The comment "It's not *how well* the pig is dancing, it's *that* the pig is dancing" is good, but Dr. Samuel Johnson said on 31st July 1763: “Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” Not very PC Jerry

In English "to be certified" can mean that one has been certified as insane

Shortly after the revolution in France there was a suggestion that the week should have 10 days, the day 10 hours and the hour 100 minutes. This was abandoned quickly. The people only had one or two free days every 10 days, so they rebelled, and all timekeeping devices would have to be swapped out. One sensible suggestion was that the year should have 12 months of 30 days plus 5 or 6 epagomenal days per year at the end of a month. One still sees calculators with 100° in a quadrant as an option

My daughters are also in such an organisation Jerry

There's never time to do anything properly, there's always time to do it twice

The article and my comment related to the accuracy of the measurement, not to the amount. Up to the change in definition the mass of the standard kilogram was known with an accuracy of about 50 µg (0.05ppm). The usual LSD dose is 50-100 µg, one doesn't need the above accuracy for the dosage PS As a chemistry student some one asked me in the student union bar if I could synthesise LSD. The answer was yes, but even in those days you were reported to the police if you ordered the starting materials

The author of the article wrote: Most of the people who will notice the difference between Le Grand K and the new kilo will be scientists who deal with hyper-precise measurements, such as pharmacologists who must dole out exact doses of medications This is obviously nonsense. Up to the new definition of the kg the mass was known to an accuracy of 50 microgram, that's only 0.05 millionths. Who cares if he/she gets an overdose of even one millionth He also writes "The kilogram is now equal to the weight of 1.4755214 x 1040 photons with frequencies matching a cesium atomic clock." That's not a very large number of photons, about 1500. There's a symbol missing

Probably took me the same amount of time by a slightly different route: You're right, I thought of this after having written the route. Jerry

It's trivial https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/smiley\_wink.gif, even after almost 60 years away from Grammar School in England. The steps are, using C formulae: a / (a + b) = c / d Multiply both sides by (a + b) a = (a + b) * c / d Collect the terms in a a - a * c / d = b * c / d Collect the coefficients of a a * (1 - c / d) = b * c / d Divide both sides by (1 - c / d) a = b * c / d / (1 - c / d) Simplify a = b * c / (d - c) Hope that's right, solved before you would have found the program In those good old days you got the algebra beaten into you Show-off Jerry

Chris certainly started a good discussion! A friend with Italian parents remarked that Starbucks has branches in almost every country in the world except Italy, where coffee was first introduced in Europe. They didn't want to open a café in a country where proper coffee is made. It's only very recently that Starbucks has dared to open a café in Milan Jerry

Judging by the multitude of spelling and orthographical errors, Kenneth must have eaten too many baboon brains :-D Jerry

You're lucky! I AM the IT guy at home Jerry

Most programmers have several piles of SW CDs, and it's a nuisance to search through of all of them to find the one you want. What do you use to catalogue SW CDs? There are thousands of programs for music CDs and DVDs, but they're not very suitable for SW Thanks for suggestions, Jerry

One of the ESA Cluster satellites because the programmers tested their code with three failed circuit breakers, they assumed that all five would NEVER fail - which is what happened. See www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMTI34TBPG_index_0.html[^] A moral tale... Jerry

Not only worthless comments, but also funny, seen in the assembly code of DG AOS/VS (can anyone remember it?) In the code executed when one shut down the system: < some code > HALT HALT ;JUST IN CASE The HALT instruction stopped the CPU completely In the panic code - executed when there was an error which the OS couldn't handle: < some code > ; I don't know how you got here, but you're in deep s**t Jerry

See [^][^]under "pencil and paper". Hardly a programmer would ever get a job based on his handwiting Jerry