Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 October 10

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October 10

Time zone coding

In the final sentence of Effects of time zones on North American broadcasting#Broadcast networks, we encounter the following piece of text: 20h00 HE/21h00 HA/21h30 HT. The context makes it obvious that this is talking about 8PM in the Eastern Time Zone, 9PM in the Atlantic Time Zone, and 9:30PM in Newfoundland. But I've never seen this kind of abbreviation. Is it standard in some contexts? And if so, in what contexts are these abbreviations and the use of ##h## standard? Nyttend (talk) 11:10, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Those would be French-language abbreviations, commonly used in Canada, but not much elsewhere. HE is heure de l'est, HA is heure de l'Atlantique and HT heure de Terre-Neuve. The writing of 8 pm as 20h00 is another clue that the original language is French (in English, in the cases the 24-hour clock is used, it would be 20:00; the h stands for "heure"). --Xuxl (talk) 16:34, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

In Portugal the currency was the escudo divided into 100 centavos, although the small - denomination coins were no longer minted at the end. A price was written with a dollar sign between the escudos and the centavos - thus ten escudos and fifty centavos would be written 10$50. Does any other country write prices like that? The word "dollar" comes from the old thaler coin and the dollar sign most likely from the Pillars of Hercules pictured on the old Spanish real. The derivation given in the Wikipedia article, that it is an abbreviation of "Spanish pesos", is implausible. 2A02:C7F:BE2B:5600:7C97:E589:C523:7D74 (talk) 17:51, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

The old predecimal British system used to use ##/## where the first number was shillings and the second pence. See £sd--Jayron32 01:54, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Glass floats

The article on glass floats states that, having been first used in the 1840s, "by the 1940s" they "had replaced wood or cork throughout much of Europe, Russia, North America, and Japan". My question is why? Were they cheaper to manufacture, more durable as floats, easier to employ, did they have greater buoyancy, or what is the reason they beat wood and cork? Thank you in advance! ---Sluzzelin talk 16:51, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

A few thoughts: unlike cork, glass won't decompose in seawater, nor will it slowly gain density/lose buoyancy. Cork is not exactly cheap, and requires large orchards full of old trees. Glass can be made from sand, but it seems the floats were usually made from recycled glass bottles. There is some discussion of relative merits in this [1] thread, but nothing too conclusive. Fishing_float#History_of_floats mentions some of the variety of designs and materials. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:02, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

That thread did have some useful links leading to yet further links. From what I've gathered so far, it's pretty much what you wrote. (longer-lasting, no loss of buoyancy, and thus a superior product, yet not that expensive to make). Thanks for helping this landlubber! ---Sluzzelin talk 22:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Floats of wood or cork when worn resemble common Driftwood leading to uncertain ownership and possible theft as fuel to burn. Glass floats are distinctive and have a single practical use. AllBestFaith (talk) 19:19, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, ABF. That hadn't occurred to me, and I even read about the sailors stealing "floatwood" in the same text I read about the glass floats which had spiked my curiosity in the first place. Thanks for connecting yet more dots for me ;-) ---Sluzzelin talk 23:21, 12 October 2016 (UTC)