News: Eighty nations strike deal over e-commerce, but lack US backing, page-15

(don't miss the last line please) -

''but isn't it the same with the left too?''
? ------
''its so bloody minded stupidity having political parties. ''

I guess you mean - left must be different to right and right to left etc????

well, yes - in many ways, I guess it is. But that is the nature of politics -

a contest of ideas. So - there'll be ideas A and ideas B

personally I think that's different to one country just being different because they want to be different from other places ----------

To me America is very different - because for some reason, they seem to not notice that there are other people in the world with good ideas -

like the French metric system for example. Like communism has some very good ideas (like most systems have good bits as well as dud bits)

they even miss the basic observation that there are in fact - different systems in the world and that the whole world doesn't work like they do --

example - the NASA stuff up of major proportion -

here's the story (take it with a grain of salt for exactitude - but, the refs will be reasonable)


NASA made a significant mistake in 1999 related to the Mars Climate Orbiter mission due to a failure to use the correct coordinate system. This error led to the loss of the spacecraft and serves as a cautionary tale in space exploration and engineering.
The key issue was a mix-up between metric and imperial units in the spacecraft's navigation software[1]. Specifically:
1. Lockheed Martin, the contractor that built the spacecraft, provided thrust data in English units (pound-seconds).
2. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which managed the mission, expected the data to be in metric units (newton-seconds).
This discrepancy went unnoticed during the mission's development and operations[1]. As a result:
- The spacecraft's trajectory calculations were incorrect.
- The Mars Climate Orbiter entered the Martian atmosphere at a much lower altitude than intended.
- The spacecraft likely disintegrated due to atmospheric stresses.
The consequences of this error were severe:
- The $125 million mission was lost.
- Valuable scientific data about Mars' climate and atmosphere could not be collected.
- It highlighted the critical importance of clear communication and standardized units in space missions.
This incident underscores the significance of coordinate systems and unit conversions in space exploration. It demonstrates how seemingly small errors in data representation can lead to catastrophic failures in complex systems[1]. The mistake served as a wake-up call for NASA and the broader space community, leading to improved processes for checking and double-checking critical mission parameters.
While the error was not specifically about hemisphere coordinates as mentioned in the query, it does relate to the broader issue of coordinate system mismatches and their potential consequences in space missions. The incident emphasizes the need for rigorous checks and standardization in all aspects of space mission planning and execution, including coordinate systems and unit conversions.
Citations:
[1] http://geoinf.psu.edu/publications/2017_GMD_Projection_Cao.pdf
[2] https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/manual.html
[3] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730023999/downloads/19730023999.pdf
[4] https://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/misc/NotesS.html
[5] https://cdaweb.gsfc.nasa.gov/misc/NotesD.html

now as far as politics goes ------ IMO, it's different - but, I agree that there's a stubbornness characteristic that is similar