Next message: Bill: "Re: Pronunciation of "Marcq Saint-Hilaire""
On 2/7/06 4:27 PM, "Bill" <> wrote:
> Frank wrote:
>
>> Bill wrote:
>> "An ID 10-T question."
>>
>> First, thank you for making me look this up. To save anyone else the effort,
>> if you write out ID-10-T, and drop the dashes... and make the "1" look more
>> like an "I", you get IDIOT.
>
> Sorry about that. It is in such common use as an error description by
> programmers and alpha geeks in the the Purdue area, I thought it was
> universally known. Another common acronym in the software industry,
> especially with support folks, is "DSO Error." DSO being "dumb sh-t
> operator."
>
> Thank you for the excellent description of the process. As other list
> members have mused, I too find it rather amazing that it was almost a
> century after the on-board chronometer was invented that Sumner stumbled on
> and published the concept of the celestial LOP. One would think that since
> it was in most cases a running fix, and latitude was often determined by DR,
> that someone would have done a couple of "what ifs" with different latitudes
> long before and noticed the relationship. A great case of mind set blinding
> one to options. My feeling has always been that creativity is a momentary
> cessation of stupidity.
>
> Bill
>
Bill,
I think you are exactly right. Arthur Koestler's book "The Sleepwalkers"
(30 years old) explores humanity's blindness to the obvious throughout
history. After reading it, I have never said "why didn't they think of that
sooner".
Ken
