Aspect ratio 3:2 or 2:3

[george013]

Absolutely right! My error and a bit of a brain meltdown.

As I recall many examples of the use of the golden ratio were incorporated into Moorish architecture, the Alhambra being one of the best examples. There is an excellent scholastic article on the nature of "sacred ratios" in the evolutions of religion, art and architecture, and their occurrences in nature.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...95263512000635

The A-series works on the ratio of decreasing dimensions on a constant rate of 0.7071 - as I somewhat laboriously explained earlier.That said, the A-size paper is still a thing of beauty and (IMHO) much better than the arbitrary measures of the imperial letter and legal sizes for example.

Another profit of the A-sizes is that a printing company buys A0 paper and can cut all the other A-sizes out of that paper without loose.

I'll read the article later. Do you know or are dealing with architecture? I've a question but will start that in another thread.

George

[Tronhard]

Do you know or are dealing with architecture? I've a question but will start that in another thread.
George

I was trained as a (not building) surveyor/engineer who also engaged in some architectural functions, but that ceased in the early 1980's when I went into photography. Thereafter I worked in IT (it paid more!) until I retired, although photography remained a passion throughout.

NZ currency went metric in 1967, and from a metrics point of view changed to ISO system in the mid-1970s. I was "Mr Metric" for the engineering department and oversaw the changeover from imperial to metric - it all happened in one day. Everyone had to hand in their imperial scales and other devices, and we issued metric ones. Old drawings to imperial scales (such as 1/8": 1ft) were read with metric conversion scales (e.g. 1:96metric). The use of imperial terminology was verboten. If you did you had to pay a fine to a fund that paid for a metrication party!

Worst period in a changeover to metric measures is the conversion period, which if allowed to linger will result in two systems running concurrently. That is why I did it on one day, and it worked a treat. Looking at countries like the UK and Canada, which continue to use a combination, it has become a bit of a mish-mash of measurement, and adds to everyone's confusion and frustration I believe.

Australia did much the same thing as NZ, and with such success that the next generation had little idea of imperial measures. On one occasion, in discussion with a friend we mentioned the phrase "give them an inch and they'll take a mile". Their teenager asked "what's that about?" A literal translation leaves something to be desired: Give them 25.4mm and they'll take 1.6093km !

[NorthernFocus]

The mods need to move this thread into the Philosophical Discussions forum.

[Mike Buckley]

The mods need to move this thread into the Philosophical Discussions forum.

Fortunately, there isn't one.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by Ken MT
It's a bit like buying timber, US buys 2x4, other places buy 4x2-same stuff!

And to add to the confusion, neither is actually 2x4 nor 4x2.

Would suggest that the only confused folks are those that don't buy lumber and don't do carpentry.

It's a bit like wiring schematics (U.S.) which say 120VAC or 240VAC or 480VAC on the print with no confusion at all to those in the know.

Moving on to focal length . . . no, on second thoughts, better not.

[miatab]

"Worst period in a changeover to metric measures is the conversion period, which if allowed to linger will result in two systems running concurrently. That is why I did it on one day, and it worked a treat. Looking at countries like the UK and Canada, which continue to use a combination, it has become a bit of a mish-mash of measurement, and adds to everyone's confusion and frustration I believe."

Yes, I remember the change over in AUS, happening in one night, at least for weights and measures; currencies ran parallel for some time. WORST thing about it was this two currencies aspect. Especially in the pub! If you bought three ten ounce "middies" of beer with shillings/pence it cost 3X 1/8 pence, or five bob, but if you used the new same size metric coins it cost 51 cents, or five shillings and a penny! I actually still can remember our publican getting so confused by shillings/cents mixes, he had a hissy fit and threw the buyer's money down on the floor, but gave him his three beers. We were saving to come to Canada, and carefully left our wallets at home, taking only five florins, or sometimes a mix of florins (two shillings coins)and 20 cent coins (same size ) into the bar on a Friday night. What's that got to do with golden means and 2:3? Nothing.

[george013]

....
NZ currency went metric in 1967, and from a metrics point of view changed to ISO system in the mid-1970s. I was "Mr Metric" for the engineering department and oversaw the changeover from imperial to metric - it all happened in one day. Everyone had to hand in their imperial scales and other devices, and we issued metric ones. Old drawings to imperial scales (such as 1/8": 1ft) were read with metric conversion scales (e.g. 1:96metric). The use of imperial terminology was verboten. If you did you had to pay a fine to a fund that paid for a metrication party!
......

And at the party was served.......a pint of beer

It's the only way to do it. And celebrate it.

George

[rpcrowe]

PHOTOSHOP states it this way:

3x2 is 3x Wide by 2x Tall


2x3 is 2x Wide by 3x Tall

[Saorsa]

The horizontal has too much space on the sides. The vertical would look better cropped even tighter.

Grab the top right corner and pull it halfway to the cone of shame then move the entire crop frame so that there is a bit more blue space at the top than the bottom.

I'm not a dog but my former male Cairn Terrier would have felt humiliated wearing either the cone or the sweater and would probably have ripped my throat out in my sleep if I put both on him.

[rpcrowe]

Brian...

This is not a crop that I made for an image. When I do a finished crop, I don't often leave the Photoshop workspace within my image. It is just a example of what the format of a 3x2 crop looks like in comparison to a 2x3 crop. I posted this in answer to the 3x2 vs 2x3 query/controversy above. I could have grabbed any image to illustrate that

Luckily your Cairn Terrier probably never had serious surgery like this guy had nor was your terrier shaven down to the skin at a shelter because of fleas and tick infestations. Its pretty cold here (although we are living in Southern California) and I asked this dog if he would rather be up to a terrier's standards of couture or continue shivering like he was doing before we put the sweater on. Guess what his answer was

[davidedric]

Although it took a while for the UK to go (mostly) metric, at least from the time I went to university in 1967, the scientific world was fully metric. I just switched between then as I went along. Still not metric:

Beer sold in pints

Ditto milk (though that's actually quite complicated)

Road distances in miles

Petrol sold in litres, but fuel consumption generally quoted in miles per gallon.

Dave

[DanK]

the scientific world was fully metric.

It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to drop the word "scientific." The only two countries that haven't officially adopted the metric system are the U.S. and--are you ready--Myanmar. The US was supposedly on track to rejoin the rest of the planet until Ronald Reagan killed the Metrication Board in 1982. It's a real PITA: many manufacturers have to produce two versions of things, and many people have to have two sets of tools (I do). Kids have to learn two systems, since the entire scientific world, including the US, uses only metric. And the traditional non-metric system is not only different; it's stupid. Quick: what's the conversion between troy ounces and regular ounces? How many tablespoons in a pint or a cup? Roughly what's the weight of a 12-ounce bottle of beer? 500 yards is what fraction of a mile? Try cutting a complicated American recipe into thirds. All of this is trivially easy in metric. And the fact that it's customary to use fractions rather than decimals compounds the gratuitous difficulty.

Rant over. I sometimes simply use metric anyway. Unfortunately, one case in which it is tough is framing--everything relevant is sold in the US only in customary measures.

[rpcrowe]

I had a friend who said - "Who the heck needs metric?"

I asked him, O.K. - "How many yards in a mile?

He replied - "How should I know?"

I said - "That answers the question of who needs metric"

[DanK]

great anecdote!

I had a friend who said - "Who the heck needs metric?"

I asked him, O.K. - "How many yards in a mile?

He replied - "How should I know?"

I said - "That answers the question of who needs metric"

[Saorsa]

I had a friend who said - "Who the heck needs metric?"

I asked him, O.K. - "How many yards in a mile?

He replied - "How should I know?"

I said - "That answers the question of who needs metric"

I would ask why you need to know. All metrics are just metrics. You could, if you wish, create a speedometer for your care that reports as furlongs per femtosecond and it would be as accurate as metric or imperial. What is Pi in the metric system?

[george013]

I would ask why you need to know. All metrics are just metrics. You could, if you wish, create a speedometer for your care that reports as furlongs per femtosecond and it would be as accurate as metric or imperial. What is Pi in the metric system?

A decimal number, 22/7. But written down as a decimal number in the metric system.

George

I can't say metric system. That's based on distances, meters. But decimal.

George

[DanK]

I would ask why you need to know. All metrics are just metrics. You could, if you wish, create a speedometer for your care that reports as furlongs per femtosecond and it would be as accurate as metric or imperial. What is Pi in the metric system?

I'm substantially to blame for the fact that this thread has completely migrated to a different topic, but as long as it has:

As long as one stays in base 10, pi is a scale-free number. The speed of a car isn't.

The issue about American vs. metric measures is not one of accuracy, if you leave out the loss of accuracy that arises from human error when computations become more complex. The issues are that computations are more complex, and conversions are much more complex. There is a reason why the price of your gasoline is not denominated in pennies per teaspoon or that the length of carpet you need is not denominated in miles. We need units of differing magnitudes for convenience. Converting among units of different magnitude is trivially easy in every part of the world other than the US and Myanmar. Take a simple example: volume measures for cooking. This is simpler than some other conversions in conventional measures, but it makes the point. Cooks routinely have to translate between quarts, pints, cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons. I have to think about it carefully, but if I recall, a quarter cup is 4 tablespoons and 12 teaspoons. In the metric system, this is simple: a "cup" is simply a quarter of a liter, which is 250 ml, the equivalent of a tablespoon is 15 ml, and the equivalent of a teaspoon is 5 ml. If you are reducing a recipe that calls for 1/4 cup, you don't have to stop and think about how many tablespoons are in a quarter of a cup.

The metric system also has the very convenient feature that under specified conditions (trivially different from most real world conditions), the weight of 1 ml of water is 1 g. The weight of a teaspoon of water is...? Well, there is the very approximate mnemonic that "a pint is a pound, the world around," but that is very inaccurate, and it still leaves you with pints, which, odds are, you would have to convert to something else.

It's no accident that the scientific world, which depends on measurement, gave up on the various non-metric systems generations ago.

[Saorsa]

It's absolutely wonderful for straight lines.

A teaspoon is a measure of volume and works just fine as that.

Reality is not decimal or linear. I routinely worked in different number spaces and dealt with vectors and radians. When first in England in the 60s I dealt routinely in Pounds, Shillings and Pence and the odd guinea, and halfpenny as needed.

Your 'easy' base ten actually requires redefinition when used in even a simple four function calculator. Binary, Octal and Hexidecimal work much better than Binary Coded Decimal or Bi-Quinary for the complex calculations.

Your GPS shows you locations and distances in kilometers or miles but, the particular metric on your screen is literally almost the last thing that gets done before display. They are derived from the very non-metric degrees, minutes and seconds. The orbital calculations, angular measurements and specific geolocation ignore them.

[xpatUSA]

It's absolutely wonderful for straight lines.

A teaspoon is a measure of volume and works just fine as that.

1/6 of 1 gill used to work well for me.

Reality is not decimal or linear. I routinely worked in different number spaces and dealt with vectors and radians. When first in England in the 60s I dealt routinely in Pounds, Shillings and Pence and the odd guinea, and halfpenny as needed.

I lived in England from 1940 to 1984 and never once saw a guinea. Plenty of ha'pennies though and a good few farthings too.

Your 'easy' base ten actually requires redefinition when used in even a simple four function calculator. Binary, Octal and Hexidecimal work much better than Binary Coded Decimal or Bi-Quinary for the complex calculations.

That would be hexadecimal, would it not?

[DanK]

1/6 of 1 gill used to work well for me.

Ah, but a UK gill, or a US gill? Let us not forget that one of the wonderful things that has been lost, now that all but the US and Myanmar have gone metric, is struggling to remember the difference between US and Imperial gallons. After all this, I think I might need 3/4 US gill (I think that's 72 teaspoons, but I didn't check) of good Belgian beer. Except that the US brewer involved sells elsewhere and therefore uses 1/3 liter bottles, not the US-standard 72-teaspoon bottles. (Perhaps the one and only advantage of US measures: beer bottles are slightly larger.)

Reality is not decimal or linear.

Never said or implied it is either of those, though I am not sure what you mean by linear here. A linear transformation of something?

When first in England in the 60s I dealt routinely in Pounds, Shillings and Pence and the odd guinea, and halfpenny as needed.

Yup, just like I still have to deal with ounces. And the Brits gave that monetary system up for what reason?

Your 'easy' base ten actually requires redefinition when used in even a simple four function calculator.

I was talking about what is easier for humans to do, not machines. And the machines have to make similar translations to get to ounces and teaspoons.

It's not base 10 per se that makes the metric system easier for humans; it's the fact that units differ by orders of magnitude. If we used base 12, it would be simpler to deal with 1, 12, 144, etc.--except that they would be written 1, 10, 100, which gets us right back where we started.

I'm signing off. Those not-quite-72-teaspoons of beer is beckoning.