Unless Lexmark decides to get into the fuel cell biz methanol isn't exactly expensive stuff. I'm sure the companies involved in making the fuel cells will void your warranty if you don't use their alcohol, but the only real risk to homebrew fuel would be catalyst contamination, and filtering should take care of than. And at $200, who cares if the warranty gets all null and void.
Sounds rather like a potential weapon to me. In which case what's the point?
If you would RTFA you would see that the fuel would be somewhere around 24% methanol / 76% water. One of those single serving vodka bottles would make a better weapon.
Late reply - but I had to chime in... In response to: 1. - People in the US complain about unions and union workers, but I have seen union workers take EXACTLY 30 minute lunches and EXACTLY 15 minute breaks (twice a shift.) In every office environment I have worked in, people take 30ish minute lunches and multiple 15ish minute breaks. 2. - Again - you must have worked with some real slack bastards, I have never seen an union crew take more than their two breaks. 3. - Yes, I have found it not uncommon for the boss to disappear for hours at a time, but there is always someone in charge. (in my experience) 4. - I know of few industries with more stringent drug and alcohol testing than the construction industry. Heck, the IT industry and psychedelic culture grew up hand-in-hand. 5&6. - Many sites I have worked on (I'm a land surveyor and do construction layout to fill in my schedule.) have a zero tolerance policy on "horseplay" and do enforce it. 7. - And here is where our difference in experiences comes from. I would believe anything about laborers working for some small time shop, likely to get the riff-raff who can't get a better paying job. It sounds like you are experienced with unskilled or marginally skilled common laborers. Don't assume the majority of construction workers are anything like what you experienced.
Pros are held to pro standards, no matter what the industry.
Actually, the decrease in blood pH caused by the consumption of orange juice increases the secretion rate of LSD through the kidneys and decreases peak serum concentrations.
So, if you like shorter, milder trips, then yea, orange juice makes LSD work better.
I read a story about this on the Fox News site earlier today. I think the headline was something like "Terrorist sympathizer Senator Wyden attempts to open the gates of hell."
The machine also produces less noise and dust than a jackhammer, is more powerful than a jackhammer and requires only about two people to supervise it
([instead of 15 workers for a jackhammer.]
15 workers for a jackhammer? How do they do that? 1 guy on the hammer, 1 guy on the compressor, 2 guys flagging traffic, 1 guarding the water cooler, 1 observer from the Local, 1 QC inspector, 1 caterer, 1 Foley Grip, 1 Best Boy, 1 Personal Assistant to Mr. Hammer Operator, 1 Stunt Double, 1 Foreman, 1 Orange cone supervisor, and that's only 14!
It's the right word, spelled the right way, look it up. Yea, yea, and it should be HTML, not HMTL.
As for Microsoft incorporating Bayesian filtering in OE (or any other client): POPFile and others are free (as in beer and speech,) and filtering after downloading doesn't speed up the crawl email takes across my slow connection.
In order to increase user confidence in the Internet and increase take-up levels for broadband it is essential that all stakeholders work together to combat the growing of spam.
If you ask me, spam is a good reason to get broadband. I'm tired of trying to download 25+ bloated, HMTL laden, emails every day over my sub-56K connection.
Uh, they are called a monitor when they don't have a TV tuner built in. It has nothing to do with adding DVI and/pr SVGA to a TV. It has everything to do with NOT adding a tuner. Most high-end audio/video equipment is single purpose components - separate amps, separate pre-amps, separate tuners,...
This is NOT a dishonest pratice - this is the way most people buying on that end of the market want it. There were monitors before PCs, and there will be monitors if PCs disappear.
I've mapped many a storm system, and here are a few quick tips.
1.A compass works well in older systems composed of brick or clay tiles. Concrete pipe and box culverts often have enough iron in them to really mess up your compass. 2.Most cities have "Atlas sheets" available for all city utilities. Water, storm, and sanitary are often listed on the same sheet. You can usually find these at the municipal utility complex - for free. Just tell the clerk at the counter you are doing a topographic survey for new development, and need to show such on your plot. 3.I have used a cordless drill, concrete bit, and concrete screws to set points in the ceiling of pipes, at angle points. Use string and a protractor to measure angles. The screw also provides a nice hook to pull tape distances with. There is no way I'm taking a 20 grand total station into the sewer! 4.Put the tip and straw from a can of WD-40 on a can of funky coloured spray paint. Use the straw to spray out of the manhole lid. This can help you tie your underground survey in with aboveground locations. 5.Always be thinking like water. Water flows downhill. (duh) You aren't going to find that 10 foot dia. pipe very far from the local river or stream, or whatever your natural drain is. Take a johnboat or raft or such on a slow paddle down the riverbanks, looking for the big outlet pipes, and start your adventure there. 6.Methane or carbon dioxide poisoning is NOT a major risk in STORM sewers. Watch it in older systems, though. Many of the older ones are combined - still. If there is organic debris on the floor of the pipes you are exploring, that is also a cause for alarm about gas. Clean bottom storm pipes are almost always safe.
Those who said they have used GPS anywhere underground, near a lid or not, are full of it. Who wants to carry a 4' level in the drains? What will you do with it? If you want to measure slope - get a combo compass/inclinometer or fancy yourself one out of the protractor you are using to measure bends. Only one way to map a storm system - old school two man. Measure the angle and chain the distance!
As the saying goes, you can't rule a nation of innocents. Is anyone aware that the US has the highest ratio of inmates per population in the world? There's a reason for that -- and it's not because US citizens are inherently criminal by nature.
Actually, you could argue that US citizens, as a whole, are more likely to have a criminal nature.
Ignore the genetic impact of those who were forcefully brought to this country for a moment.
Unlike most of the rest of the world, we are a nation of not just immigrants, but immigrants who had to struggle to get here. America is a melting pot of all the people who were unsatisfied with the norms of the society in which they lived, and chose to come here. We have the blood of religious non-conformists, political non-conformists, and many other social misfits running strong in the veins of America. So I wouldn't find it at all difficult to believe Americans are inherently more criminal by nature.
All the people above who blindly dismiss the current crop of ADHD medications show an utter failure to understand these drugs, and how they differ from "street" drugs of the same family.
The dose of Dexadrine given to a child (or adult) with ADHD is far below "recreational" levels. The method of delivery is oral (slowing delivery), and the dextroamphetamine salt is a more slowly absorbed, and less efficiently uptaken, form of amphetamine than the "crystal meth" abused by most addicts.
The criticizers of stimulants as part of effective ADHD treatment also seem to be unable to understand, or unwilling to believe, that ADHD (like most other psychological disorders) is associated with, and most likely caused by a fundamental difference in the brain chemistry of the patient. For these jokers to stand on their soapboxes and proclaim that they believe stimulants to be bad, and not comprehend the how the effect of these drugs on the ADHD brain is different than the effect on the general population further highlights their ignorance of the subject.
My suggestion to you is to not delay treatment for your child. ADHD is a disorder that affects every single aspect of ones mindset, if it shows behaviorally or not. The risk in treating this disease too late is in allowing learned behaviors acquired through the emotionally distorting lens of ADHD to become not only habits, but fundamental parts of ones personality.
I've not found the performance of X compared to the performance of Windows noticably different since the days of the 486 for normal desktop apps.
Oh come on now!
GUI speed is the one and only reason I don't use Linux on any of my computers except the one machine I have that runs faster than 400 MHZ.
Here's the three main places where Win98 / MacOS 7.6.1 win over Linux on my slow machines (P-133/80MB - 603e-200/144MB): 1.Web browsing: Much slower when I have used Linux on these low-end machines, and I've tried all sorts of browsers, all sorts of windows managers, and most every dist. I could get my hands on since 1997. 2.Word Processing/Spreadsheet: Open office runs dandy on the P-133 with Windows, drags like a rock under Linux. 3.FreeCiv and other similar, not all that demanding, games: Very noticeable slowdown under Linux as compared to Windows / MacOS.
Now, I want to run Linux on all my machines, and my needs aren't all that great, I just really don't want to take the performance hit I'm finding on my basic tasks. I'm open for suggestions, but I've been trying on and off again for years... (And I'm poor, and can't afford even the most modest upgrade in hardware.)
The cultural role of High School is to give people the basic skill set needed to live on their own, be a functional member of society, and not be a burden to the state.
Examples: Enough math to manage personal finances. Enough government to allow one to understand the basic workings of our political system. Enough english to be a literate citizen who can handle everyday correspondence and read for news if not pleasure.
On top of this high school is supposed to create opportunities for one to achieve further education (college, vocational training) and provide the foundation on which that secondary education can be built.
Elementary and middle school are where the bulk of social development is expected to take place. It's where we learn to sit still, to meet a basic deadline, to work and share with others, to play nice with others.
There is a reason that they don't have recess at any high school I know of.
You mean it takes skills? A casemod that anyone can do is like a coffee-can muffler on a Honda.
...and requires a good array of tools to polish it up nicely.
I just don't understand how my 1850's dining room set was made w/o a random-orbit sander. Sheesh - if you don't have the tools, sand paper is cheap, and elbow grease is free. If it's not worth some effort, it's not worth bragging about on slashdot.
That, and wood is highly combustable... If the air inside your case is above 200 C. you've got problems no metal case can solve.
Excessive Heat insulated even more by a Combusatble Wood Case. If your case has proper airflow then you could wrap it in ten FEET of fiberglass insulation. The amount of energy passed through the metal walls is next to nil (unless you have your heatsink mated to it.)
I usually am the one to stay home and hand out the candy. I like to play Coil's unused Hellraiser theme (Clive Barker found the music scarier than the movie), put trashbag black-outs over the street lights, blooddied mannequin parts in the yard, and the best is a candy baited - gelatin filled - tiger trap.
We do all of our mapping work in Autocad or Microstation, and dual monitors >=21" is a must. As for virtual desktops being superior . . . Whatever.
Nice for organizing all your clutter.
Worthless when you need to compare two or more images, drawings, or just need a zoomed-out window to help you find where you are in a drawing. And even if my 21" didn't fit within my field of vision, that's not an bad thing.
It is much more intuitive to turn your head and look, than to have everything displayed in one place. - Do you read books by keeping your eyes still and moving the book side to side and up and down? Are you saying that your eyes are motionless when looking at your 19" monitor?
As to many of the earlier complaints about Windows and multi-monitor support. I have not ever had a problem with win 98 or 2000 and dual monitors - and that's working with dozens of machines and hardware combos.
Please don't use a fan designed for 205 or 230 VAC at 115 VAC! (unless wired expressly for both voltages.) You stand a good chance of regretting it (and creating much more heat than what prompted this thread), and if I have to explain why, you really shouldn't be playing with electricity.
The problem with any modification of the behavior of brake lights is that they will be by default non-intuitive. It would also be neat if you were approaching an intersection and could tell if vehicles in the crossing lanes had their opposite-side turn signal on, but it also would diminish the intuitiveness of the system.
A problem with this entire discussion is the notion that cars need any "gadgets". There is nothing wrong with the smooth driving and responsive handling of most modern cars, but it seems to give people a false sense of security. When something wrong happens, either to the car, or in the road near the car, 100% attention is needed; it is at these times that the simple, intuitive, indicators on cars prove most valuable. At 60 miles per hour you are approaching a stopped (or immobile) object at almost 9 feet per tenth second, you don't have time to decide if light X is on because of situation Y, or situation Z.
The reason we still use the system is because there is no better way.
Lets start with an assumption for the sake of making the argument.
Let's assume you have a machine that gives you perfect ground coordinates (not grid - the earth is not flat).
It would be very difficult if not impossible to take all the old metes and bounds surveys and find the property corners as described, not to mention the harder part - being able to fit all the neighboring properties together without gaps.
And when I say if not impossible, I'm not trying to exaggerate. The computing horsepower it would take to run even a simple least squares adjustment of all those property boundaries would be a monumental undertaking.
Then you need to consider that the old deeds were measured with chain, rod, or tape. Good ways of measuring grid distances, but does not take into account the curve of the earth.
How do you describe the curvature of the earth (you need to do that to tie all those distances to something real)? All the states have localized plane coordinate systems, but they don't use the same ones - with good reason I might add, a unified projection over the whole of the United States would throw error all sorts of places.
And this all works off the first assumption - that there is a magic box that can spit out perfect coordinates, grid or ground. There is no such box. Look at the other story up today about the earth changing shape. Any good conversion from ground to grid coordinates needs to take into account the (non spherical) shape of the earth, and the little bugger is moving on us, some places more than others. It's hard enough to measure the shape, much less develop a model to describe those observations, much less create a formula or formulas to convey that model.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless Lexmark decides to get into the fuel cell biz methanol isn't exactly expensive stuff. I'm sure the companies involved in making the fuel cells will void your warranty if you don't use their alcohol, but the only real risk to homebrew fuel would be catalyst contamination, and filtering should take care of than.
And at $200, who cares if the warranty gets all null and void.
If you would RTFA you would see that the fuel would be somewhere around 24% methanol / 76% water. One of those single serving vodka bottles would make a better weapon.
Late reply - but I had to chime in...
In response to:
1. - People in the US complain about unions and union workers, but I have seen union workers take EXACTLY 30 minute lunches and EXACTLY 15 minute breaks (twice a shift.) In every office environment I have worked in, people take 30ish minute lunches and multiple 15ish minute breaks.
2. - Again - you must have worked with some real slack bastards, I have never seen an union crew take more than their two breaks.
3. - Yes, I have found it not uncommon for the boss to disappear for hours at a time, but there is always someone in charge. (in my experience)
4. - I know of few industries with more stringent drug and alcohol testing than the construction industry. Heck, the IT industry and psychedelic culture grew up hand-in-hand.
5&6. - Many sites I have worked on (I'm a land surveyor and do construction layout to fill in my schedule.) have a zero tolerance policy on "horseplay" and do enforce it.
7. - And here is where our difference in experiences comes from. I would believe anything about laborers working for some small time shop, likely to get the riff-raff who can't get a better paying job.
It sounds like you are experienced with unskilled or marginally skilled common laborers. Don't assume the majority of construction workers are anything like what you experienced.
Pros are held to pro standards, no matter what the industry.
Actually, the decrease in blood pH caused by the consumption of orange juice increases the secretion rate of LSD through the kidneys and decreases peak serum concentrations.
So, if you like shorter, milder trips, then yea, orange juice makes LSD work better.
I read a story about this on the Fox News site earlier today. I think the headline was something like "Terrorist sympathizer Senator Wyden attempts to open the gates of hell."
Is it any good at retrieving porn binaries?
15 workers for a jackhammer? How do they do that?
1 guy on the hammer,
1 guy on the compressor,
2 guys flagging traffic,
1 guarding the water cooler,
1 observer from the Local,
1 QC inspector,
1 caterer,
1 Foley Grip,
1 Best Boy,
1 Personal Assistant to Mr. Hammer Operator,
1 Stunt Double,
1 Foreman,
1 Orange cone supervisor,
and that's only 14!
It's the right word, spelled the right way, look it up.
Yea, yea, and it should be HTML, not HMTL.
As for Microsoft incorporating Bayesian filtering in OE (or any other client): POPFile and others are free (as in beer and speech,) and filtering after downloading doesn't speed up the crawl email takes across my slow connection.
If you ask me, spam is a good reason to get broadband. I'm tired of trying to download 25+ bloated, HMTL laden, emails every day over my sub-56K connection.
Uh, they are called a monitor when they don't have a TV tuner built in. It has nothing to do with adding DVI and/pr SVGA to a TV. It has everything to do with NOT adding a tuner. Most high-end audio/video equipment is single purpose components - separate amps, separate pre-amps, separate tuners, ...
This is NOT a dishonest pratice - this is the way most people buying on that end of the market want it. There were monitors before PCs, and there will be monitors if PCs disappear.
Those with the bigger damn are just overcompensating for their smaller....cars.
We Americans have The Hummer, The Biggest Pee-Pee Ever!
I've mapped many a storm system, and here are a few quick tips.
1.A compass works well in older systems composed of brick or clay tiles. Concrete pipe and box culverts often have enough iron in them to really mess up your compass.
2.Most cities have "Atlas sheets" available for all city utilities. Water, storm, and sanitary are often listed on the same sheet. You can usually find these at the municipal utility complex - for free. Just tell the clerk at the counter you are doing a topographic survey for new development, and need to show such on your plot.
3.I have used a cordless drill, concrete bit, and concrete screws to set points in the ceiling of pipes, at angle points. Use string and a protractor to measure angles. The screw also provides a nice hook to pull tape distances with. There is no way I'm taking a 20 grand total station into the sewer!
4.Put the tip and straw from a can of WD-40 on a can of funky coloured spray paint. Use the straw to spray out of the manhole lid. This can help you tie your underground survey in with aboveground locations.
5.Always be thinking like water. Water flows downhill. (duh) You aren't going to find that 10 foot dia. pipe very far from the local river or stream, or whatever your natural drain is. Take a johnboat or raft or such on a slow paddle down the riverbanks, looking for the big outlet pipes, and start your adventure there.
6.Methane or carbon dioxide poisoning is NOT a major risk in STORM sewers. Watch it in older systems, though. Many of the older ones are combined - still. If there is organic debris on the floor of the pipes you are exploring, that is also a cause for alarm about gas. Clean bottom storm pipes are almost always safe.
Those who said they have used GPS anywhere underground, near a lid or not, are full of it.
Who wants to carry a 4' level in the drains? What will you do with it? If you want to measure slope - get a combo compass/inclinometer or fancy yourself one out of the protractor you are using to measure bends.
Only one way to map a storm system - old school two man. Measure the angle and chain the distance!
A vaccine that prevents a disease is not the same as a medicine that cures a disease. We have never cured a viral disease.
The quest for alien life and the quest for a cure for a viral disease have exactly the same success rate - 0%!
As the saying goes, you can't rule a nation of innocents. Is anyone aware that the US has the highest ratio of inmates per population in the world? There's a reason for that -- and it's not because US citizens are inherently criminal by nature.
Actually, you could argue that US citizens, as a whole, are more likely to have a criminal nature.
Ignore the genetic impact of those who were forcefully brought to this country for a moment.
Unlike most of the rest of the world, we are a nation of not just immigrants, but immigrants who had to struggle to get here. America is a melting pot of all the people who were unsatisfied with the norms of the society in which they lived, and chose to come here. We have the blood of religious non-conformists, political non-conformists, and many other social misfits running strong in the veins of America. So I wouldn't find it at all difficult to believe Americans are inherently more criminal by nature.
All the people above who blindly dismiss the current crop of ADHD medications show an utter failure to understand these drugs, and how they differ from "street" drugs of the same family.
The dose of Dexadrine given to a child (or adult) with ADHD is far below "recreational" levels. The method of delivery is oral (slowing delivery), and the dextroamphetamine salt is a more slowly absorbed, and less efficiently uptaken, form of amphetamine than the "crystal meth" abused by most addicts.
The criticizers of stimulants as part of effective ADHD treatment also seem to be unable to understand, or unwilling to believe, that ADHD (like most other psychological disorders) is associated with, and most likely caused by a fundamental difference in the brain chemistry of the patient. For these jokers to stand on their soapboxes and proclaim that they believe stimulants to be bad, and not comprehend the how the effect of these drugs on the ADHD brain is different than the effect on the general population further highlights their ignorance of the subject.
My suggestion to you is to not delay treatment for your child. ADHD is a disorder that affects every single aspect of ones mindset, if it shows behaviorally or not. The risk in treating this disease too late is in allowing learned behaviors acquired through the emotionally distorting lens of ADHD to become not only habits, but fundamental parts of ones personality.
I've not found the performance of X compared to the performance of Windows noticably different since the days of the 486 for normal desktop apps.
Oh come on now!
GUI speed is the one and only reason I don't use Linux on any of my computers except the one machine I have that runs faster than 400 MHZ.
Here's the three main places where Win98 / MacOS 7.6.1 win over Linux on my slow machines (P-133/80MB - 603e-200/144MB):
1.Web browsing:
Much slower when I have used Linux on these low-end machines, and I've tried all sorts of browsers, all sorts of windows managers, and most every dist. I could get my hands on since 1997.
2.Word Processing/Spreadsheet:
Open office runs dandy on the P-133 with Windows, drags like a rock under Linux.
3.FreeCiv and other similar, not all that demanding, games:
Very noticeable slowdown under Linux as compared to Windows / MacOS.
Now, I want to run Linux on all my machines, and my needs aren't all that great, I just really don't want to take the performance hit I'm finding on my basic tasks. I'm open for suggestions, but I've been trying on and off again for years...
(And I'm poor, and can't afford even the most modest upgrade in hardware.)
The need is driven by gamers...
Or those of us with real pursuits, like trying to best our friends at SETI@home.
The cultural role of High School is to give people the basic skill set needed to live on their own, be a functional member of society, and not be a burden to the state.
Examples:
Enough math to manage personal finances.
Enough government to allow one to understand the basic workings of our political system.
Enough english to be a literate citizen who can handle everyday correspondence and read for news if not pleasure.
On top of this high school is supposed to create opportunities for one to achieve further education (college, vocational training) and provide the foundation on which that secondary education can be built.
Elementary and middle school are where the bulk of social development is expected to take place. It's where we learn to sit still, to meet a basic deadline, to work and share with others, to play nice with others.
There is a reason that they don't have recess at any high school I know of.
Wood is a tad bit more difficult to work with, ...
...and requires a good array of tools to polish it up nicely.
You mean it takes skills? A casemod that anyone can do is like a coffee-can muffler on a Honda.
I just don't understand how my 1850's dining room set was made w/o a random-orbit sander.
Sheesh - if you don't have the tools, sand paper is cheap, and elbow grease is free.
If it's not worth some effort, it's not worth bragging about on slashdot.
That, and wood is highly combustable...
If the air inside your case is above 200 C. you've got problems no metal case can solve.
Excessive Heat insulated even more by a Combusatble Wood Case.
If your case has proper airflow then you could wrap it in ten FEET of fiberglass insulation. The amount of energy passed through the metal walls is next to nil (unless you have your heatsink mated to it.)
I usually am the one to stay home and hand out the candy.
I like to play Coil's unused Hellraiser theme (Clive Barker found the music scarier than the movie), put trashbag black-outs over the street lights, blooddied mannequin parts in the yard, and the best is a candy baited - gelatin filled - tiger trap.
We do all of our mapping work in Autocad or Microstation, and dual monitors >=21" is a must.
As for virtual desktops being superior . . . Whatever.
Nice for organizing all your clutter.
Worthless when you need to compare two or more images, drawings, or just need a zoomed-out window to help you find where you are in a drawing. And even if my 21" didn't fit within my field of vision, that's not an bad thing.
It is much more intuitive to turn your head and look, than to have everything displayed in one place. - Do you read books by keeping your eyes still and moving the book side to side and up and down? Are you saying that your eyes are motionless when looking at your 19" monitor?
As to many of the earlier complaints about Windows and multi-monitor support. I have not ever had a problem with win 98 or 2000 and dual monitors - and that's working with dozens of machines and hardware combos.
Please don't use a fan designed for 205 or 230 VAC at 115 VAC! (unless wired expressly for both voltages.) You stand a good chance of regretting it (and creating much more heat than what prompted this thread), and if I have to explain why, you really shouldn't be playing with electricity.
The problem with any modification of the behavior of brake lights is that they will be by default non-intuitive. It would also be neat if you were approaching an intersection and could tell if vehicles in the crossing lanes had their opposite-side turn signal on, but it also would diminish the intuitiveness of the system.
A problem with this entire discussion is the notion that cars need any "gadgets". There is nothing wrong with the smooth driving and responsive handling of most modern cars, but it seems to give people a false sense of security. When something wrong happens, either to the car, or in the road near the car, 100% attention is needed; it is at these times that the simple, intuitive, indicators on cars prove most valuable. At 60 miles per hour you are approaching a stopped (or immobile) object at almost 9 feet per tenth second, you don't have time to decide if light X is on because of situation Y, or situation Z.
The reason we still use the system is because there is no better way.
Lets start with an assumption for the sake of making the argument.
Let's assume you have a machine that gives you perfect ground coordinates (not grid - the earth is not flat).
It would be very difficult if not impossible to take all the old metes and bounds surveys and find the property corners as described, not to mention the harder part - being able to fit all the neighboring properties together without gaps.
And when I say if not impossible, I'm not trying to exaggerate. The computing horsepower it would take to run even a simple least squares adjustment of all those property boundaries would be a monumental undertaking.
Then you need to consider that the old deeds were measured with chain, rod, or tape. Good ways of measuring grid distances, but does not take into account the curve of the earth.
How do you describe the curvature of the earth (you need to do that to tie all those distances to something real)? All the states have localized plane coordinate systems, but they don't use the same ones - with good reason I might add, a unified projection over the whole of the United States would throw error all sorts of places.
And this all works off the first assumption - that there is a magic box that can spit out perfect coordinates, grid or ground. There is no such box. Look at the other story up today about the earth changing shape. Any good conversion from ground to grid coordinates needs to take into account the (non spherical) shape of the earth, and the little bugger is moving on us, some places more than others. It's hard enough to measure the shape, much less develop a model to describe those observations, much less create a formula or formulas to convey that model.
I'm rambled long enough, thanks for listening.