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Ruth Belville, the "Greenwich Time Lady" (2022)

95 点作者 throw0101b2 个月前

16 条评论

danans2 个月前
&gt; a teacher by profession, was denied a widow’s pension so lobbied to take over the manual distribution to provide an income for herself and their baby daughter<p>&gt; she retired in 1892, at age 81<p>&gt; So Ruth was forced to move, for the last time to 57 Plough Lane in Beddington. She retired in 1940 and died aged 89<p>The time synchronization story is carrying another ominous story about elderly working class poverty of the gilded age.<p>Mother and daughter working until their 80s probably due to necessity, and the daughter being forced out of her home shortly before she died.<p>Let&#x27;s not go back.
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nhubbard2 个月前
Fans of Tom Scott&#x27;s Citation Needed, if you haven&#x27;t seen this... well<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=RzfiF9ccZvQ&amp;list=PLrkYtXgEpu5Reg3BCHcHpgpT0RccCo4Y2&amp;index=1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=RzfiF9ccZvQ&amp;list=PLrkYtXgEpu...</a>
gerdesj2 个月前
In the early noughties I ended up being called in as a consultant to sort out a somewhat broken Novell eDirectory. Password changes working sporadically, details not propagating sometimes - you probably know this story.<p>I found a NTP stratum 1 source on site that someone had bought and forgotten about and the internet was available. DNS was also broken for IP and IPX&#x2F;SPX was a bit special. I fixed up DNS and registered some host names and so on. I removed some odd routes in SPX and IP. I put all partitions on the three central office boxes and distributed the rest. I ran an awful lot of dsrepair and watched a lot of dstrace with various flags until the red turned to green. I&#x27;d get a partition into a decent state, then drop the replicas and rebuild them from the first one - all lots of fun.<p>Anyway, it was DNS and NTP (it always is). That isn&#x27;t the real punchline ...<p>The company was called First Great Western (1)! I must stress this was not the time sources for their trains and operations equipment which was totally separate and properly managed by qualified professionals. Their general office IT needed a bit of a hand.<p>So I can lay claim to bringing time to GWR, if you squint hard enough! A few years later I did a similar job for ScotRail, when they too still had Novell office servers. I used FGW&#x27;s servers as sources - it seemed appropriate 8)<p>(EDIT to add):<p>(1) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Railway_time" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Railway_time</a> - mentions GWR in line 1 and links to all the other related info.
munchler2 个月前
&gt; When the sun is at its highest in the sky we call it midday or noon but the earth spins on a slightly inclined axis so the point closest to the sun is constantly changing. This change means that a person in London will have their midday at a different time to a person in New York and that will be different to a person in Beijing<p>This is a very misleading description. The point closest to the sun would be constantly changing even if the axis of earth&#x27;s spin was not inclined relative to the sun.
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walrus012 个月前
For those who haven&#x27;t read it in detail, the history of the invention and refinement of the marine chronometer is fascinating: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Marine_chronometer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Marine_chronometer</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;John_Harrison" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;John_Harrison</a>
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throw0101b2 个月前
Also:<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ruth_Belville" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Ruth_Belville</a><p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk&#x2F;ruth-belville-the-greenwich-time-lady&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk&#x2F;ruth-belville-the-greenwic...</a><p>Via a weblog from the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation:<p>* <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rntfnd.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;03&#x2F;09&#x2F;the-greenwich-time-lady-sold-time-from-1892-to-1940&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;rntfnd.org&#x2F;2025&#x2F;03&#x2F;09&#x2F;the-greenwich-time-lady-sold-t...</a>
noelwelsh2 个月前
This seems very mundane now that a Casio F-91W can give all the practical timekeeping position a person needs for the cost of a meal. I found it interesting the watch she used (&quot;Mr Arnold&quot;) was some 40 years old when her father started the business and nearly 150 years old when she stopped. It was made by John Arnold[1], who essentially invented the accurate watch.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;John_Arnold_(watchmaker)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;John_Arnold_(watchmaker)</a>
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mytailorisrich2 个月前
It&#x27;s always interesting to compare pictures. The approximate location of the article&#x27;s picture of the Observatory Clock from the 1870s:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maps.app.goo.gl&#x2F;7GSD3VytQ5cJ5ayR6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maps.app.goo.gl&#x2F;7GSD3VytQ5cJ5ayR6</a><p>It provides a good view of Canary Wharf&#x27;s skyscrappers today.
TRiG_Ireland2 个月前
The wonderful historical podcast Futility Closet did a great episode about Ruth Belville, which went some way to explaining her business model and how it still worked with technological advancements. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.futilitycloset.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;06&#x2F;06&#x2F;podcast-episode-108-greenwich-time-lady&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.futilitycloset.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;06&#x2F;06&#x2F;podcast-episode-10...</a><p>I found it initially while looking for the Citation Needed episode from The Technical Difficulties, which is less informed, but quite fun. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;RzfiF9ccZvQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;RzfiF9ccZvQ</a>
throwaway_ewell2 个月前
Excited to see my village mentioned on the frontpages of HN!
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registeredcorn2 个月前
&gt;After his death John’s third wife Maria Elizabeth (neé Last) (1811-99), a teacher by profession, was denied a widow’s pension so lobbied to take over the manual distribution to provide an income for herself and their baby daughter Elizabeth Ruth Naomi Belville (known as Ruth).<p>It would be interesting to know if it was common practice for widows to be denied pension, and if so, for what reason.
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jack_riminton2 个月前
Seems like the red ball rising to near the top was regularly missed, I reckon an appropriately placed cannon that fired 5 minutes before the ball dropped would&#x27;ve been a suitably British way to warn everyone
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beardyw2 个月前
&gt; Around 1911 she moved to Ewell Cottage, London Road, Ewell.<p>The article seemed to wander off a bit at the end. But since this is from Epsom and Ewell ( nowhere near Greenwich) it now makes sense.
louthy2 个月前
&gt; In 1833 James Pond, the Astronomer Royal, introduced the Greenwich Time Ball...<p>Did he stand up and say: &quot;My name is Pond... James Pond&quot;?
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shreyshnaccount2 个月前
techdiff reference
colesantiago2 个月前
So is this not one of the earliest grifts?
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