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From: Tako.Schotanus@bouw.tno.nl (Tako Schotanus)
Subject: Re: Fog of War
Message-ID: <1995Jun8.141105.3399@hermes.bouw.tno.nl>
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Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 14:11:05 GMT
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In article <3r5foo$898_001@watstar.uwaterloo.ca>, Hugh Bothwell 
(BHBOTHWE@HELIX.uwaterloo.ca) says...
>
>>In article <3r4veo$hue@cassandra.cair.du.edu>,
>   ruhl@phoebe.cair.du.edu (Robert A. Uhl) wrote:

>On the other hand, IF we changed the number system and everyone started 
>learning their multiplication tables up to B x B = A1 or F x F = E1 
>(depending on how you look at it), the memorisation would be more than repaid 
>- able to divide by 2, 3, 4, or 6 as simply as by 2 or 5 now, or be able to 
>program a computer directly - no more stupid conversion between decimal and 
>binary!

But why would you WANT to????? I'm a programmer myself but to be honest
I try to stay clear of anything that has to do with conversions. To me
that smells like opcode-hacking. Any bitfield related constants used for
hardware registers for example should be defined in include-files. So I
don't see the need really. Especially with the move to ever higher and more
sophisticated programming languages.


>For everyday life, the Imperial system is far handier because the units all 
>"make sense" to human beings.  But they have no direct relationship to one 
>another, which is a royal pain.

For YOU they do! All those words don't even exist in our language! So besides
learning english I should also memorize it's measurement system? Talking
about erecting communcations-barriers. Normally its already difficult
enough to find somebody who speaks english in a lot of countries (france,
spain and italy come readily to mind :) No flames please I know a lot of
people speak english in those countries. Also a lot of them don't :)

Some countries will always stick with their own language. For example:
we use the abbrev. AIDS here like in english, but in france and spain
they use SIDA because it's the abbrev. for the same in french/spanish.
In this case it's easy for some other abbrevs it might not be.
If we would be using the "Human" system we wouldn't be able to 
understand eachothers system: An english foot (ft) would become pied (pd)
in french, voet (vt) in dutch, fuss (fs) in german etc.
(BTW: We HAVE a voet in dutch (and a duim(thumb) and an el (finger->elbow))
 but they're not the same as the english foot and thumb and luckily we
don't use them anymore :)

Now THAT would be fun, now would it? :)

-- 
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_/ Tako Schotanus                TNO Building and Construction Research _/
_/ Phone : +31 15 842393 Fax : +31 15 122182  E-mail : sst@bouw.tno.nl  _/
_/ My employer is required,by Dutch law,to disagree with whatever I say _/
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