NavList:

   

Reply

Bill wrote a posting in which he offered serious criticism of my behaviour
in an exchange between us, back in his "newbie" days. Those must have been
at least three years ago.

I have been unable to identify the messages he describes, and in Navlist
5028 have asked him to supply more detail. Even just the date of my offence
should be sufficient to extract the relevant information from the archive,
from even so long ago.

Since I sent that response, Bill has made three further postings, with the
same threadname, none of which were a response to my request.

I ask Bill to take the matter that he has raised seriously, and to respond,
with at least that date. I take it that he is not the type to just
hit-and-run.

It's most likely that the whole affair is the result of a past
misunderstanding, his or mine. That's often the way with such disputes. But
how can we tell, unless we can investigate the details? We mustn't allow
such matters to go on rankling with him, as clearly this one has done over
the years. Nor will I allow unspecified and hazy allegations to be made
against me, without some follow-up.

George.

contact George Huxtable at george@huxtable.u-net.com
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill" 
To: 
Sent: Sunday, May 18, 2008 10:24 AM
Subject: [NavList 5026] Re: Navigation exercise


|
|
| George wrote:
| > His first problem raises, from me ... in the traditions of
| > this list, a minor pedantic quibble.
|
| Peter wrote:
| > For all practical purposes the sun 'hangs in the sky' at LAN.  We all
agree
| > about this.
|
| Not really, it seems. In my newbie days I raised the question about how
far
| wrong one could go latitude wise with a close LAN time approximation given
| 30d to 60d elevation of the Sun and a full range of declinations.
|
| Going way back in the archives, I questioned the importance of 10 or 15
| seconds time in determining latitude at LAN in mid latitudes with Sun
| elevations from 30d to 60d. A certain "pedantic" list member that will go
| unnamed seemed determined to prove me wrong so changed the parameters to
| worst-case scenario at almost 90d Sun elevation.
|
| To quote said member on another issue much later: "To a scientist, as I
am,
| intellectual honesty is at least as precious, if not more so, than
pecuniary
| honesty. If that is to be called in question, then evidence is required. I
| challenge Dan, and anyone else on this list, (other than Peter Fogg) to
| identify a single posting of mine that shows any lack of intellectual
| honesty. Perhaps that wasn't what Dan intended to imply, but it reads that
| way."
|
| I won't quibble about terms like "intellectual honesty." Instead I'll
quote
| a lawyer/politician acquaintance who told me, "If you don't like the
| question being asked, answer another question of your own choosing."
Please
| tell me the proper phrase for changing the stated parameters of a problem
to
| settle the other fellow's hash (for our international readers, George, an
| expression roughly meaning, "Win by any means") for no apparent gain or
| purpose.
|
| > Rather than just take one random sight and accept its unknown errors (in
this
| > case, apparently amounting to 1.2' ), we can take as many sights as
possible
| > over a few minutes on either side of LAN. Then graph them; altitude on
the
| > vertical axis, time on the horizontal.  Then compare the pattern of
those
| > sights with a horizontal line, disregarding any that clearly don't match
the
| > others (outlier = gross error), and thinking hard about the others,
while
| > bearing in mind those closest to the instant of LAN will least reflect
any
| > change in altitude.  An intuitive process.
|
| We are on the same page page regarding graphing (and fitting Hc slopes to
| observations), and always have been IMHO. I'm just not clear what you mean
| by a "horizontal line" near LAN. The graph surrounding LAN by a few
minutes
| should look more like a camel's hump as I see it. VERY close to LAN, a
| horizontal line, but as our pedantic friend would point out the time
limits
| will be dependent on latitude and declination. North Pole, late June, take
a
| coffee break between sights.  No big deal ;-)
|
| Bill
|
|
| |
|


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Internal Virus Database is out of date.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 269.23.2/1392 - Release Date: 4/22/2008
3:51 PM


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc
To post, email NavList@fer3.com
To , email NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

   

Reply