"Not fit for purpose"

[Tim Marlow]

Andy, I've not tried that. Does it taste o.k., or is it a Lager?!

Looks like it’s a horrible fruit flavoured lager beer Ron

[Tim Marlow]

So did they take you up on that offer?

afraid not….it was fun to watch the cogs whir for a few seconds though.…

[dave]

A friend who work in IT support, had a colleague at another site with a problem opening an important file, so he asked them to copy it onto a floppy disk and send it to him (pre internet here). About 10 mins later a picture of a floppy disk appeared on his fax machine

[Guest]

It gave me the chance to learn another shade of the English language: square meters and meters squared... In Italian there is nothing similar

Pretty much exactly the same as in Dutch. We have vierkante meters (vierkant meaning “square”, literally “fourside”) which is equivalent to English “square metres” but a translation of “metres squared” would be something like “meter in het vierkant” — which implies the shape under discussion is actually square, or almost so.

[Guest]

See 570 ,none of the illustrious members on here will have any idea of the stick method of measurement.
No ruler needed, no tape, just two sticks, one longer than the other a pencil and a note pad.

Now that's the clue so ?

[Tim Marlow]

See 570 ,none of the illustrious members on here will have any idea of the stick method of measurement.
No ruler needed, no tape, just two sticks, one longer than the other a pencil and a note pad.

Taint measuring, tis fettlin’ boy….

[Guest]

Taint measuring, tis fettlin’ boy….

Once used by anyone fitting out built in furniture and work tops they would never resort to a tape measure again Tim.

[Tim Marlow]

I must admit to have never come across it before John. Sounds useful. I did once learn how to measure the distance from earth to the moon using a yardstick and a coin. It was surprisingly accurate as well.

[Guest]

I did once learn how to measure the distance from earth to the moon using a yardstick and a coin. It was surprisingly accurate as well.

At a guess: sight along the yardstick towards the moon, move the coin along it so that it covers the whole of the moon exactly, look how far it is on the yardstick, then work out the distance to the moon using that and the diameter of the coin via simple geometry?

[Guest]

At a guess: sight along the yardstick towards the moon, move the coin along it so that it covers the whole of the moon exactly, look how far it is on the yardstick, then work out the distance to the moon using that and the diameter of the coin via simple geometry?

mm I just look it up on Wikipedia.

Saves the brain for PE, SA, Cement applications.

Actually I think there is a bend in space which cocks up calculations.
The bend goes around the moon over mars then back to the moon
& just hits the edge of Dover during dusk.

Laurie

[minitnkr]

The sticks & pencil method works just fine even w/o paper if the sticks or the work are flat. Used it several times on the train layout.

[Guest]

The sticks & pencil method works just fine even w/o paper if the sticks or the work are flat. Used it several times on the train layout.
[/QUOTE
A man after my own heart.Great to see someone else has knowledge of this method .

[Guest]

The sticks & pencil method works just fine even w/o paper if the sticks or the work are flat. Used it several times on the train layout.

More advanced than that.

At school 1943 our only implements were a slate with a wooden surround & a finger of white chalk.
No paper no pencils

Oh yes & a duster to clean the slate. Luxury of of course you could use both sides of the slate.

So my destiny learn to write & draw chalk on slate. Imagine about 30 kids in a class all drawing with
chalk on this little slate less in size than an A4

Laurie

[Tim Marlow]

At a guess: sight along the yardstick towards the moon, move the coin along it so that it covers the whole of the moon exactly, look how far it is on the yardstick, then work out the distance to the moon using that and the diameter of the coin via simple geometry?

It’s actually much simpler than that. It follows Eratosthenes method of artificial eclipse by coin derived from Ancient Greece. The diameter of the earth, and hence the diameter of the moon had already been calculated by the time he did this. Sight along the measuring stick, moving the coin until the moon is “just” eclipsed. Mathematics then tells us that the diameter of the moon divided by the diameter of the coin equals the distance to the moon divided by the distance to the coin. As three of these values are known, the fourth one, distance to the moon, can be calculated. And not a calculator in sight!

[Guest]

Um … that’s exactly what I said I’d never heard of this method, let alone that it was invented in Ancient Greece — it just seemed the logical way to do it, assuming you know the diameter of the moon, of course.