From derek@knosof.uucp Wed Oct 19 18:28:30 1994 Received: from eros.Britain.EU.net by dkuug.dk with SMTP id AA22283 (5.65c8/IDA-1.4.4j for ); Wed, 19 Oct 1994 18:28:30 +0100 Received: from pyra.co.uk by eros.britain.eu.net with UUCP id ; Wed, 19 Oct 1994 18:27:04 +0100 Received: by knosof.UUCP (anilla/UUCP-Project/rel-1.0/11-05-86) id AA04560; Wed, 19 Oct 94 17:46:38 BST Date: Wed, 19 Oct 94 17:46:38 BST From: derek@knosof.uucp (Derek M Jones) Message-Id: <9410191646.AA04560@knosof.UUCP> To: c++panel@pyra.co.uk, sqlpanel@pyra.co.uk, wg14@pyra.co.uk, wg15@pyra.co.uk Subject: Standards day is non-Standard X-Charset: ASCII X-Char-Esc: 29 All, > >Does this mean that all over the Earth it is Standards day, >or is it simply World Standards Day in the UK? If it is the More research revealed that it happened in the USA on the 11th, Finland on the 13th and Italy on the 18th. Sorry if your country had it on another day and I missed it out ;-) >former it ought to be called Earth Standards Day (just in >case the Martians have theirs on a different day). Of all the replies I had nobody queried this point. Perhaps you are all Martians and don't want to draw attention to the fact. It would certainly explain a lot of material contained in standards documents. > >I seem to remember a similar event last year. Is October 14 >the standards day for this event now? This is not a particularly >standard day. September 21 or March 21 have the advantage of >having the same number of hours of daylight as night. March would >probably be better since fewer countries would haved switched to >daylight saving time (we in the UK will be on GMT, but on BST >in September). Quoth Derek M Jones: > September 21 or March 21 have the advantage of > having the same number of hours of daylight as night. Actually they don't, because the sun is neither at an infinite distance nor the same size as the Earth. Checking a 1987 Whitaker's: London: Belfast: Mar 18: 0610 1808 0634 1832 Mar 19: 0608 1810 0632 1834 Mar 20: 0605 1811 0629 1836 Mar 21: 0603 1813 0627 1837 Mar 22: 0601 1815 0624 1839 Mar 21 and Sep 23 simply happen to be the days that the sun crosses the celestial equator (i.e. is overhead at noon on the terrestrial equator). -- Clive D.W. Feather | Santa Cruz Operation | If you lie to the compiler, clive@sco.com | Croxley Centre | it will get its revenge. Phone: +44 1923 813541 | Hatters Lane, Watford | - Henry Spencer Fax: +44 1923 813811 | WD1 8YN, United Kingdom | >Also the supplement in the Financial Times spelt ISO as Iso. Does >this mean that ISO has now been recognised as a full blown noun, like >Laser? Or is this a bug in somebodies spelling checker dictionary? > Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 14:19:46 GMT From: Frank Farance Subject: (SC22WG14.676) Re: Did you know ... The word ``Iso'' would probably survive a spelling checker. From Webster's Third International Dictionary: [is- or] iso-: equal, homogeneous, uniform Thus, ``ISO'' == ``Iso'', was someone's idea of a yuk-yuk when the organization was formed. In fact, ``iso'' can be verbed (the verb ``is" or ``iso''), which gives us ``ISO is Iso'' or ``ISO iso Iso''. Happy Standards Day, Derek. From: David Joslin Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 18:13:52 BST ISO is NOT an acronym - it does NOT stand for International Standardisation Organisation. If you look at ISO documents, the English name is International Organisation for Standardisation (IOS), and the French name is Organisation Internationale pour la Normalisation (OIN). ISO come from the Greek "iso", meaning "same" - as in "isotherm", "isobar" etc. So it is reasonable for it to be spelled "Iso" or "iso". Of course we all know that REALLY it is the English acronym, but that the French have been allowed to save face by pretending it isn't! >What is one supposed to do on Standards Day? Do BSI or NIST offer >certification services to ensure compliance? > Several people responded by saying that whatever it was it had to conform to standards. One went even further ... Date: Sat, 15 Oct 94 17:02:43 EST From: Don Folland Subject: Re: (wg15-uk 587) (SC22WG15.418) Did you know ... Fascinating. Whose idea was this? If it is to be an annual event then we should perhaps give some thought to marking it in a suitable fashion in future. I think there is a good idea here for a competition in my ICL user group newsletter - for suggestions for what we should do on that day other than of course being sure that we do nothing that does not conform to [ISO?] standard! don@amsunews.demon.co.uk phone: 0603 70 4713 (+44 603 70 4713) fax: 0603 27 8235 (+44 603 27 8235) 21 Church Close Buxton Norwich NR10 5ER UK derek