Japanese sedans

I am a bit unclear here about the thrust of you post (so to speak!)

Are you agreeing with me that the duodecimal system is past it and that the
Dozenal Society is on a hiding to nothing?

DAS

 

See below.

DAS
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NB: To reply directly replace "nospam" with "schmetterling"
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You skated round my main point in that you would need to get that word
widely understood to communicate meaning with it.

"Arguably"?? If you come to the real world I think the voices on the side
of the duodecimal system are pretty faint, or at least there are few of
them. I am very glad I no longer have to add up farthings, ha'pennies,
shillings, guineas etc.

I am glad to see the back of them, together with the rod, the perch, the
furlong, the long ton, the short ton and the whole lot of them. I know, of
course, that may still exist, such a furling in horse-racing, the chain (22
yards) in cricket, the nautical mile and feet in aviation, but these are
minor applications.

And in answer to the comments about Radio Shack converters, for those of you
who have Palms, try this free download:
http://www.mattmarsh.net/computing/palmpilot.shtml

DAS

 

Given the relative flexibility of the system and base twelve in
general, the finer details can easily be formalized at a later point
in time.

 

As I said, I was glad to see the back of the Imperial system, whatever
'elegance' the duodecimal bits may have had. I just like to shift decimal
points...

Of course non-decimal counting systems are entrenched, such as in counting
of time, but it doesn't make working with it easier. Adding up hours and
days etc is a pain in the butt. My Lotus 1-2-3 v9 can't even handle it
(though here I say, "shame on the programmers"); havn't tried MS Excel.

Admit it, Ricardo, you're a geek. You love bloatware, too, I suppose...

)
DAS

 

So why are metric versions of traditional customary measures still
so popular in so many countries?

When living back in Europe, I knew that a "pint" of beer was a half
a litre, but still thought of it as a "pint" of beer nonetheless.
Similarly the decimal 250ml glasses are "half pints". A half kilo is
a "pound" and so forth.

Customary units are not dead, nor are they necessarily undesirable.
They are sometimes at odds with a decimal metric system, although
the decimal rounding of popular customary units is a reasonable
compromise if we are to remain trapped in the base ten straitjacket.

 

Excel seems to handle hours pretty well.

 

Are you on a mission from God or something, Ricardo?

 

Quoi, moi?

 

I find your signature regarding "how dumb the average guy is" to be
curious. The average guy does not represent the half-way point in a
distribution - you would use the median (not mean) for that measure.

Good luck,

HP_BRS

 

I would bet that the intelligence distribution is right skewed, so it
would be correct to say "At least half of everyone is even dumber than
that."

-Aaron

 

No betting required. Not to split hairs, but the median is the
midpoint by definition, the mean is not. There are plenty of
mean/median iq population studies available, and there almost always
is a statistically significant difference.

Good luck,

HP_BRS

 

Wow, what a fascinating thread... looks like this has gone from soup
to nuts, NY to China, to hell and back. ;-)

Just thought I'd add my .02, having been a consumer of both Japanese
and German automobiles. Things have definitely changed over the
years... German engineering has been finding its way into Japanese
cars, and Japanese reliability has been finding its way into German
cars; but the stereotypes are still noticeable.

Still, I see the basic breakdown GENERALLY as this:

Nissan/Infiniti: Highly reliable, excellent price/value, economical to
operate and maintain. Varying by model: decent handling,
fair/excellent performance, decent/excellent ride, and good/excellent
passenger comfort. NOTE: Infiniti service is excellent, Nissan
service is average/poor.

BMW/Audi: Fairly reliable, expensive to maintain (if outside service
plan), fair to poor economy/efficiency, and excellent handling.
Varying by model: average price/value, good to excellent performance,
fair to good passenger comfort (usually firmer than Japanese). NOTE:
Comparatively BMW service is average/good, Audi is excellent.
IMPORTANT NOTE: BMW RWD is poor in snow/rain, and although AWD has
been introduced, it is only available in one or two models.

All in all, if you've got the money to burn and handling is more
important to you than ride (sports sedan vs. luxury sedan), go with
BMW or Audi. Otherwise, the Japanese are still winning in the
price/value arena.

Btw, I left off Mercedes because the "C" class comparative to
Nissan/Infiniti/BMW(3)/Audi(A4) is unreliable junk to be avoided.

 

On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 19:36:54 GMT,

Oops, my bad, this ought to be [ten]^n MOD 3 = 1 (i.e. cast out the
threes from any positive integer power of ten and the remainder is
always one - what was I eating/drinking/smoking when I typed the
above?)