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I think there needs to be balance here.  The nitpickers are the ones
who have given us lunars.  They also have given us ways of checking the
accuracy of sextants, a service not offered any more in the U.S., as
best as I can tell; this is the reason for the quest for absolute
accuracy on land.  If you drop you Tamaya Spica, you'll need to check
it yourself or buy a new one.

I suppose one could argue that lunars are not necessary because one can
carry a quartz watch and tune into time signals on the radio.  By the
same token, sextants are not needed; just carry a GPS.  Or just smell
your way across the ocean like Columbus.

The threads about gravitational anomalies caused a lot of traffic when
the list was quiescent, which is evidence of interest.  There was a
real, practical question being addressed: would there be a significant
fuel saving in routing around the anomalies?  Unfortunately, most of us
were not well versed enough in physics to understand the answer the
first time it was given, which must have been vexing to the person
trying to educate us.

I'm sure Peter Fogg was irked that George Huxtable invoked his name in
pointing out a problem with Peter Bennett's azimuth tables for azimuths
near 90 and 180 degrees, or whatever.  That was unnecessary.  George is
rather insensitive, and can be rather a brute, and is certainly
intimidating.  But George has been right almost every time he's raised
a question with somebody, and usually it hasn't been some minor effect
such as a non-spherical earth.  I rather prize his input, and attempt
to find humor in his intimidation.  He really does seem to be a
good-natured soul.

I can well see, though, that list members would be discouraged from
posting and participating, because George is so intimidating and
because land-locked, semi-academics such as myself raise stupid
questions.  I hope they can overcome their trepidation and continue
posting.

Fred

On Thursday, Sep 4, 2003, at 21:09 US/Eastern, Royer, Doug wrote:

> I sent this once today but don't see it on list so will try again.
> Mr. Fogg,a well stated position in my opinion for what it's worth.I was
> wondering if it was only I who had similar feelings on this matter.I
> was
> going to post some of my recent experiances during a transit from the
> Pacific to the Atlantic but when I signed back on list and read the
> posts
> since I was gone decided not to.The topics being discussed at lenght,at
> least to me,a proffessional and practical sailor were irrelivant.A
> good deal
> of what is discussed here are the fine points of a proceedure or maybe
> even
> nit-picking.There are dominate personnalities on this list just as on
> other
> lists.Getting a constant positional accuracy of less than 0.1 nm may be
> sought and discussed for land navigation but in reality not an
> overrideing
> concern at sea for the most part.The topic of gravitational hills,while
> interesting,is irrelivant to the navigation of vessels at sea.
> I've had people contact me off list from time to time,and continue to
> welcome them,with questions reguarding practical,real life navigation
> proceedures and practices.More than one stated they were intimadated
> by some
> of the answers or replies to some of the other questions they read on
> the
> list.
> I am on 2 other mailing lists that concern navigation or the
> sea.Everyday
> while at the office I will look at all.I find myself spending more
> time on
> another list as it is more practical and concerns topics discussed
> closer to
> my profession.
> I will continue to monitor the topics on this list.Delete them when
> irrelivant to my needs.Read them when I believe I can glean a nugget of
> information from them.I will contribute to a topic when able.
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick V. Hebard, PhD                      Email: mailto:Fred@acf.org
Staff Pathologist, Meadowview Research Farms  Web: http://www.acf.org
American Chestnut Foundation                  Phone: (276) 944-4631
14005 Glenbrook Ave.                          Fax: (276) 944-0934
Meadowview, VA 24361

   

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