Summer and 15:00 in the winter. The start time (09:00) remained constant.

When I was in senior school, we had a class before breakfast, 7:30-8:15, in
summer, and only one class in the afternoon to give more time for games. In
winter, classes started after breakfast ( and chapel) and there were two
classes in the afternoon. Summer sports ere leisurely cricket and long
afternoons rowing; winter sports were the snappier rugby and football and
similar.

[Robert Carnegie]

On Wednesday, March 28, 2012 10:25:41 PM UTC+1, @lec ©awley wrote:
> What is actually wrong is that we start work when the clock says 0900. If
> you have an eight hour working day, it should be symmetrically about noon
> (preferably true noon) I.e. 08:00 to 16:00 not 09:00 to 17:00. With
> variations for shorter or longer days. But a day shifted an hour later does
> not make sense.

Well, do we want to do work at a nice time, or when it's nasty?

Going to work and coming home in the dark, when the day in between doesn't reach both ends, is
rotten. Even going shopping is a bit of a pain.
Should we maybe work when it's dark and go out
and have fun when it's light?

[Reader in Invisible Writings]

On 28/03/2012 04:42, John S. Wilkins wrote:
> Chris Zakes<dont...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:33:45 +0100, an orbital mind-control laser
>> caused Reader in Invisible Writings<markfo...@aim.com> to write:
>>
> ...
>> What's*really* weird is Summer/Daylight Savings Time in places even
>> farther north. For example, I've been told that Finland--which gets
>> something like 20 hours of sunlight in the summer--has Daylight
>> Savings Time. Why would they need it?
>>
> They're storing it away for winter, of course. Not like those lazy
> Norwegians.

If you are going to be governed by the clock, not the sun, then the
further north you go the more sense daylight saving makes (even double
daylight saving) but it would need to be done later in the year than at
or about the summer equinox.

[Reader in Invisible Writings]

On 28/03/2012 15:00, Lesley Weston wrote:
> On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
>> On 27/03/2012 16:58, Lesley Weston wrote:
>
> <snip>

>>

>> GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
>> overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
>> eras of fast communication*.
>
> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>

Actually it was the Royal Observatory but clearly the Royal Navy and
Ordnance Survey followed this meridian. According to Wikipedia there
were over 27 different meridians in use at one time or another but as
the majority of shipping were using the Greenwich one an international
conference opted for that as the prime meridian.

>> With our world wide communications "at the
>> speed of light", there is even more reason for having a universal time
>> frame.
>
> Not at all. Everything we use that needs to be on the same time as
> something elsewhere in the world is programmed to adjust automatically,
> without us having to get involved at all. It's a quaint survival from
> before the industrial revolution. Very occasionally, it might be useful
> to be able to calculate it oneself, just as it's useful to know Morse code.

Sorry, but before the industrial revolution you took so long to get
anywhere that you accepted local time as your watch probably could not
be relied on. Only the Navy had (eventually) reliable chronometers for
navigation. It was the advent of the railway when you could travel from
London to Bristol in 2 hours and find that it had only taken 1 hour 40
minutes, or that your watch was out by 20 mins, with similar issues on
the way back.

>>
>> What is artificial is our unbending obeisance to the time on the clock.
>
> For companies to do business together, they all have to have someone in
> the office at the same time. It doesn't hold across too many time zones
> but within the tiny British Isles, which all fit comfortably into one
> time zone, it makes sense.
>

But they could do that with a single Universal Time and is only now an
issue due to computers and the telephone. When they did business by
post nobody had to be there at the same time.

>> Why should workers on a site in the north of Scotland start at the same
>> time as ones on the south coast of England despite it being dark at one
>> and not at the other?
>
> Eh? Time zones run East-West, not North-south.
>

True, but the tilt of the Earth is north south so, in winter, it gets
lighter later the further north you go. There is no daylight to save in
the Tropics but plenty towards the poles.

>> Why should children go to school at the same time
>> Summer and Winter?
>
> Why not? It makes things much easier for their parents who have to get
> to work somewhere that is not part of the school system. If school and
> work hours both Summer and Winter were set by DST instead of GMT, then
> the kids could go home in the daylight and still have some time to play
> outside.
>

Ah - but is is better to go to school in the light rather than the dark
and then play in the streets in the dark until the parents get home...
We had an experiment with that and "The Papers" won on shear "don't like
it" rather than evidence.

>> Why do farmers milk by the clock and not by sunrise?
>
> Cows need milking when they need milking, which will be a certain number
> of hours since they were last milked.
>

But they are milked to the schedule of the tanker lorries and this
shifts one hour twice a year - irrespective of what the cows need.

>> If we had a more flexible attitude to these matters then in fact we
>> would not need daylight saving time.
>
> We don't. We just need for GMT to be one hour earlier.
>

Do you mean GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in the summer? I would go with
that, but just ask a Scot who thinks that GMT-1 and GMT would suit him
or her better.

>> Also, I note that the USA and
>> Canada started a week earlier than Europe.
>
> More than a week.

OK, but not on my Discworld Calendar (IIRC)

>
>> USA I can understand as
>> generally it is further south than most of Europe, but Canada is about
>> the same, so why not change when Europe does?
>
> Because our major trading partner is the US, not Europe. We already have
> enough difficulties with our being in five and a half time zones. I know
> two people in Vancouver who trade on the Asian stock markets as well.
> They have to start work at three in the morning.
>

Agreed, and it is all down to a too fixed attitude to time "Work from 9
to 5", which you are saying does not work in the instant communications
of today.

> Lesley.
>
Not really getting at you... honest

[steveski]

Alec Cawley wrote:

> When I was in senior school, we had a class before breakfast, 7:30-8:15,
> in summer, and only one class in the afternoon to give more time for
> games. In winter, classes started after breakfast ( and chapel) and there
> were two classes in the afternoon. Summer sports ere leisurely cricket and
> long afternoons rowing; winter sports were the snappier rugby and football
> and similar.

Were you awarded a Brown?

--
Steveski

[GaryN]

Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote in
news:2119380333354662297.24...@news.individual.net:

At my school morning chapel was 8:30am, classes from 9 to 11, break,
classes from 11:30 to 13:00. Lunch. 3 days a week assorted activities from
14:30 - 16:30 then classes until 18:00. Other 3 days a week sport from
14:30 until 16:00. Rugby in winter, field hockey in spring, cricket in
summer unless, like me, you happened to be good at some sort of athletic
thingy.

I enjoyed athletics in the summer, sign out a couple of javelins, wander up
to the top of 'Bloody Mountain' (the school playing fields[1]) laze around
in the sun and chuck the spears now and then to show willing. Nice thing
was that me and little Ricky, the other senior spearchucker, didn't really
need to practise due to natural talent[2]. Got a bloody good tan...:-)

Overall it was a pretty good school although it's changed a lot since I
left in the the 80s

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Valence_School

I particularly enjoyed substituting some hollow point (not really illegal
under the Geneva Convention, honest Guv) .22 LR rounds smuggled in by a
South African boarder onto the smallbore range and blowing the targets into
small pieces.

Happy days...:-)

gary

[1] The site of a Saxon battle lost in the mists of time.
[2] Mostly we competed against each other in inter-school competitions.
There was no doubt we'd take 1st and 2nd, just who got which![3]
[3] It's not true that Ricky nailed a cricket outfielder at Kings College
with a javelin - he missed by at least 3 feet. Well, maybe 2 feet...

--
"Your Reputation is what people know about you.
Your Honour is what you know about yourself"

Lois McMaster Bujold.

[Harry Vaderchi]

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:14:58 +0100, Kevin Wells <k...@kevsoft.co.uk> wrote:

> In message <jkv5ih$2knr$1...@mud.stack.nl>
> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>>
>
> Thats the reason, who invented it has the right, just as UK stamps don't
> have country name, where others do, the FA is called the FA not the
> English FA as it was the first.
>
>

so the US didn't (it's used now though) have country code suffix url
".com.us" just ".com"
and it's international dialling code is "1", 'cos they invented the
internet and telephone.

--
[dash dash space newline 4line sig]

Albi CNU

[Gary R. Schmidt]

On 29/03/2012 1:00 AM, Lesley Weston wrote:
[SNIP]

> Not at all. Everything we use that needs to be on the same time as
> something elsewhere in the world is programmed to adjust automatically,
> without us having to get involved at all.

Ha ha! You wish!!

There are a lot of systems out there than can/will not be replaced, and
have time-keeping systems that don't grok DST or local time or
*anything* and they have to be manually set to the correct time whenever:
a) the time changes, e.g. DST
b) the system is re-started for some reason, usually that sets the date
and time to 19700101T00:00

Some of these systems run banks, trains, airlines, ...

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
When men talk to their friends, they insult each other.
They don't really mean it.
When women talk to their friends, they compliment each other.
They don't mean it either.

[Chris Zakes]

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 07:00:48 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
caused Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:

>On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
>> On 27/03/2012 16:58, Lesley Weston wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>>> The extra daylight starting so early in the year is nice though; I wish
>>> we could have permanent Daylight-saving Time. GMT is an artificial
>>> construct anyway, so we should use whatever increment on it is useful to
>>> us wherever we are in the world. All of us who suffer from SAD (the
>>> entire population of Canada?) would benefit from having more hours of
>>> light in the warmer part of the day, so that we could actually use them.
>>>
>>> Lesley.
>>>
>>
>> GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
>> overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
>> eras of fast communication*.
>
>There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>the man who invented it was in the British Navy.

If Dan Brown can be believed (a major assumption, I realize) the Prime
Meridian used to be in Paris, not Greenwich.

[Gary R. Schmidt]

On 29/03/2012 10:58 PM, Chris Zakes wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 07:00:48 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Lesley Weston<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:
>
>> On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
>>> On 27/03/2012 16:58, Lesley Weston wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> The extra daylight starting so early in the year is nice though; I wish
>>>> we could have permanent Daylight-saving Time. GMT is an artificial
>>>> construct anyway, so we should use whatever increment on it is useful to
>>>> us wherever we are in the world. All of us who suffer from SAD (the
>>>> entire population of Canada?) would benefit from having more hours of
>>>> light in the warmer part of the day, so that we could actually use them.
>>>>
>>>> Lesley.
>>>>
>>>
>>> GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
>>> overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
>>> eras of fast communication*.
>>
>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>
> If Dan Brown can be believed (a major assumption, I realize) the Prime
> Meridian used to be in Paris, not Greenwich.
>

Doesn't go to Brown being accurate, but the prime meridian for *France*
once ran through Paris.

Something the First Republic did, I think.

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-28-12 8:14 AM, Kevin Wells wrote:
> In message<jkv5ih$2knr$1...@mud.stack.nl>
> Lesley Weston<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>>
>
> Thats the reason, who invented it has the right, just as UK stamps don't
> have country name, where others do, the FA is called the FA not the
> English FA as it was the first.
>
>

And the US is the only country where people and organisations don't have
to have the country in their Interwebs handles. Due credit should be
given for all of these and many more, of course. However, that's not an
adequate reason to have the whole world running inefficiently and in a
manner that makes people less comfortable than they could be. GMT, being
imaginary, can be whatever we (the world) says it is, which is in effect
what happens when we choose to introduce DST or not.

[Lesley Weston]

Actually, Canada invented the phone.

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-28-12 2:25 PM, Alec Cawley wrote:

<snip>

> What is actually wrong is that we start work when the clock says 0900. If
> you have an eight hour working day, it should be symmetrically about noon
> (preferably true noon) I.e. 08:00 to 16:00 not 09:00 to 17:00.

Many North American companies and organisations do keep those hours.

> With
> variations for shorter or longer days. But a day shifted an hour later does
> not make sense.

That would work, though I think the centre should not be true noon but a
"noon" at least an hour earlier than the real one. The only thing that
has to be fixed is that everybody in a given time zone who has to be
somewhere at a given time is working on the same clock. Otherwise, a
factory [1] or office that starts at 8 while the local schools start at
9 will cause endless problems.

[1] Are there any left in the western world?

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-28-12 4:37 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
> On 28/03/2012 15:00, Lesley Weston wrote:
>> On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
>>> On 27/03/2012 16:58, Lesley Weston wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>
>>>
>>> GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
>>> overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
>>> eras of fast communication*.
>>
>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>>
> Actually it was the Royal Observatory but clearly the Royal Navy and
> Ordnance Survey followed this meridian.

Same thing.

> According to Wikipedia there
> were over 27 different meridians in use at one time or another but as
> the majority of shipping were using the Greenwich one an international
> conference opted for that as the prime meridian.
>
>>> With our world wide communications "at the
>>> speed of light", there is even more reason for having a universal time
>>> frame.
>>
>> Not at all. Everything we use that needs to be on the same time as
>> something elsewhere in the world is programmed to adjust automatically,
>> without us having to get involved at all. It's a quaint survival from
>> before the industrial revolution. Very occasionally, it might be useful
>> to be able to calculate it oneself, just as it's useful to know Morse
>> code.
>
> Sorry, but before the industrial revolution you took so long to get
> anywhere that you accepted local time as your watch probably could not
> be relied on. Only the Navy had (eventually) reliable chronometers for
> navigation. It was the advent of the railway when you could travel from
> London to Bristol in 2 hours and find that it had only taken 1 hour 40
> minutes, or that your watch was out by 20 mins, with similar issues on
> the way back.

However, we are now living after or perhaps during the industrial
revolution. So what people had to do before it doesn't really concern
anybody but historians, professional and amateur.

>>>
>>> What is artificial is our unbending obeisance to the time on the clock.
>>
>> For companies to do business together, they all have to have someone in
>> the office at the same time. It doesn't hold across too many time zones
>> but within the tiny British Isles, which all fit comfortably into one
>> time zone, it makes sense.
>>
> But they could do that with a single Universal Time and is only now an
> issue due to computers and the telephone.

Both of which are essential parts of any business. It doesn't matter
what you call the time, people who are working together have to be
available at the same time for at least part of the day. And people all
around the world usually want to work during some of the daylight hours,
play during whatever daylight is left and a bit of the dark hours, and
sleep during the night.

> When they did business by post
> nobody had to be there at the same time.

And the speed of transactions and more importantly of innovation was
glacial.

>
>>> Why should workers on a site in the north of Scotland start at the same
>>> time as ones on the south coast of England despite it being dark at one
>>> and not at the other?
>>
>> Eh? Time zones run East-West, not North-south.
>>
> True, but the tilt of the Earth is north south so, in winter, it gets
> lighter later the further north you go. There is no daylight to save in
> the Tropics but plenty towards the poles.
>
>>> Why should children go to school at the same time
>>> Summer and Winter?
>>
>> Why not? It makes things much easier for their parents who have to get
>> to work somewhere that is not part of the school system. If school and
>> work hours both Summer and Winter were set by DST instead of GMT, then
>> the kids could go home in the daylight and still have some time to play
>> outside.
>>
> Ah - but is is better to go to school in the light rather than the dark
> and then play in the streets in the dark until the parents get home...
> We had an experiment with that and "The Papers" won on shear "don't like
> it" rather than evidence.

I'm not surprised. Daylight is necessary for us to make serotonin and
also Vitamin D, and the children will feel more secure. Besides:

''Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth,
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye,
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.'' [1]

So it's not just Modern Businessperson.

>
>>> Why do farmers milk by the clock and not by sunrise?
>>
>> Cows need milking when they need milking, which will be a certain number
>> of hours since they were last milked.
>>
> But they are milked to the schedule of the tanker lorries and this
> shifts one hour twice a year - irrespective of what the cows need.

True. Another reason not to shift it.

>
>>> If we had a more flexible attitude to these matters then in fact we
>>> would not need daylight saving time.
>>
>> We don't. We just need for GMT to be one hour earlier.
>>
> Do you mean GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in the summer?

No. I mean GMT should be reset at one hour earlier, with no changes all
year round. It can be called whatever people want, including Daylight
Saving Time, but it should be constant all year.

> I would go with
> that, but just ask a Scot who thinks that GMT-1 and GMT would suit him
> or her better.
>>> Also, I note that the USA and
>>> Canada started a week earlier than Europe.
>>
>> More than a week.
> OK, but not on my Discworld Calendar (IIRC)

Well of course! The elephants are generally obliging beasts, but they
can only do so much shuffling, lifting legs and so forth.

[1] I think it's out of copyright now.

[Nigel Stapley]

Actually, it was a Newfie who invented the first phone.

He had to wait for someone else to invent the second one...

:-)

[Alec Cawley]

/I/ wasn't awarded anything. In my last year, the school acquired a
computer, which was housed on the way to the boathouse. So I would don
rowing gear and head towards the boathouse, and return some hours later
saying what a lovely day it had been on the river. The idea of me receiving
any sporting award whatsoever is risible.

[Alec Cawley]

Chris Zakes <dont...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 07:00:48 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:
>
>> On 03-27-12 4:33 PM, Reader in Invisible Writings wrote:
>>> On 27/03/2012 16:58, Lesley Weston wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> The extra daylight starting so early in the year is nice though; I wish
>>>> we could have permanent Daylight-saving Time. GMT is an artificial
>>>> construct anyway, so we should use whatever increment on it is useful to
>>>> us wherever we are in the world. All of us who suffer from SAD (the
>>>> entire population of Canada?) would benefit from having more hours of
>>>> light in the warmer part of the day, so that we could actually use them.
>>>>
>>>> Lesley.
>>>>
>>>
>>> GMT is only artificial in the fact that it averages when the sun is
>>> overhead at noon to prevent the communication issues that arise in the
>>> eras of fast communication*.
>>
>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>
> If Dan Brown can be believed (a major assumption, I realize) the Prime
> Meridian used to be in Paris, not Greenwich.

The French used Paris, the British used Greenwich. Everybody based things
relative to their local observatory. There was a conference in the 1880s in
which the French were outvoted, and Greenwich adopted as the universal,
rather than national, Prime Meridian.

[Harry Vaderchi]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:13:22 +0100, Lesley Weston
<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On 03-29-12 1:20 AM, Harry Vaderchi wrote:
>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:14:58 +0100, Kevin Wells <k...@kevsoft.co.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> In message <jkv5ih$2knr$1...@mud.stack.nl>
>>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>>>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Thats the reason, who invented it has the right, just as UK stamps
>>> don't
>>> have country name, where others do, the FA is called the FA not the
>>> English FA as it was the first.
>>>
>>>
>> so the US didn't (it's used now though) have country code suffix url
>> ".com.us" just ".com"
>> and it's international dialling code is "1", 'cos they invented the

oops aphina just called!

>> internet and telephone.
>>
> Actually, Canada invented the phone.
>

and a chap in CERN the wibbly web.

> Lesley.

[Winterbay]

Lesley Weston skrev 2012-03-28 16:17:
> On 03-27-12 9:19 PM, Winterbay wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> Interesting point in fact: There are at least 1, I think 2, states in
>> the US that doesn't bother with DST. Arizona is one of them.
>
> Saskatchewan, a Canadian Province that runs from Parallel 49 to Parallel
> 60 as most of them do, doesn't use it either. Traditionally their basis
> is agriculture, so making things convenient for business and for the
> workers who have to keep the hours set by their bosses doesn't interest
> them.
>
> Lesley.
>

In Sweden the main argument for the DST getting started in the first
place was in order to make things easier for farmers. Which I find
highly unlikely to work but that's what they say.

A suggestion I saw on Twitter was to have DST start on Monday afternoon
at around 15.30 instead of in the middle of the night. This would make
most of the moaning about it go away I feel :)

/Winterbay

[GaryN]

Winterbay <peter....@gmail.com> wrote in news:jl2g7u$1lhg$1
@mud.stack.nl:

<snip>

> A suggestion I saw on Twitter was to have DST start on Monday afternoon
> at around 15.30 instead of in the middle of the night. This would make
> most of the moaning about it go away I feel :)
>
> /Winterbay
>

Doesn't much matter, all you have to remember is:-
Spring: Forward.
Fall: Back.

Unless you have an urgent need to see a particular TV programme who cares?

The agricultural workers that it is designed to apply to probably don't
notice anyway. Get up at "can" and work until "can't". I worked on the
chiken farm Christmas and Boxing day one year. Chickens don't know about
Christmas but they need to be fed.

The whole bullshit about BST is complete crap made up for city dwellers to
make them feel useful. Country people move with the rhythms of the
countryside.

Not like city scum buying "Move to the Country" houses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdEG977vYm0

Sorry but I hate them.

The other thing to remember is that time is an illusion and may not exist
at all.

Same as me really.

gary

P.S. JSW - Stick now stained, although not as consistently as I would have
liked, but it's interesting. First coat of varnish on, second coat this
weekend. Expect to ship Monday so you should receive Thursday Next or
thereabouts.

[GaryN]

Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote in

news:1963921685354737614.55...@news.individual.net:

Back in 198something my school had 3 computers which could be programmed
in BASIC (remember that?). I turned out to be good at it.

I did get school colours for Rugby (broken collar bone defending as
fullback), Hockey (nearly killed by a stick in the throat defending as
left back[1]), Squash (not breaking anything) and spearchucking.

Thankfully I have a wonderful personality and good hair so nobody was
annoyed at my intellectual and martial prowess.

gary

[1] 1/2 inch lower it would have smashed my trachea - as it was it just
broke my jaw.

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-29-12 4:06 PM, GaryN wrote:

<snip>

> The other thing to remember is that time is an illusion and may not exist
> at all.

A lot of people (not just here) seem to forget that and behave as if
time has some kind of concrete existence, rather than being a convenient
fiction.
>
> Same as me really.

Your electrons look real enough to me.

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-29-12 9:50 AM, Nigel Stapley wrote:
> Lesley Weston wrote:
>> On 03-29-12 1:20 AM, Harry Vaderchi wrote:
>>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:14:58 +0100, Kevin Wells <k...@kevsoft.co.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> In message <jkv5ih$2knr$1...@mud.stack.nl>
>>>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>>>>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thats the reason, who invented it has the right, just as UK stamps
>>>> don't
>>>> have country name, where others do, the FA is called the FA not the
>>>> English FA as it was the first.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> so the US didn't (it's used now though) have country code suffix url
>>> ".com.us" just ".com"
>>> and it's international dialling code is "1", 'cos they invented the
>>> internet and telephone.
>>>
>> Actually, Canada invented the phone.
>>
>
> Actually, it was a Newfie who invented the first phone.

Actually, Alexander Graham Bell was a Scot living and working in both
Canada and the US. So whatever.

>
> He had to wait for someone else to invent the second one...
>
> :-)
>

LOL.

[GaryN]

Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
news:jl4dkt$4c9$1...@mud.stack.nl:

> On 03-29-12 4:06 PM, GaryN wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> The other thing to remember is that time is an illusion and may not
>> exist at all.
>
> A lot of people (not just here) seem to forget that and behave as if
> time has some kind of concrete existence, rather than being a
> convenient fiction.
>>
>> Same as me really.
>
> Your electrons look real enough to me.
>
> Lesley.
>

According to the latest research they may not be *my* electrons.
Apparently an electron can be in 2 places at once over galactic
distances (don't ask me how that works).

Can't even keep your electrons to yourself.

I wonder if it would be a valid defence in court - "Your honour the
files found on my clients computer were actually transmitted from the
Lesser Magellanic Cloud"

Fucking prove that one wrong!

gary

[Kevin Wells]

In message <jl4eaq$4pv$1...@mud.stack.nl>

Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>On 03-29-12 9:50 AM, Nigel Stapley wrote:
>> Lesley Weston wrote:
>>> On 03-29-12 1:20 AM, Harry Vaderchi wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:14:58 +0100, Kevin Wells <k...@kevsoft.co.uk>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> In message <jkv5ih$2knr$1...@mud.stack.nl>
>>>>> Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There's no reason why 0-hour should run through Greenwich, except that
>>>>>> the man who invented it was in the British Navy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thats the reason, who invented it has the right, just as UK stamps
>>>>> don't
>>>>> have country name, where others do, the FA is called the FA not the
>>>>> English FA as it was the first.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> so the US didn't (it's used now though) have country code suffix url
>>>> ".com.us" just ".com"
>>>> and it's international dialling code is "1", 'cos they invented the
>>>> internet and telephone.
>>>>
>>> Actually, Canada invented the phone.
>>>
>>
>> Actually, it was a Newfie who invented the first phone.
>
>Actually, Alexander Graham Bell was a Scot living and working in both
>Canada and the US. So whatever.

Elisha Gray:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray>

>>
>> He had to wait for someone else to invent the second one...
>>
>> :-)
>>
>LOL.
>
>Lesley.
>


--

Kev Wells http://riscos.kevsoft.co.uk/
http://kevsoft.co.uk/ http://kevsoft.co.uk/AleQuest/
ICQ 238580561
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

[Nigel Stapley]

GaryN wrote:

>
> According to the latest research they may not be *my* electrons.
> Apparently an electron can be in 2 places at once over galactic
> distances (don't ask me how that works).
>
> Can't even keep your electrons to yourself.

I dunno, these bloody foreign galaxies, comin' over 'ere nickin' our
electrons! I'm gunna vote BNP (1)!

(1) Bosons, Neutrons and Protons

[Alec Cawley]

GaryN <webm...@oxtoyrun.org.uk> wrote:

>
> The other thing to remember is that time is an illusion and may not exist
> at all.
>

Or, the latest theory, time is slowing down. Which explains away Dark
Energy: they had more Time then. Presumably the Monks have been spreading
it out thinner,

[Alec Cawley]

GaryN <webm...@oxtoyrun.org.uk> wrote:

>
> According to the latest research they may not be *my* electrons.
> Apparently an electron can be in 2 places at once over galactic
> distances (don't ask me how that works).
>

That because it remembers. There is only one electron, which travels
forwards to the end of time, then turns round and comes back as a positron,
then turns again at the Big Bang and comes back as an electron that we
think is different, but isn't. That is why two electrons cannot occupy the
same state - it would be worse than incest getting that close to itself.

[Reader in Invisible Writings]

Yep, that agrees with what I read on Wikipedia (and sort of already
knew) What I did not realise is that there were nearly two dozen
meridians at one time - like the man said "Everybody based things

relative to their local observatory"

[Andrew Nevill]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:43:32 +0100, "Harry Vaderchi" <ad...@127.0.0.1>
wrote:

Speaking of the wibbly wobbly web, people in Ukia may be interested to
learn that the National Media Museum in Bradford has a new permanent
gallery called Life Online all about the Internet, it's history and
effect on our lives.

It includes lots about ARPANet and the creation of the Internet and
Tim Berners-Lee (the above mentioned CERN chap) who proposed the World
Wide Web.

I went today and it's well worth a visit. In fact the whole palce is
worth a visit. My favourite gallery was the Animation gallery, which
includes makes mention, amongst others of course, of two Cosgrove Hall
works called Truckers and Soul Music

www.nationalmediamuseum.org

Andrew Nevill B.F. D.W. FdV. Reply address: nevill...@ntlworld.com
AFPWorshipper to Spooky, AFPfiance to Sarah (Nanny Ogg) pia & Esmeraldus.
AFPUncle to James Vaughan. You cannot value friends as pennies,
nor can you replace them as easily (Spooky in email, Aug 2001.)

[Bri Tze]

On Mar 30, 7:59 pm, Andrew Nevill <spookystw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:43:32 +0100, "Harry Vaderchi" <ad...@127.0.0.1>
> wrote:
>
> >On Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:13:22 +0100, Lesley Weston
> ><brightly_coloured_b...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >>> On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:14:58 +0100, Kevin Wells <k...@kevsoft.co.uk>
> >>> wrote:
>
> >>> internet and telephone.
>
> >> Actually, Canada invented the phone.
>
> >and a chap in CERN the wibbly web.
>
> >> Lesley.
>
> Speaking of the wibbly wobbly web, people in Ukia may be interested to
> learn that  the National Media Museum in Bradford has a new permanent
> gallery called Life Online all about the Internet, it's history and
> effect on our lives.
>
> It includes lots about ARPANet and the creation of the Internet and
> Tim Berners-Lee (the above mentioned CERN chap) who proposed the World
> Wide Web.
>
> I went today and it's well worth a visit. In fact the whole palce is
> worth a visit. My favourite gallery was the Animation gallery, which
> includes makes mention, amongst others of course, of two Cosgrove Hall
> works called Truckers and Soul Music
>
> www.nationalmediamuseum.org
>

> Andrew Nevill B.F. D.W. FdV.  Reply address: nevilland...@ntlworld.com

> AFPWorshipper to Spooky, AFPfiance to Sarah (Nanny Ogg) pia & Esmeraldus.
> AFPUncle to James Vaughan. You cannot value friends as pennies,
> nor can you replace them as easily (Spooky in email, Aug 2001.)

Isn't that Wierd Sisters and Soul Music?

Bri Tze

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-30-12 7:03 AM, GaryN wrote:
> Lesley Weston<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in
> news:jl4dkt$4c9$1...@mud.stack.nl:
>
>> On 03-29-12 4:06 PM, GaryN wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> The other thing to remember is that time is an illusion and may not
>>> exist at all.
>>
>> A lot of people (not just here) seem to forget that and behave as if
>> time has some kind of concrete existence, rather than being a
>> convenient fiction.
>>>
>>> Same as me really.
>>
>> Your electrons look real enough to me.
>>
>> Lesley.
>>
>
> According to the latest research they may not be *my* electrons.
> Apparently an electron can be in 2 places at once over galactic
> distances (don't ask me how that works).
>
> Can't even keep your electrons to yourself.
>
> I wonder if it would be a valid defence in court - "Your honour the
> files found on my clients computer were actually transmitted from the
> Lesser Magellanic Cloud"
>
> Fucking prove that one wrong!
>
> gary
>

Sadly, however, neutrinos don't travel faster than light after all. But
the particle that arrived before it was sent still did, so far.

[Lesley Weston]

Who acknowledged that the idea was Bell's, and the Supreme Court agreed.
What is absolutely certain is that it wasn't Edison's.

[Winterbay]

GaryN skrev 2012-03-30 01:06:
> Winterbay<peter....@gmail.com> wrote in news:jl2g7u$1lhg$1
> @mud.stack.nl:
>
> <snip>
>
>> A suggestion I saw on Twitter was to have DST start on Monday afternoon
>> at around 15.30 instead of in the middle of the night. This would make
>> most of the moaning about it go away I feel :)
>>
>> /Winterbay
>>
>
> Doesn't much matter, all you have to remember is:-
> Spring: Forward.
> Fall: Back.
>
> Unless you have an urgent need to see a particular TV programme who cares?
>

The point is that you won't, for the most case, lose 1 hour of sleep
which is the main complaint I have (and most people I know). Instead you
get to go home from work one hour earlier which is nice and you still
get your extra hour of sleep in the autumn.

/Winterbay

[Reader in Invisible Writings]

I just wish patents were scrutinised this much now and that they only
remained in force if you patented them and either licensed them to
people who actually used them or used them yourself.

[Free Lunch]

On Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:20:51 +0100, Reader in Invisible Writings
<markfo...@hotmail.com> wrote in alt.fan.pratchett:

And that they would only be granted to actual people, not corporate
people.

[Larry Moore]

On 2012-03-29, Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Otherwise, a
> factory [1] or office that starts at 8 while the local schools start at
> 9 will cause endless problems.
>
> [1] Are there any left in the western world?
>
> Lesley.
>

We still have factories that JIT ship auto parts to Toyota, GM and
Ford assembly plants. So when the Excited States decided to move
the DST start before the equinox, we automatically followed.

--
For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to every
one that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not.
Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still.
John Maynard Keynes

[Lesley Weston]

On 04-01-12 4:06 AM, Larry Moore wrote:
> On 2012-03-29, Lesley Weston<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Otherwise, a
>> factory [1] or office that starts at 8 while the local schools start at
>> 9 will cause endless problems.
>>
>> [1] Are there any left in the western world?
>>
>> Lesley.
>>
>
> We still have factories that JIT ship auto parts to Toyota, GM and
> Ford assembly plants. So when the Excited States decided to move
> the DST start before the equinox, we automatically followed.
>

But the News is always full of stories about yet another Ontario auto
factory closing down and all the people being thrown out of work. It's
the same with every other product: I would love to look for the Union
label as the ad exhorts me to, but they don't have Unions in China.

Eventually they will, of course and then the manufacturers will be
looking for some other population to exploit, while the current
wage-slaves start living a decent life. That's what happened here, anyway.

[Chris Zakes]

On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:39:51 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser

caused Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:

Maybe things will turn full circle, and the bloated Chinese plutocrats
will be exploiting the subsistence-level farmers in the dictatorships
of Europe and North America.

-Chris Zakes
Texas
--

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."

-Issac Asimov

[Alec Cawley]

Larry Moore <sshirley...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2012-03-29, Lesley Weston <brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> Otherwise, a
>> factory [1] or office that starts at 8 while the local schools start at
>> 9 will cause endless problems.
>>
>> [1] Are there any left in the western world?
>>
>> Lesley.
>>
>
> We still have factories that JIT ship auto parts to Toyota, GM and
> Ford assembly plants. So when the Excited States decided to move
> the DST start before the equinox, we automatically followed.
>

Yes, the US is still the world's largest manufacturer, and the UK is, IIRC,
the ninth. But both manufacture mostly high value capital equipment that
doesn't appear on the high street - planes, specialist electronics,
medicines, specialist chemicals. By contrast, China appears
disproportionately large because it provides the final assembly for a large
amount of stuff manufactured in other countries that then reaches ordinary
consumers. While iPads are famously made in China, only about 3% of the
high street price goes to the assembly plant.

[Lesley Weston]

On 04-01-12 10:37 AM, Chris Zakes wrote:
> On Sun, 01 Apr 2012 07:39:51 -0700, an orbital mind-control laser
> caused Lesley Weston<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> to write:
>
>> On 04-01-12 4:06 AM, Larry Moore wrote:
>>> On 2012-03-29, Lesley Weston<brightly_co...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> Otherwise, a
>>>> factory [1] or office that starts at 8 while the local schools start at
>>>> 9 will cause endless problems.
>>>>
>>>> [1] Are there any left in the western world?
>>>>
>>>> Lesley.
>>>>
>>>
>>> We still have factories that JIT ship auto parts to Toyota, GM and
>>> Ford assembly plants. So when the Excited States decided to move
>>> the DST start before the equinox, we automatically followed.
>>>
>> But the News is always full of stories about yet another Ontario auto
>> factory closing down and all the people being thrown out of work. It's
>> the same with every other product: I would love to look for the Union
>> label as the ad exhorts me to, but they don't have Unions in China.
>>
>> Eventually they will, of course and then the manufacturers will be
>> looking for some other population to exploit, while the current
>> wage-slaves start living a decent life. That's what happened here, anyway.
>>
>> Lesley.
>
> Maybe things will turn full circle, and the bloated Chinese plutocrats
> will be exploiting the subsistence-level farmers in the dictatorships
> of Europe and North America.

Stranger things have happened. Look at Greece then and now.

[Lesley Weston]

On 03-27-12 7:28 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> On Tuesday, March 27, 2012 4:58:57 PM UTC+1, Lesley Weston wrote:
>> The extra daylight starting so early in the year is nice though; I wish
>> we could have permanent Daylight-saving Time. GMT is an artificial
>> construct anyway, so we should use whatever increment on it is useful to
>> us wherever we are in the world. All of us who suffer from SAD (the
>> entire population of Canada?) would benefit from having more hours of
>> light in the warmer part of the day, so that we could actually use them.
>

> I don't see how declaring the time to be later
> than it actually is (GMT runs all year round,
> we mostly don't use it but BBC World Service
> radio broadcasts can give you a funny turn)
> makes it warmer in the daylight time, unless
> your central heating time switch is a factor.

It would be have the same effect to legislate that all places of work
and all schools must start an hour earlier than they do now, year round.
But enforcing that would be difficult and expensive, so it makes better
sense to reclassify the artificial entity called time. Then in Winter we
would be going to work or school in the dark, when we're already
miserable so it would make no difference; but we would be going home and
playing after school in the daylight, when we can actually enjoy
ourselves. By that time the day will have warmed up as far as it's going
to, which is a bonus.
>
> Besides SAD, apparently most of the United Kingdom
> is short of Vitamin D, which apparently you need
> to have to handle calcium. Fortunately it's turned
> warm here anyway. I got out the short-sleeved shirts.

Vitamin D is the current Wonder Drug: we need for just about everything.
Canadians are now advised to take a pill of 1000 IU daily, and to get
more from milk etc. up to 4000 IU, so presumably Brits would benefit
from the same regime.

How nice for you to have warm weather (I really mean that sincerely,
honest!). Vancouver is known as the part of Canada that doesn't have
Winter; this year and the previous couple of years have made up for that
and we're skipping Spring instead. Last year we also skipped Summer. I
hope this isn't the new trend.

[Andrew Nevill]

On Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:51:37 -0700 (PDT), Bri Tze
<beth...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>On Mar 30, 7:59 pm, Andrew Nevill <spookystw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>  the National Media Museum in Bradford has a new permanent

[Snip

>> I went today and it's well worth a visit. In fact the whole palce is
>> worth a visit. My favourite gallery was the Animation gallery, which
>> includes makes mention, amongst others of course, of two Cosgrove Hall
>> works called Truckers and Soul Music

>Isn't that Wierd Sisters and Soul Music?

Cosgrove Hall did indeed produce traditional cell animation versions
of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music; but they also did a stop motion
animation of Truckers in 1992

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105646/

Andrew Nevill B.F. D.W. FdV. Reply address: nevill...@ntlworld.com

[GaryN]

Alec Cawley <al...@spamspam.co.uk> wrote in

news:1261258153354974071.32...@news.individual.net:

I think the tendency in Britain these days is to produce quality rather
than quantity. We can't compete with the sheer production capacity of
China or USia but we can, and do, produce quality stuff. The
manufacturing companies I worked for got orders from both places because
we produced the best.

For some arcane reason British workmen take a pride in doing the best
they can, unlike slave labour slapping together microchips in Szechuan.

I suppose China could build a copy of a Rolls Royce or a Bently but it
wouldn't *be* the real thing.

[GaryN]

Reader in Invisible Writings <markfo...@hotmail.com> wrote in

news:jl4uuk$e2u$1...@mud.stack.nl:

<Tounge in cheek> Well yes, but the British Empire spanned the world,
the French got Morocco and some of the shittier parts of West Africa
(Equatorial Guinea for a start).

Therefore our Meridian is better than theirs. Our Empire travelled
further and killed more people than the Frogs could ever manage!

And we designed mecanno which showed them how to build the Eiffelsore
Tower, and we won the battle of Waterloo, and we liberated Paris
(although why we bothered I will never know)</Tongue in cheek>

[Larry Moore]

On 2012-04-04, GaryN <webm...@oxtoyrun.org.uk> wrote:

> I suppose China could build a copy of a Rolls Royce or a Bently but it
> wouldn't *be* the real thing.
>
> gary
>

I expect any car they make would be like an Austin Motors vehicle;
I had a Mini 1000 which I loved and watched rust out from under me.
But I learned to DIY auto repairs on it.

--
I have been a happy man ever since January 1, 1990, when I no longer had an
email address. I'd used email since about 1975, and it seems to me that 15
years of email is plenty for one lifetime. Donald Knuth

[ppint. at pplay]

- hi; in article,
<YpqdnTaocPQBfO3S...@brightview.co.uk>,
un...@judgemental.plus.com "Nigel Stapley" demanded:
> Alec Cawley wrote:
>>I crack a couple of admittedly feeble jokes, and afp goes quiet.
>>Surely you are made of stronger stuff than that?
>
>Shhh! We're plotting revenge.

- so when should we anticipate the emergence of results
hot from the plotting shed?

>>suddenly living on a note makes complete sense.
>
>You live in A Flat?

- what's that? accusing alec of being landed, now?

- are you calling him a square ?

- love, ppint.
[drop the "v", and change the "f" to a "g", to email or cc.]
--
"There's something wrong with the world. I'm becoming a hazy memory."
- C.Speed, the ultimate velocipractor, on alt.sex.reptiles 11/2/98