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Right on Frank - AMEN!

Would only add my previous suggestion that beginners in the ART of
Celestial Navigation seek out Mixter's "Primer of Navigation" - although
probably out of print, it's still around, and does provide an excellent
and bare bones source of explanations to clarify some of the more
technical stuff that is found in the standard texts. In the final
analysis, I hold that Navigation is an art in which many disciplines,
some of which are not technologies, must be blended together and
evaluated in conducting a vessel, ship, or boat from point A to point B.
If you don't have that ability to blend, you probably will not be a
successful navigator - even the mighty Lecky is reputed to have run a
ship ashore, an occurrence which at one time, at least, was not that
unexpected, even of the best.

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 01:28:31 EST Frank Reed  writes:
> George H wrote:
> "Apologies to the majority of list members, who will be quite
> uninterested
> in what follows. Peter Fogg has introduced a certain acrimony  into
> what
> should have been an entirely technical discussion, and it needs to
> be
> answered."
>
> A useful litmus test: if you find that you must begin a post with a
> 'non  mea
> culpa' apology suggesting that someone else started it,  you're very
> likely
> the one who is starting something.
>
> And George H wrote:
> "That was the matter I was addressing. I had read his
> argument  carefully, and answered it carefully, but he hadn't
> expressed it
> as he  intended."
>
> Nah. Pretty much everything Peter Fogg wrote in this thread was
> right on  the
> money AND STATED QUITE CLEARLY, too.
>
> Incidentally, as for me, I highly recommend George Bennett's
> "Complete
> On-Board Celestial Navigator" to beginners with an interest in
> celestial. In an
> era when the art is on its deathbed, it serves an extremely useful
> purpose,
> satisfying those who want a modern, economical, self-contained
> approach to  the
> subject. But it is not perfect, and it is not right for everyone.
>
>
> Speaking of perfection, I'm reminded of a little morality play from
> the
> 1960s. It was on a television program with a starship called the
> Enterprise
> (perhaps you've heard of it? ). In this particular episode,  the
> Enterprise
> encounters a small, powerful space robot rampaging  throughout a
> nearby star
> system and killing every lifeform it can  find. When confronted, it
> turns out the
> space probe speaks  English and claims that it is from Earth. The
> crew of the
> Enterprise consult their records and discover that there was indeed
> a  little
> space probe, called Nomad, launched years earlier from Earth with
> the goal to
> "seek out new life" while roaming throughout the Galaxy. So what's
> with all
> the rampaging and destruction of life then??! They are able to tap
> into  the
> probe's memory, somehow partially damaged and discover the truth. It
>  seems
> that an alien probe had somehow run into Nomad. The alien probe's
> mission  was to
> collect and sterilize soil samples from planets possibly suitable
> for
> colonization. The two spacecraft repaired each other, and the
> programming was  mixed
> together [yes, yes, that's absurd, but it's a fable --not reality].
> So the
> new Nomad's goal was to "seek out new life and sterilize all that
> was not
> perfect". Naturally, there ARE NO perfect lifeforms, so the little
> metal monster
> had become a diabolical killing machine with no idea that it was
> doing  wrong.
> In the end, the fallible humans manage to convince Nomad that it,
> too, is
> imperfect, and like all computers in 1960s television, it chokes on
> a  morsel of
> irrefutable logic and promptly commits robotic suicide... Thus  ends
> the
> morality play.
>
> And what is the lesson? Well, first of all, computers are evil
> --naturally.
> But more fundamentally, the lesson is that there is no perfection.
>
> And if you spend your days sterlizing everything that isn't perfect,
> you'll
> become a real pain in the ass.
>
> -FER
> 42.0N  87.7W, or 41.4N  72.1W.
> www.HistoricalAtlas.com/lunars

   

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