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Because they guessed wrong in the beginning and it's too hard to change now.
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Oh, stop being so negative! 
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It's the arsetronomers that are being negative, not me, I'm positive of that.
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Chris C-B wrote: Having said all that, would somebody please kindly tell me why astronomers insist that East is negative, and West is positive?
I guess it's a matter of relative thinking. Are the stars moving above us or is the earth moving below the stars?
I have a feeling the celestial coordinate system might be older than both chronographs and Galileo.
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From a navigator's point of view, the stars are anchored to a non-existent point in the sky called the first point of Aries (apart from their proper motion). It is accepted that the earth moves relative to that, for a geocentric position, and then the attitude of the earth is calculated to obtain a topocentric position. All these calculations are related to time - Right Ascension is measured in HH:MM:SS.ss - where East positive rules.
What the astronomers do to get it so wrong, I have no idea. 
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Right on! It wasn't broke for five millennia, so they fixed it until it was broke! 
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Spam, spam, spam, eggs, and spam!
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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If I remember correctly (which is doubtful) from my Navigation/Nautical Astronomy lectures of almost 50 years ago. I think it is because the celestial sphere, which comprises all objects in "the sky", moves relative to a static earth.
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Yeah, that's what Ptolemy thought. It's also what Galileo got imprisoned for disagreeing with, and what Giordano Bruno got burnt alive for denying.
Guess what? Ptolemy was effing wrong!
Us navigators know better. 
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Everything is relative ...
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Astronomy is one of those fields with quite a lot of historical crust. I remember teaching in a foster school reading through the kids' physics books and the one or two that had astronomy in them, made me wonder WTF this stuff isn't expressed in simpler terms/coordinate systems which would totally be possible.
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And what exactly is a gallon? And why am I drunken after a half gallon of beer in London but not in New York City?
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That's got nothing to do with the different sizes of the gallon. It's just that the 'murcans have not got any idea of how to make beer.
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People can't even agree on toilet paper orientation[^].
"Toilet paper orientation is sometimes mentioned as a hurdle for married couples."
And because of that, I've seen it being discussed by Dr. Phil once (his verdict was "who cares!?").
I must admit I've switched from under to over throughout my life and now I think everyone who uses my previous preference is a sick psychopath who should be hanged from the gallows (until I switch back, of course)!
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<Toilet paper orientation is sometimes mentioned as a hurdle for married couples.>
Clearly this is a very important issue and goes to the bottom of every successful relationship.
Logically it has to be over, reduces the risk of the toilet paper reaching another surface such as the floor, becoming soggy or picking up bugs that could alter your gut bacterial profile.
So a serious health risk, so definitely a gallows issue!
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People who own cats always use the "under" roll deployment.
That way the cat can spin the toilet paper without unrolling it.
The cat will quickly bore with the "over" roll deployment after dispensing all of the paper.
If you are lucky enough to have both cats and dogs, this is where the cat tag-teams the dog to rip all of the dispensed paper into shreds.
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<Navigators reckon longitude positive to the East, and negative to the West, Why?>
or for compatibility with the Cartesian axis and CAD software which became GIS software and navigation software.
A brilliant case of forward compatibility thinking by those ancient navigators, its what you get from
'sea' programmers …….. 
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Most people look down at a map.
Astronomers look up at the sky.
That is a relative position difference of +/-180 degrees.
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Chris C-B wrote: Having said all that, would somebody please kindly tell me why astronomers insist that East is negative, and West is positive? OK, so it means that the Right Ascension increases with time to the West, but that is actually meaningless as the same thing would happen, but just with a minus sign before the number.
Simple. It's based on the direction the sun appears to move across the sky. When the sun is overhead (local noon), how long does it take to get to the western horizon. 6 hours. Likewise, it's been 6 hours since it was on the eastern horizon. From noon, add 6 to the time to get sunset and subtract 6 to get the time of sunrise.
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While on a mailing list of Job openings in around my area, I noticed two Job openings for software development.
One was titled "Software Developer" and "Software Engineer". For both the responsibly/Job description and requirement was same (Engineer needed English knowledge along with Engineering degree though).
So what is the difference between too in a software Company.
cheers,
Super
------------------------------------------
Too much of good is bad,mix some evil in it
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I don't know about in a software company, but it is about £50 on car insurance.
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Isn't that the sad truth 
It's basically a way of guesstimating your income so they can work out how much they can get away with over-charging you.
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You can save 15% or more by switching to Gieco.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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#realJSOP wrote: You can save 15% or more by switching to Gieco.
Only if you promise not to run over the gecko. 
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