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pyotr filipivich

on Sun, 28 Feb 2021 23:10:31 -0500 typed in
rec.woodworking the following:

I remember trying as a high school sophomore to 'draft' a proper
"to scale" drawing of a combination closet, student desk, and with bed
on top. Dad took a look at my efforts and passed on the words of
wisdom: not everything needs to be "to scale".
He then told the story of when he'd been working in the woods, and
the spring runoff had wiped out the bridge necessary to get logs
delivered. The 'schmart guy' spent most of a day trying to figure out
how to get the needed pilings in. When he gave up, the wood rats
cobbled together a crib of logs with two long logs at the base (sort
of like this []__ ), they filled the crib with rocks, and used the
dozer to skid that up off the bridge approach. It tipped over, sank
and left the two long logs up right to serve as piers. Wasn't exactly
square, but you could drive a log truck over it. "It worked".
I wonder how many 'kids' have the problem of not being able to
guesstimate an imprecise solution because their calculator always gave
them 8 decimal places? Which was six or seven too many. I do not
need to know exactly the size of the thing, just whether it will fit
the space or materials available.

I certainly know how to round and trim significant digits (few do) but
my calculator does it for me, too. All I have to do is tell it how
many are significant. ;-0 When I stopped using a slide rule, I soon
lost the ability to estimate and even get the decimal place right. In
college I was really good at slippin' the stick but since I've
completely lost that skill. I did have a calculator my senior year of
college. Had to. Competition required it. $400 was a lot of money
in '73, about a semester's tuition and I was making $2.25/hr.

I got my Dad's and my Mom's slipsticks. Learned to use them one
summer when I got the made idea to program the decay products of
radioactive isotopes. All I needed was to convert the half-life to
seconds ... easy with logs, but first I had to learn logs....

I even brought the Good One to a Comp Sci test, Dr White almost
gave me extra credit for using it. Almost.
--
pyotr filipivich
This Week's Panel: Us & Them - Eliminating Them.
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