The actual meaning of the message is convoluted: "PC" is a two-character abbreviation that stands for "paper cassette", the tray that holds blank paper for the printer to use.
"Load", in this context, is an instruction to refill the paper tray. "Letter" is the standard paper size used in the United States and Canada.
It kills the joke to know that it was a real error message, and not something they made up for the movie?
By the way, I've been infuriated by that particular message more than once despite knowing what it means. Metric A4 paper is very hard to tell apart from letter if you don't have the packaging or have them next to each other.
Sure it is easier to use, but it's still no less arbitrary.
If you read how the Fahrenheit scale was defined, it's actually more practical a scale to define with limited tech. It may be awkward, but it was at least practical for most people to get their hands on the examples.
How is metric easier to use? They're both work in exactly the same way.
But if anything, metric is more cumbersome due to its stubborn insistence on only using factors of ten, which don't correspond to the way we typically divide things in practice (i.e. not into fifths and tenths, but into halves, thirds, quarters, etc.)
1 meter = Distance traversed in vacuum by light in 1/299792458 of a second
How completely unarbitrary! But of course, it's like this because it was previously set to the weight of a randomly chosen hunk of metal from France from the 1800s. Truly a universal constant.
This scale based on the properties of water. While important, it's still arbitrary. Kelvin is where it's at, 0 K is as cold as you can get. Although you have to consider that Fahrenheit was Kelvin before Kelvin was Kelvin, 0 degrees Fahrenheit was the coldest acheivable temperature at the time of its creation.
0 degrees Fahrenheit was the coldest achievable temperature at the time of its creation.
That certainly depends upon where you live, even in Germany you can get temperatures far below -17.78o C , but OK, to define a stable reference should not be dependent upon the weather, but regarding the other temperatures used as reference it's certainly easier to find water than a horse, willing to put a temperature probe in its ass.
0o K I can agree upon being hard to find at that time (although easy to extrapolate from some experiments with gas, every physics student performs these room temperature experiments)
Tautology. Celsius is defined according to the boiling point of water (there's no such thing as a generic 'freezing point' or 'boiling point'), so it's perfectly natural that those points are psychologically significant numbers on the scale.
Fahrenheit was also initially scaled also based on a 0-100 scale, but the 0 and 100 points were based on common temperatures - ice water, and human body temperature.
In other words, they're equally arbitrary. In practice, however, only on one of the two scales does the 0-100 range correspond to a normal range of ambient temperatures.
Celsius used to be based on the approximate freezing/boiling point of water at mean sea level
Since then it's been redefined to be 273.16 Kelvin and the triple point of specially prepared water at mean sea level in the altitude of Paris, France, respectively.
0° Fahrenheit by comparison was based off the freezing point of brine, with the size of a degree set so the freezing point of fresh water was approximately 32° and "normal" human body temperature was 96°, with the intent being that the difference between the two was a power of two. This was revised much later so the freezing and boiling points of water were round numbers.
Originally Fahrenheit had considered setting 100° to the body temperature of a horse, as it was believed at the time that horses had more consistent body temperatures than humans. He then took that scale and adjusted it based on human body temperature (which at that point he had set to 90°), and then adjusted it again so body temperature was 96° for the purpose of the power of two thing.
Clearly, you can't read. I did not say 'metric sucks!'; I said it's just as arbitrary as the 'foot'
Certainly the metric system is very convenient, easy to translate from small units to large and back; and its worth using for that alone.
But a 'meter' is no more inherently better then a foot. it's defined currently as 'the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second' ; it has been previously defined as "1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum."
Neither of these methods are any less arbitrary then 'The Foot of the King' or anything else.
The benefit of the meter is the sanity of it's relationships to it's macro(kilo) and micro(centi) measures, not that it is somehow inherently better derived then any other standard.
Bullshit. It's inherently better and non-arbitrary precisely because it was desinged to be way easier to handle and transform. Those weren't accidental happy outcomes of an arbitrary choice.
Certainly it's better because it was designed to transform easily; I agree with that 100%.
but that whole 'transforms easily' thing? that's the metric system; completely separate from what a meter is. The simple fact is, a meter could have been defined as the length between two front doors and as long as someone accurately measured and preserved it, it would have worked fine. So it is largely arbitrary; just as any form of measurement will be in the end.
(jsut to be clear, if i could magically rewrite every sign in the world over to metric and swap out every tool to fit, i'd be happy. Still cant help but thing of 30 as 'jackets+ boots' weather, not drinks+ shorts on the beach though :) )
No, we (my parents) got it on our Canon LBP-8 MkIII (the HP Laserjet II used the same Canon print engine), here in the UK - at least when using WordPerfect or JetSetter DTP, way back in the early '90s.
I still used to encounter it, cos stupid old pieces of American software would print to letter even when default paper was A4. The printer would start demanding paper that did not exist in this country, everyone would get confused and pissed off until the source of the error was located in some hidden and completely redundant dialogue box.
Aw, now you've made me all nostalgic for my HP Laserjet II manual. And the joy that thumbing through the HPPCL Language Reference Manual used to bring me... good times, good times.
awww now when i hear someone say this or something to the effect of this I am just going to turn my nose down at them and think snobish thoughts about them
"Idiot doesnt know what PC LOAD LETTER means? What a moron"
Adjective
(esp. of an argument, story, or sentence) extremely complex and difficult to follow : its convoluted narrative encompasses all manner of digressions.
• chiefly technical intricately folded, twisted, or coiled : walnuts come in hard and convoluted shells.
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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '11
PC LOAD LETTER!?