NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: PLUS Automatic deviation calculation by electronic compasses
From: Joel Jacobs
Date: 2009 Dec 11, 09:30 -0500
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From: Joel Jacobs
Date: 2009 Dec 11, 09:30 -0500
Lu, et al,
Like you, when I read George Huxtable's post, NavList 11066, I
thought he was opposed to covering topics outside the core of "Traditional
Navigation". However, if you take the time to dissect each sentence, it is
possible that he may not be opposed to discussing new technology at all.
The problem is that in this post, like in many of George H's posts, he is
like the economists who are always on both sides of a forecast with
their but's and if's so they can always claim they had it right.
For example, he had me confused by saying in the same post "I'm not
complaining, only making an observation" when his closing remark
says, "Though it would be nice to keep such discussion to
navigational matters, rather than how a tourist might identify the Taj Mahal."
But in the middle of what he wrote, were comments intertwined with these,
that could be considered supportive of the digression.
I think it is for this reason that some of us might think George means
one thing, when in fact he means the other. This problem only crops up when the
topic is other then scientific knowledge. It is there that George excels in
the scholarly prose that he uses that leaves nothing to doubt. I'm
impressed with his intellect, and take my hat off to him in that regard.
But when he is attempting to be snarky, and too cleaver by half, I get
lost.
George says he didn't understand what I was saying in NavList 11068, so I
doubt I'll do any better here. Quoting George, "Kelvin (then William
Thomson) wrote a very readable account of this in "Terrestrial magnetism and
the mariner's compass", collected into vol 3 of his Popular lectures and
addresses" of 1891."
IMO, with no introduction by George as to whom Kelvin was, "then William
Thomson" in this phrase, could have easily been a follower. It also is a
fact that in 1891, William Thomson was a knight and properly addressed as Sir.
He did not become Lord Kelvin until 1892 which was one year after his
"Popular lectures and addresses" were published. Sure, this may
be nit-picking, but believe me I can get lost in his syntax of which
these are only two examples.
Joel Jacobs
----- Original Message -----
--From: Lu AbelTo: navlist@fer3.comSent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 12:26 PMSubject: Re: [NavList 11066] Automatic deviation calculation by electronic compassesGeorge Huxtable wrote:
> Does our group deliberately restrict itself to "traditional navigation",
> whatever that may be? I would hate to think so. There are (in my view) good
> reasons to limit discussion of GPS, as an enormous separate topic on its
> own, which has supplanted other navigation and has its own forum. But we
> happily deal, sometimes at length, with other applications of modern
> technology; and why not, indeed?
George, I would hope that this group would discuss ALL aspects of
navigation, from ancient techniques to modern ones, from kamals and
lunars to self-compensating electronic compasses. I like to learn of
new technologies but I am also fascinated by the solutions to problems
people developed in earlier times (think steam locomotives vs diesels or
sail vs power ships). As I'm sure you've observed, there are however a
few troglodytes on the list that seem to think that the use of any
post-1800 technology for navigation will certainly fail, causing ship
and crew to die a horrible death.
When this thread on self-compensating electronic compasses started, I
knew very little about them except that some of them had the
drive-in-a-circle technology for self-generating an internal deviation
table and automatically applying it to their displays. I've learned a
lot about the technology since this thread started a few weeks ago.
While equipping my own boat would be very far down on any list of
desired "toys," it's good to know about the technology.
Lu
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