The Canberra Games Convention Full Thrust competition didn't run :-(
There was an unfortunate injury to the original organiser which left
him unable to answer email for a while, and the assistant organiser -
er, me - didn't do enough to publicise the event and even confused a
few people. So nobody knew what was happening and we had no entrants. Instead
I ran my public participation Full Thrust Babylon 5 scenario for two days.
Something this old fogey hadn't really noticed before is that kids have no
idea how many inches there are in a foot. I'd brought along my trusty tape
measure, which is old enough to vote and restarts numbering after each foot.
So I'd say "You have to be within 18 inches to be in range" and they'd just
look at it blankly.
No, this isn't a complaint about kids today. Advanced societies ( :-)
) have switched over to metric so why should they learn this stuff? But at
close quarters I find 1 MU = 1 cm to be too fiddly and awkward with the
average ship models, so prefer inches. Next time I'll remember to bring some
tape measures that just count inches from 1 to 72.
I found and bought a Pegasus Hobbies Platformer System "Chemical Plant
Construction Set" which I'd recommend to any kit basher. Unlike all the other
terrain construction kit I've seen, this one is mostly round bits. Four big
cylinder tanks with domed ends, 12 medium tanks, a couple of feet of piping
and elbow bend joins, various wheels and struts. For $34 Aus you get "300"
parts, but since most of them are
halved length-wise it's really more like 180. Just the thing for
refuelling stations and fleet replenishment tankers.
(In a nice demonstration of the power of global trade, an Australian stall
sold me this model kit which according to the box label was manufactured in
Russia and "Only for sale in America.")
The aforementioned Babylon 5 scenario was a two or three way battle between B5
ship designs translated into standard Full Thrust rules. A number of those
ships carried grasers, which led to some interesting outcomes. I'm putting
those in a separate message, so people who don't care about grasers or don't
want to read yet another complaint can skip it.
cheers,
> Hugh Fisher wrote:
You know, this brings to mind a curiousity question -- what nations are
left that would still have reasonable facility with Imperial? Canada switched
over to Metric almost thirty years ago now, but, because our trade is so tied
in to the United States, we still have to know Imperial distance measurement
pretty well. And, the United States hasn't converted, obviously (and probably
never will.) I presume most of Europe is metric,
and stayed there -- and the UK converted relatively recently, so it's
still mixed, right?
JGH
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOf course the US
isn't going to go metric. We're waiting on a system where all the fundamental
constants are 1. It also needs to use base 2 instead of a humanocentric base
10.:)
Roger
> On 2/1/06, Jerry Han <jhan@warpfish.com> wrote:
On 2/1/06, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
> <gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote:
Most Canadians can function relatively well without having to know miles
versus kilometers. Speedometers on Canadian and American vehicles are marked
both ways, and some of the higher end vehicles even let you change temperature
gauges and odometers from imperial (or "english", as is usually displayed in
American vehicles; Americans don't like to call it "imperial") to metric.
While on the highway, a rough "one mile per minute" conversion is close
enough, while on Canadian highways (particularly the 401 in Ontario, where
speeding seems to be mandatory) a "two kilometres per minute" conversion
works.
The building trades in Canada are still almost exclusively imperial. A
lot of dyed-in-the-wool carpenters stuck with the imperial system. It
also meant that Canadian lumber mills could manufacture products in the same
size as for the U.S., thus eliminating the need for two sets of inventory. Go
into a Home Depot in Canada and you'll see wood, drywall, etc. sold in
imperial measurements. Furniture is typically sold in imperial, with metric
conversions listed (the main exception is furniture bought from Ikea).
Canadian and American garage mechanics have both imperial and metric tool
sets, but that's mostly because of those silly foreign cars that use metric.
Canadian tape measures typically have both imperial and metric. My dad, who
was a master carpenter, preferred imperial. He could make
things to higher tolerances. A millimeter is bigger than 1/32 of an
inch, which almost all tape measures display, and often tape measures
get down to 1/64 of an inch. You could go down to a 10th of a
millimeter, but that's too small to use. I never saw tape measures
graded in half-millimeters. Besides, he -- and most of his colleagues
-- were "old school" and would never have converted to metric, so the
new guys didn't convert either.
The answer, for metric confusion issues at the gaming table, is to buy
Canadian tape measures!
(As an aside, for fix-it projects I don't mind too much that Americans
don't use the metric system. It _really_ bugs me that they never
embraced that wonderful invention known as the Robertson screw!
Phillips and slot-head screws are simply inferior. There, I've said
it, and I'm glad!)
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lThe use of Torx
screws seems to be growing. If I never saw another Phillips head screw I would
be happy.
Roger Books
> On 2/1/06, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:
> (As an aside, for fix-it projects I don't mind too much
Too bad we don't have 10 inches to the foot. But in any
event, FT wasn't written in the US .... :-)
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
In a message dated 2/1/06 10:32:18 AM,
gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
writes:
> From: "laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
Took me a few mins to stop laughing
> Just a Lurker here on the Digest, But maybe I have a good idea or 2..
> Allan Goodall wrote:
> On 2/1/06, gzg-l-request@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/robertson_screws.htm
Sounds like the Robertson screw is the betamax of screws. Technically
superior, but defeated in the marketplace.
I'd like to see them here too, but it's not going to happen.
-Clambo
_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@lists.csua.berkeley.edu
http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-l
> On Feb 1, 2006, at 6:54 AM, Allan Goodall wrote:
> It _really_ bugs me that they never
How do Torx head and Hex Head compare? I have always thought there is a better
screw out there.
Evyn infojunky@ceecom.net
A map is a surrogate of space.
-Robinson, A.
I am getting really curious.. how does this screw look????
It seems like we can't live without out it for some reason....
> Mark Kinsey wrote:
> http://www.mysteriesofcanada.com/Ontario/robertson_screws.htm
> I am getting really curious.. how does this screw look????
Heh:) Lets hear it for OT. Awesomely OT...
The recess in the head of the screw is square. As such, it has great
"grip" with the screwdriver - you can easily hold the screwdriver
horizontally with a screw on the end, aim the screw at your "target", and
operate the screwdriver all with one hand (not needing the other hand holding
the screw, as with most other types of screws).
(I first wrote that out as "...at your 'target', and screw away with one
hand..." but realised that might provoke... unfortunate responses from the
list).
Having used all the common types of screws (flat head, Phillips and
Robertson), I feel fairly confident saying that Robertson screws are better.
Apparently, the Robertson screw is becoming popular in China. The Robertson
company has a manufacturing facility there...
And for all those diehard hardware fans out there...
(From Wikipedia)
"A Robertson screwdriver is a type of screwdriver with a square-shaped
tip with a slight taper (in the same way that flatheads, Phillips, Allen, and
Torx have flat, Ã-shaped, hexagonal, and hexagrammal tips,
respectively).
The drivers are famous for holding onto screws (you can start driving a screw
horizontally into the wall, and leave the screwdriver in the screw
while you have lunch), and allow for things like an angled screw driver and
trim head screws.
Robertson screwdrivers have a colour coded handle for easy selection as
different screw sizes require different size tips. The colours and their
associated screw sizes are:
Orange (#00) Â No. 1 & 2 screws (uncommon) Yellow (#0) Â No. 3 & 4 screws
Green (#1) Â No. 5, 6 & 7 screws Red (#2) Â No. 8, 9 & 10 screws Black (#3)
 No. 12 and larger screws Robertson had licenced the screw in England but
the party he was dealing
with intentionally put the company under and purchased the rights from the
trustee thus circumventing Robertson. He spent a small fortune buying back the
rights. After that he refused to ever allow anyone to make the screws under
license. When Henry Ford tried out the Robertson screws he found they saved
considerable time in the production of the cars but when Robertson
refused to license the screws to Ford, he realised that the use of the screws
would not be guaranteed and stopped using them. This largely explains why they
never became established in the United States.
Today Robertson screws are scarce in the United States, accounting for 10% of
screws sold, while being very common in Canada, where 85% of the screws sold
use the Robertson head."
I'm sure more than anyone wanted to know.
;-)
> Adrian wrote:
> The drivers are famous for holding onto screws (you can start driving
Now thank you for that.. really enlightning....
What I don't just get is why would you not just finish screwing it in before
going to lunch?? Leaving the screwdriver sticking out like that could be a
hazard to bypassers???:D
Ahh well - my world of screwdrivers have been enlarged....