Bull. He one of the worst examples. If he happens to occasionally say
something useful, it's mostly drowned out by his other common behavior. We
don't need any more sockpuppets, certainly not like him.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

"Ellen MacArthur" wrote in message
reenews.net...
Everybody should read your post...

Very erudite of you, Capt. And you didn't lose your temper. And you
didn't call
me names. Your a good example for how newsgroup discussion should be done.

Cheers,
Ellen



"Capt. Scumbalino" wrote in message
...
| Ellen MacArthur wrote:
|
| Thanks for the explanation. So what's the difference between the
| rule of 12ths and the rule of thirds. In the rule of thirds the first
| two hours it goes down 1/4 which is the same as your 3/12th. The
| second two hours it goes down 1/2 which is the same as your 6/12th
| and the third two hours it goes down 1/4 which is the same as your
| 3/12th. See I got it right in spite of myself.
|
| It's based on the pretty-much universal fact that the time for the tide
to
| change from high to low water, and vice-versa, is pretty close to six
hours.
| Since we humans deal with time in chunks of one hour, the question we
ask
| is: "how much does the tide change in one hour?". Since the smallest
| fraction is one twelfth, just before and just after slack water, it's
| natural to refer to the tidal change during other hours in terms of the
same
| denominator. One twelfth in the first hour leads us to express the
change
| during the second as two twelfths, etc.
|
| Also, the larger the time slot, the greater the granularity. Imagine
you're
| waiting for the tide to rise enough to clear a sandbar. The rule of
thirds
| would have you waiting in chunks of two hours before you sail. The rule
of
| 12ths would keep you at anchor for chunks of one hour. Of course, plot
the
| heights on a graph over time, and you can pinpoint your departure time
| (rather, the time at which you can safely cross the sandbar) much more
| finely.
|
| Whilst your 'rule of thirds' (which, incidentally, isn't exclusive to
| photography, but is a general principle used in many forms of visual
art)
| may be mathematically correct at its junctures, it doesn't fit with how
| people think of time (ie, we think in days of 24 hours, not days of 12
| bi-hours).
|
|
| --
| Capt Scumbalino
|
|
|