OT What is this? #

I read that once, although never heard it anywhere. Also 'nanogram'. I have usually (IIRC always) called # a number sign.

BTW, 1/60 of a second is called a third. IIRC, there was also 'solidus' and 'virgule', names for a slash /.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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The basic unit of time is the second. For smaller amounts of time they use metric prefixes.

I sometimes think of what it would like to use metric prefixes for larger units, like kiloseconds.

After 86.4 kiloseconds you run into the day, a natural period of time that doesn't fit into this metric stuff. Reality gets in the way.

How about forgetting about seconds, and use days. Then you have the milliday, (which is still longer than a minute). A microday would be the period of time we used to call 86.6ms (milliseconds).

BTW, in our system the average year is 365.2425 days long. Unexpectedly, that IS a whole number of seconds. There are 31,556,736 seconds in the average year. That's about 31.5 megaseconds per year.

1 gigasecond is approx. 31.69 years. 1 terasecond is approx. 31.69 millennia.
Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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I don't use things that make me into a spammer.

Reply to
Sam E

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Puzzle your way through those.

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The state decided it would be nice to have the roadsigns on the SK rez in SK. Don't ask me what they call the characters or how to say the words.

There's a mountain west of town that was named Squaw Peak, or Squaw Tit originally. The Indians decided 'squaw' was derogatory, so it was renamed 'Ch-paa-qn'. Good luck with that. It's still Squaw to me.

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Reply to
rbowman

I always preferred $23 (On the Commodore-64 hex was indicated by a leading '$').

As to language, I was once looking at the source code for a program. One of the error messages was "not enough memory to execute child". It made perfect sense to me, just not anything like what it would mean to a "normal" person.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

Here's an interesting article on how Excel stores dates and times. If anyone ever asks why Excel includes Feb 29, 1900 even though 1900 was not a leap year, you'll be able to tell them that it is not a bug. It is by design.

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Reply to
DerbyDad03

I'd like to know how far away is the house that belongs to the mailbox in t hat picture.

That looks like some wide open country.

Reply to
DerbyDad03
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150,000 milliliters [snip]

How many inches are in a light year? (you don't have to answer if you think a 'light year' is time)

Reply to
hah

Limbo uses the XrR notation (i.e., 23r16) as it allows any radix to be indicated in a consistent syntax.

"Keyboard not found. Press F1 to continue."

"Bad magic"

"You can tune a filesystem, but you can?t tuna fish"

The Amiga would often spit up diagnostic data prefaced with "Guru Meditation"

Reply to
Don Y

I'm guessing the other side of the road. It is fairly open although the valley is bounded by mountains.

Reply to
rbowman

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Reply to
Robert Green

In school, my thesis advisor (an oriental -- non-native-English speaker) went through my thesis painstakingly correcting every (erroneous) "doubled consonant" that I had used.

Then, lectured me on the rules regarding same.

(did I mention *I* was the "native English speaker"??)

I simply and said, "When in doubt, I figure one MORE is better than one LESS...".

As a result of that chastisement, I am now equally likely to double when I shouldn't -- or fail to double when I *should*!

[Amusingly, some words I consistently get right -- e.g., dessert and desert]
Reply to
Don Y

Occasionally I spell occasionally as occassionally. (-: Sssss. I had to develop a mnemonic - the word "Casio" is embedded in the correct spelling. Fluorescent was much harder but breaks into Flu Ore Scent. Can't ask for a handier mnemonic (well, it could actually make sense).

Reply to
Robert Green

Half the size of the property on which my house is located.

The largest size container of milk sold in the grocery store is 1 gallon. Nobody cares about 7 gallon drums.

18 or 19, depending on how it's packed when you measure it in a standard measuring cup. Not that any home cook very often uses more than 4 cups of flour, or maybe 8 for a big batch of bread.

About 10 times a typical recipe of most things. Or a great deal of gravy, which requires only a couple of tablespoons of flour, depending on how much dripping you have to go with it. Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

I let "oc[c]ASSionally" be the red flag for me.

I remember "not flour" when writing fluorescent.

I had a relation who lived at #356 (which I remembered as "not 365").

Reply to
Don Y
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I never understood the "dirty word" mentality. You can call something a "dungheap" or a "pile of manure" (of even 'Ralph' if you wanted to). It's still the same thing as the "stinking heap of SHIT" it was before.

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Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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I like to read about those things sometimes. Thanks for the link.

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Also, I didn't expect to see many problems with Y2K, as with Y2.038K.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

There's a pond on my land, that covers about 2 acres (3 now since we've just had a lot of rain). So, usually an acre is about half that pond. That's close enough.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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I had some trouble with "believe" until I thought about it having LIE in it.

BTW, when I use NOT in mnemonic devices, it's usually the r's-1 (radix-1) complement, so NOT 365 is 634 (note that each digit adds up to 9).

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

This will make you correct about 98% of the time. ?I before E, exce pt after in C or words that say ??? [ei], as in neighb or and weigh.?

Reply to
bob_villain

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