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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Re: metric scales
Hmm. That may be part of the problem Veron. Scales are generally imperial, with the metric concersions underneath the imperials figures. There are also some electronic scales that you can switch to metric, but since everybody will say, "What is that in pounds?" when you say you weigh 60 kilograms, well, people just don't do it.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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just a little slower than "as fast as humanly possible".
Back in the olde days, thirty years ago, a jiffy was something like 10 msec. Those were the days when the computer was in an air-conditioned room with three white lab coated acolytes tending its every need, you could tell what turn around time was going to be by looking at the flashing lights on the front panel, and it took three days to get your Fortran program run back only to find out you'd left out a comma in line 375.
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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We here prefer lumber meter, but.....
TEd
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A jiffy can mean several different time intervals:
A short period of time or a moment. The origin of the word is unknown, but is believed to have first appeared in 1779.
In computing, the duration of one tick of the system timer interrupt. Typically, this time is 0.01 seconds.
In physics, the time taken for light to travel one centimetre (sometimes one foot, or sometimes the width of a nucleon)
In electronics, the time between alternating current power cycles (1/60 or 1/50 of a second) - see alternating current
An indeterminate amount of time from a few seconds to forever.
this last is how my dad used it, "I'll be home in a jiffy, Dear."
edit: btw, at the link mav gave, for time, you'll find 'shake' and 'wink'; but no jiffy.
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Many years ago I was honored to get a chance to meet Grace Hopper, a little old lady in Navy dress whites, with a star on her shoulder and tennis shoes on her feet. Well, I don't remember if she had a star on her shoulder but she was a rear admiral (LH) at the time.
In her presentation she told about how she was once asked by a general officer what a nanosecond was, and she had an inspiration. She took some of that computer wire (the multicolored stranded stuff that used to be ubiquitous in computer labs) and cut it into lengths of about a foot. The time it takes for light to travel from one end of this wire to the other, she explained, is a nanosecond. I still have the wire and fond memories of having coffee with her after her presentation. We talked about Ireland, not COBOL.
TEd
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