View Full Version : Mecca Mean Time?
My first thought on hearing about this was that it just HAD to be dated April 1st... but it appears that this is serious:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352011,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7359258.stm
w6ire
04-21-2008, 08:13 PM
"Attendees of the conference also reviewed the "Mecca Watch," an invention by a French Muslim which reportedly rotates counter-clockwise and displays Mecca's direction from any point in the world, the BBC said."
Classic. :)
w3bny
04-21-2008, 08:17 PM
Eh. What one is willing to do to serve Deity. I may think it isnt needed but then again, I am not a practicing Muslim.
G0GQK
04-21-2008, 09:53 PM
I recall reading in a newspaper that men in moslem countries who drive now have their cars fitted with a compass so that they will always know where Mecca is even parked in a side street in downtown Ismalia.
On a different story, we have thousands of motorists in Britain who have satellite navigation gizmo's fitted to their windscreens. They pay $500 for one of these in preference to a road map costing $9. When I watched the TV programme called Ice Truckers about the drivers of big trucks pulling 50 tons over frozen lakes for 300 miles in the Canadian wilderness not one of these drivers had sat-nav ! Just another toy for boys with big cars.
G0GQK
KI6DKC
04-21-2008, 10:09 PM
A guy I used to know in the Navy brought an Islamic prayer rug back from one of his deployments and gave it to me. It is pretty interesting and does have a compass in it. The instruction book it came with showed how to align it based on which city you were currently located in. It had every major and many minor cities listed. It is a beautiful rug that I have hanging on the wall. I am not Muslim so aside from the artistic nature it really has no other meaning for me. It is an interesting conversation piece.
kb2vxa
04-22-2008, 12:40 AM
Mecca is at the center of the Earth? I was raised to believe the devil lives at the center of the earth. Maybe the Muslims are right after all, he moved to Washington and nobody told me.
We have more than enough trouble with misaligned time zones and politicians who can't make up their minds about what time it is as if they can tell time to begin with. OK, so true north and magnetic north are aligned at Mecca but that's a temporary condition. So what will they do a few years down the road, change time, change the compass, move Mecca or put a huge magnet at the North Pole and confuse the hell out of Santa Claus? Somebody has Jizz al Koran on the brain!
Maybe the magnetic iron meteorite in that big black box they come to see every year has something to do with it and they're just not telling you.
KD0DKI
04-22-2008, 04:44 AM
Their computers would not work right.
Their ships would be lost at sea (GPS).
Their trains would never be on time.
But is would be funny.
W2LYS
04-22-2008, 06:59 AM
I would think they're at the center of Uranus.
m0dcd
04-22-2008, 08:08 AM
If conditions aren't good in one direction, why not turn it around and use "long path". This of course assumes one prays as a ground wave, otherwise it's off into space.....
My first thought on hearing about this was that it just HAD to be dated April 1st... but it appears that this is serious:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352011,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7359258.stm
And people in Hell want ice water.
Of course, they'll settle for warm beer.
Used!
Islam traditionally does not use mean time, but local solar time, and the traditional test for night and day (for religious observances anyway) is whether one can tell a black thread from a white one. This usage long predates Islam; they didn't invent it. If mean time (averaged from annual solar apparent motion rathter than actual apparent motion) would have some locales, if they used Mecca mean time as a reference, conducting (for example) morning prayers some minutes before or after the time determined in the old way. I doubt this makes any difference to most Moslems, but it is one example of how tricky these things can be.
Now, about that sundial. ...
Cortland
KA5s
On a different story, we have thousands of motorists in Britain who have satellite navigation gizmo's fitted to their windscreens. They pay $500 for one of these in preference to a road map costing $9. When I watched the TV programme called Ice Truckers about the drivers of big trucks pulling 50 tons over frozen lakes for 300 miles in the Canadian wilderness not one of these drivers had sat-nav ! Just another toy for boys with big cars.
G0GQK
I take it you don't have a sat nav unit.
I have one in my car and it is pretty useful.
I also have a portable one that I bought for less than $100.
It has numerous advantages over a map, especially since it can locate you and tell you when you are going the wrong way.
Also, it can be used while driving since most of them have voice guided directions.
G8ADD
04-22-2008, 04:11 PM
On a different story, we have thousands of motorists in Britain who have satellite navigation gizmo's fitted to their windscreens. They pay $500 for one of these in preference to a road map costing $9. When I watched the TV programme called Ice Truckers about the drivers of big trucks pulling 50 tons over frozen lakes for 300 miles in the Canadian wilderness not one of these drivers had sat-nav ! Just another toy for boys with big cars.
G0GQK
Well my XYL is a far better driver than I am, but she is completely rubbish at navigating - when we are travelling together she drives, I navigate. When she drives on her own she gets lost! Sat nav is a toy for many blokes, and a necessity for many women!
73
Brian G8ADD