The Random Thoughts Thread

[captaintrolley]

So is 2020 the end of a decade or the beginning of a new one??? I say it is the end of a decade, but apparently I do not have much company regarding this.

For example: In counting by ten, do you count 0-9, 10-19,  20-29  (which would place 2020 at the beginning of the decade) OR 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 etc. (which would place 2020 at the end of the decade) ???

Thoughts and input.. (please be civil)

[Streety McCarface]

5 minutes ago, captaintrolley said:

So is 2020 the end of a decade or the beginning of a new one??? I say it is the end of a decade, but apparently I do not have much company regarding this.

For example: In counting by ten, do you count 0-9, 10-19,  20-29  (which would place 2020 at the beginning of the decade) OR 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 etc. (which would place 2020 at the end of the decade) ???

Thoughts and input.. (please be civil)

Start of a new decade. Logically (from a CS perspective), indexing starts from 0.

[M. Parsons]

On 12/17/2019 at 9:07 PM, Streety McCarface said:

Start of a new decade. Logically (from a CS perspective), indexing starts from 0.

There was no year 0. It went from 1BC to 1AD, so 2020 is the end of the decade.

[Wayside Observer]

On December 17, 2019 at 11:07 PM, Streety McCarface said:

Start of a new decade. Logically (from a CS perspective), indexing starts from 0.

If using ones compliment, would it be starting from +0 or -0?

[Streety McCarface]

5 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

If using ones compliment, would it be starting from +0 or -0?

Given that there's been no negative time that we know of, I'd say +0

[OC Transpo/STO Fan]

On 12/17/2019 at 11:01 PM, captaintrolley said:

So is 2020 the end of a decade or the beginning of a new one??? I say it is the end of a decade, but apparently I do not have much company regarding this.

For example: In counting by ten, do you count 0-9, 10-19,  20-29  (which would place 2020 at the beginning of the decade) OR 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 etc. (which would place 2020 at the end of the decade) ???

Thoughts and input.. (please be civil)

2020 is technically the last year of this decade (hint: 2000 was the last year of the 20th century).

However, people commonly think that 2000 is part of the 2000s (despite being in the 20th century) and that 2010 is part of the 2010s, so 2020 has to be the start of a new decade in their case.

Decades are commonly thought of as 1990-1999, 2000-2009, 2010-2019, but that's not really correct because there wasn't a year zero.

I still think of 0-9, 10-19, 20-29, etc as being decades since thinking of them as 1-10, 11-20 seems odd (even though it's correct). 

Speaking of 2000, can it actually be considered a honorary 1990s year since the decade was from 1991-2000 and not 1990-1999? It wasn't the beginning of a new century so there was nothing really new about it (even though people celebrated it like it was). I've heard people saying that 2000 (and 2001-2003 to some extent) was literally full of late 90s culture.

[81-717]

24 minutes ago, OC Transpo/STO Fan said:

Decades are commonly thought of as 1990-1999, 2000-2009, 2010-2019,

That's the most logical and intuitive way to think of it.

24 minutes ago, OC Transpo/STO Fan said:

but that's not really correct because there wasn't a year zero.

The fact that there was no year 0 is what's inherently incorrect (though this was news to me, I'm not denying that there was no year 0, I'm saying it's an inherently incorrect counting system). Now if we indexed both years and centuries starting at 0 we wouldn't have this mismatch of 19th century = 1801-1900, 20th century = 1901-2000, 21st century = 2001-2100, it would be 1900-1999, 2000-2099 and 2100-2199 respectively. Although since we're so used to the current system (with the exception of the debacle of which decade/century/millenium a year divisible by 10/100/1000 belongs to) it might take a while to get used to referring to 1900-1999 as the 19th century instead of the 20th.

[Wayside Observer]

14 hours ago, 81-717 said:

That's the most logical and intuitive way to think of it.

The fact that there was no year 0 is what's inherently incorrect (though this was news to me, I'm not denying that there was no year 0, I'm saying it's an inherently incorrect counting system). Now if we indexed both years and centuries starting at 0 we wouldn't have this mismatch of 19th century = 1801-1900, 20th century = 1901-2000, 21st century = 2001-2100, it would be 1900-1999, 2000-2099 and 2100-2199 respectively. Although since we're so used to the current system (with the exception of the debacle of which decade/century/millenium a year divisible by 10/100/1000 belongs to) it might take a while to get used to referring to 1900-1999 as the 19th century instead of the 20th.

Part of the problem with indexing off zero vs. indexing off one is that zero is a newer number than the others.  When I was in school, there was a series of posters that IBM made about mathematics that they must've done in the sixties in one of the classrooms and one of them talked about how the invention of zero was a major milestone in mathematics because perviously it had been indicated with either a scratch mark or an empty space but hadn't been assigned a numerical quantity until relatively late.  I'm sure that contributed to the long standing widely held perception that numbers start at one.

The turn of the millennium was fun with the Y2K bug and the race to get that patched and all.  Did it really start in 2000 or 2001?  There were come trains in Norway that had computerized control equipment on them that were fine on January 1st, 2000 which was the date everyone was concerned about but wouldn't start up because of a software bug that only presented itself on January 1st, 2001.  How that's 20 years ago now, that's something else....

[J. S. Bach]

In Philadelphia PCC 2800 was the last of the series; 2801 was a GM bus, a 5105, I believe.

[captaintrolley]

43 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

In Philadelphia PCC 2800 was the last of the series; 2801 was a GM bus, a 5105, I believe.

In Vancouver fleet series generally begin with XXX01.

[81-717]

On 12/20/2019 at 2:41 PM, Wayside Observer said:

Part of the problem with indexing off zero vs. indexing off one is that zero is a newer number than the others.  When I was in school, there was a series of posters that IBM made about mathematics that they must've done in the sixties in one of the classrooms and one of them talked about how the invention of zero was a major milestone in mathematics because perviously it had been indicated with either a scratch mark or an empty space but hadn't been assigned a numerical quantity until relatively late.  I'm sure that contributed to the long standing widely held perception that numbers start at one.

Even setting aside the fact that math is objective, not merely a construct of human imagination, I'm pretty sure 0 "existed" for almost as long as humans studied math at the most basic level. Even negative numbers have been used since antiquity. I have a hard time believing that "numbers start at 1" is such a widely-held perception by anyone over the age of 5, especially in the 21st century. Wait till they hear about fractions, decimals, irrationals, and (gasp) complex numbers!

[Wayside Observer]

3 hours ago, 81-717 said:

Even setting aside the fact that math is objective, not merely a construct of human imagination, I'm pretty sure 0 "existed" for almost as long as humans studied math at the most basic level. Even negative numbers have been used since antiquity. I have a hard time believing that "numbers start at 1" is such a widely-held perception by anyone over the age of 5, especially in the 21st century. Wait till they hear about fractions, decimals, irrationals, and (gasp) complex numbers!

I haven’t seen that poster card in, well it feels like since antiquity, but the way I remember it explaining things was that the concept of zero existed longer than the numerical representation of zero as the number 0 that we use now.  I remember thinking it would’ve been interesting to see a number written with the scratch mark or empty space placeholders that it mentioned were used before that. Anyways, I didn’t design that poster.  Someone at IBM did fifty odd years ago.

Anyways, if I set down my coffee and started interrupting people passing by doing their Christmas shopping to ask what the first number is, most people would probably say one.  People seem to default to unsigned integers starting at one the way they learned to count when they were kids if you catch them cold and there’s no other context.  I doubt anybody would say 0 + j0.

[T3G]

Going to call a Toronto area bookbinder tomorrow about repairing my copy of Bromley's 50 Years of Progressive Transit. I got the book (complete with supplements!) over a year ago but the binding started to fall apart so I haven't done much more than delicately peruse through it. I'm in a vintage sort of mood but I can't read the book until I get it repaired. Hopefully it won't take too long... and I hope to God it won't fall apart again after!!

[Wayside Observer]

16 hours ago, PCC Guy said:

Going to call a Toronto area bookbinder tomorrow about repairing my copy of Bromley's 50 Years of Progressive Transit. I got the book (complete with supplements!) over a year ago but the binding started to fall apart so I haven't done much more than delicately peruse through it. I'm in a vintage sort of mood but I can't read the book until I get it repaired. Hopefully it won't take too long... and I hope to God it won't fall apart again after!!

Do they do restoration work?  I have a 1900 Boy's Own Annual which is hard to believe is coming up on 120 years old now that was my great grandfather's and the binding is in very sad shape so I'd like to get the cover and binding restored.

[T3G]

46 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

Do they do restoration work?  I have a 1900 Boy's Own Annual which is hard to believe is coming up on 120 years old now that was my great grandfather's and the binding is in very sad shape so I'd like to get the cover and binding restored.

Their website indicates that they do.

http://www.dontaylorbookbinder.com/restoration-rebindings/

I gave them a call and got a quote on repairing the book (in the area of $35-$40) but they're out for the holidays so it will be next year when I'll be able to make the trip over there. Googling my options for bookbinding and book repair it seems that the number of people who do this kind of service is pretty limited. I'm surprised that no big name corporation (that I've been able to locate) offers book repair. Maybe in a few generations, no one will be able to get their books repaired at all.

[FutureHeartsJunkie]

I really wish that HNIC (Hockey Night in Canada) was broadcasted in Chinese? 

If we already have the games broadcasted in Punjabi, why not Chinese? Most recently (and for the first time), HNIC was also broadcasted in Cree (one of the Aboriginal languages).

I would also imagine if the Blue Jays games were to be broadcasted in Punjabi.

Reminds me when the Toronto Santa Claus Parade was not only broadcasted in English and French, but Russian:

Any thoughts?

[T3G]

How have I spent my day? Attempting to unravel the confusing web of routes that operated in downtown Toronto prior to the subway opening.

I thought using colour, instead of the black lines like the old Bromley diagrams, would make it easier to follow.

I was wrong!

[OC Transpo/STO Fan]

Any last words for the 2010s decade before it goes away?

I personally think that 2010-2013 were the best moments of my decade although 2014-2016 were still great. 2017-2018 was okay for me, while 2019 just went to shit, especially April-June (not going into specifics, I had some personal issues I had to deal with). The later part of this year was decent though.

[TTC Guy]

So happy it’s the new year, can’t wait to move on and start over

 

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

[Bus_Medic]

Objectively pondering why I spend so much time on this board, and what end or benefit, if any.

[Wayside Observer]

40 minutes ago, Bus_Medic said:

Objectively pondering why I spend so much time on this board, and what end or benefit, if any.

Benefit?  None.  Trolling the foamers can be entertaining as is getting some of the ageing baby boomers riled up.

[Streety McCarface]

3 hours ago, Bus_Medic said:

Objectively pondering why I spend so much time on this board, and what end or benefit, if any.

I'd say "bitchslapping uninformed opinion" is enough of a benefit. There's too much bullshit going around on these forums, and we all need reality checks from time to time. Without them, the whole community gets super toxic (though it's already super toxic so meh I guess that's a moot point, but the satisfaction of vituperation is always good).

[T3G]

Maybe I'm the fool here for trying to have a serious discourse about anything on the internet, but I really hate what a land of extremes the online transit community is.

At times, I find myself having to be firmly against the car, in debates about things like transit only lanes against car owners from the 905 who think that a streetcar with a capacity of 250 people and a car with a capacity of 5 or 6 people should be given equal footing, or else it is tantamount to fascism. At other times, I have to defend the car, in conversations about why someone might choose to drive rather than waste 2-3 hours of their life every day in an area poorly serviced by transit. I am not a car advocate by any means but expecting anyone to waste so much time every single day is such a ridiculous fantasy that it beggars belief.

[Streety McCarface]

2 hours ago, PCC Guy said:

Maybe I'm the fool here for trying to have a serious discourse about anything on the internet, but I really hate what a land of extremes the online transit community is.

At times, I find myself having to be firmly against the car, in debates about things like transit only lanes against car owners from the 905 who think that a streetcar with a capacity of 250 people and a car with a capacity of 5 or 6 people should be given equal footing, or else it is tantamount to fascism. At other times, I have to defend the car, in conversations about why someone might choose to drive rather than waste 2-3 hours of their life every day in an area poorly serviced by transit. I am not a car advocate by any means but expecting anyone to waste so much time every single day is such a ridiculous fantasy that it beggars belief.

You've been spending far too much time around NUMTOTs. While they mean well, far too many of their stances are insanely extreme. 

A lot of them don't have the experiences necessary to understand some of the nuances or life perspectives. A lot of them, from those you've described, have probably never owned a car, and probably have never lived in an area poorly served by transit. Therefore, they're not going to understand the needs of those who have to drive.  While I'm young and don't have a lot of these experiences myself, it's still very apparent with a lot of them. 

[Doppelkupplung]

Just wanted to take this moment to say f@ck the GTA strip of the 401 in its entirety.

Thank you have a nice day