"Conflicted" about Siemens

I occasionally post an entry when I experience good|bad customer service. Today I find myself about Siemens. Last year I had need of a spare part for our gas hob (EC745RC90E/01), it was a very small part, one of the four feet on the centre grid. I successfully found the spare parts page where an exploded parts diagram was displayed.

The middle grid was included but not the small feet. I figured that this must be a mistake and phoned. I was disappointed to be told that I could not buy just the feet but that I could buy a complete replacement grid for £83.66. I questioned their seriousness and eventually declined their generous offer. Exit one unhappy customer with no intention of ever buying another Siemens product.

Fast forward to the present and we suffered a problem with our Neff microwave. The engineer came out, identified the problem, ordered parts, arranged to come back and fix them, did so and all was hunky dory. I was very happy with the engineer and the service provided by Neff. While talking to the engineer I contrasted how well this problem had been handled with my experience with Siemens. It turns out that Neff, Siemens and Bosch among others are all members of BSH Group and the engineer services all of these brands. He looked up the details of the Gas Hob and found the same thing that I had but he was able too look a little deeper and found part number 616281, which is a set of RUBBER FOOT PAN SUPPORTS (with 4 units), price: £1.03! I ordered a set, they arrived in the post a couple of days later, they fit, I'm a happy camper.

So where does that leave me … Conflicted!

Alphabet

αβ

Yesterday I was reading about the origins of various writing systems and when it got around to describing an alphabet some kind of background processing started in my head. In brief, an alphabet is a set of letters used in a language (or more than one language). It had never occurred to me before but, just before it was explained in the text, I realised that the word was likely formed by the concatenation of two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha (α) and beta (β).

This was not very surprising but odd that it had never occurred to me before. The definition of alphabet as a set of letters could reasonably interpreted as simply a collection of similar items in the same manner that we talk about a set of chairs or teeth. In this sense set does not imply any order. The dictionary definitions and the one linked to at Wikipedia omit mention of sequence. Many (all?) alphabets, definitely the English alphabet, also define an order and the related word alphabetical.

With the additional notion of order perhaps it is significant that the word alphabet is formed by the concatenation of the first and second letters of the Greek alphabet. I have found no confirmation of this thought anywhere!

Prometheus

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded a copy of "To Set Prometheus Free" (by A.C. Grayling) to my Kindle. I eventually got around to reading it while on a train journey last Saturday. I found the book interesting and it has made me consider my own position after the chapter about Bertrand Russell and his self-description as an 'agnostic'.

Despite the previous paragraph this post is not about Religion, Reason or Humanity but about coincidence. This morning I was sitting in Hillers Café enjoying a peaceful cup of coffee and started reading The Information (by James Gleick ). As I read the Prologue what should appear but a reference to Prometheus!

Who was Prometheus and why was he referenced in two such different contexts? I knew that this sort of this just nags away at me, so I'd better find out. While driving home I start to wrack my memory about Greek mythology and gradually it dawns on me that I've been confusing Prometheus and Polyphemus. I now recall reading about Polyphemus while studying Latin at school.

So I've done a little research and realise that I was aware of one reference to Prometheus and that was in the subtitle of the famous book:

Frankenstein,
    or the Modern Prometheus
  by  Mary Shelley

This alludes to the myth that tells how Prometheus makes man from clay and water. He is also known for the theft of fire from the gods for human use and his subsequent punishment by Zeus.

And the second reference in The Information? This is due to Aeschylus who makes Prometheus say:

"Yes, and numbers, too, chiefest of sciences, I invented for them (mankind), and the combining of letters, creative mother of the Muses' arts, with which to hold all things in memory."

Well that coincidence gave me pause for thought and now I feel happier knowing the linkage as well as adding a little to my meagre knowledge of Greek mythology.

p.s. a couple of hours after posting the above I turn on the TV and start watching an episode of Dark Matters and join at the point that they are discussing Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley!

Everyone makes mistakes!

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
— Albert Einstein

While I would have to agree with Albert, there are instances of mistakes that I find particularly irritating. While out for a walk in the Cotswolds yesterday I stopped for a while at a hut in Lidcombe Wood to enjoy a coffee on this bright but cold day.

On the wall were a couple of boards displaying some information about the woods and the Stanway Estate. Both were interesting but the second one - LIDCOMBE WOOD - included one of those irritating mistakes. The mistake appeared in the first sentence:

Lidcombe Wood was, at the time of the Domesday Book (1086), only 3 furlongs long and 1 furlong wide, covering a triangle of about 40 acres immediately north-east of this hut.

An area of the stated dimensions could not possible contain an area of 40 acres! For those not familiar with the units, and perhaps this includes the author of the information board, a brief explanation should help.

A furlong is an imperial unit equal to one-eighth of a mile, or 220 yards.
An acre is an imperial unit equal to 1/640 of a square mile, or 4,840 square yards.

The reason for size of an acre goes back to the Middle Ages when the Anglo-Saxon acre was defines as one furlong by one-tenth of a furlong (i.e. 220 yards by 22 yards) which just happens to be 4,840 square yards. This was roughly the area that could be ploughed in one day by a yoke of oxen.



So with these facts at our disposal we can see that even a rectangle measuring 3 furlongs by 1 furlong would only encompass 30 acres and a true triangle with those measurements half of that.

All rivers run down to the sea...

Recently, I was talking to someone when the conversation led them to state that "all rivers run down to the sea". This seems to be a widely held belief here in England and I suspect that it is something learnt at school, I certainly recall being taught this.

I took me some time to convince the individual that while it might be true in England (and I'm not even sure of this), and even that the majority of rivers flow to the sea, it is not the case that all rives flow down to the sea. One thing that they insisted on before abandoning this belief was an example, luckily I know of one.

It was while travelling in Kyrgyzstan that I saw a river for the first time that did not flow to the sea. The River Chuy is one of several in Kyrgyzstan that flows into Kazakhstan where it eventually disappears in the steppe.

Earlier today I was reading The Motion Paradox (by Joseph Mazur) which included a quote from King James Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:7: 

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

It seems likely to me that this is the source of the mistaken belief about where rivers end up!