============================================================ THE DSA NEWSCAST http://www.dozenal.org ============================================================ The Dozenal Society of America Vol. 1, Iss. 2 Official Newsletter 2 Apr 11E9 ============================================================ --------------------------CONTENTS-------------------------- 1. Annual Meeting 2. Dues Notice 3. Dozenal News 4. Society Business 5. Poetical Diversion 6. Backmatter -----------------------ANNUAL MEETING----------------------- The DSA's Annual Meeting for 11E9 will be in Atlanta, Georgia, on 19 June (decimal 21 June). We hope that many members will be able to join us on our first annual meeting held outside New York City in many years. Additional information will be sent out regarding venue and precise times as soon as possible. On 1X June, the DSA will be presenting a workshop at the 2013. Annual ASEE K-12 Workshop on Engineering Education. See "Dozenal News" for more information about this great education opportunity. ------------------------DUES NOTICE------------------------- Members! Please remember that dues are payable as of the first of January each year. (Dozenal) 16 dollars for normal members, 30 dollars for supporting members, 3 dollars for student members. You can pay online, too; just apply for an account at the website! http://www.dozenal.org/drupal/user/login Otherwise, you can pay our worthy Treasurer, Jay Schiffman, by check: Jay Schiffman 604-36 South Washington Square, #815 Philadelphia, PA 19106-4115 ------------------------DOZENAL NEWS------------------------ The Society has published two newly remastered dozenal works in the last month. -"Boxes & Cans: Some Points on Packaging," by Troy of the DSGB. This brilliant article makes a usually dull subject absolutely fascinating, and clearly shows the advantages of dozenal in packaging. In fact, it proves mathematically that it's actually cheaper to build packages for twelve and pack only ten, leaving two empty spaces, than to build packages for ten! Well worth the read. http://www.dozenal.org/drupal/content/boxes-and-cans-some-points-packaging -_Dozens versus Tens_ by Thomas Leech. Originally published in 10E6 (1866.), this is quite probably the first serious full-length exposition of the advantages of the dozenal base ever written. At over 100 (144.) years old, this well predates even Sir Isaac Pitman. Explains the advantages of dozenal in money and in weights and measures. http://www.dozenal.org/drupal/content/dozens-vs-tens The DozensOnline forum has been hosting several extremely interesting discussions about dozenalism and music, including several different types of tuning (as in, different from the normal equal temperament). http://z13.invisionfree.com/DozensOnline/index.php?showforum=5 The DSA has also published a new work by Treisaran, which simply and clearly sets out the major divisibility tests for low integers in dozenal: http://www.dozenal.org/drupal/content/dozenal-divisibility-tests-quick-guide "Dozenal Divisibility Tests Quick Guide" provides a simple and easy fact sheet for these important tools for mental calculation. The DSA celebrated Dozenal Pi Day rather quietly this year, with a special page on the web site: http://www.dozenal.org/drupal/content/dozenal-pi-day-11e9-2013 The page received just over two dozen views. Members with suggestions for better observing this and other mathematicals "holidays" are asked to write in and suggest them, either to the _Newscast_, the DozensOnline forum, or to individual members. Finally, and perhaps most important, thanks to the efforts of our able secretary, Jen Seron, the DSA has been selected from among many applicants to present a workshop at the 2013. Annual ASEE (Association for Science and Engineering Education) Workshop on Engineering Education. This is a great educational opportunity, for dozenals and for all the individuals involved. Many thanks to Jen for making it possible. The workshop, entitled "Alternate-Base Systems for Cross-Curricular Fun and Engineering Applications," will focus on using alternate bases, including dozenal, in measurement and engineering. Your officers and board members who are involved in the workshop will of course report in future _Newscasts_ and the _Bulletin_ what will be done, and how it went, in more detail. ----------------------SOCIETY BUSINESS---------------------- The new website has been a big success, maintaining a hit count mostly consistent with the old site. That is, switching websites barely affected our Web visibility at all. All the old links to the website still work, as well, but are no longer tracked, so the current hit count is likely lower than reality. All numbers in dozenal. In March, we have regularly received above 100 hits per day, and rarely fallen below 80. Our busiest day this month saw 1X2 hits (E March). We saw 2579 page views in 878 visits, viewing E1 unique pages. Our most popular individual page was Jay Schiffman's "Fundamental Operations in the Duodecimal System," which saw 1E7 page views; followed closely by Gene Zirkel's "Brief Introduction to Dozenal Counting," which saw 196. Also popular were "Multiplication in Base Twelve," James Malone's "Eggsactly a Dozen," "Decimal-Dozenal Conversion Rules," one of our new articles, "Boxes & Cans," and "Dozenal Divisibility Rules," along with our reprint of the TGM system of metrology. Visitors tend to come to us by searching for a variety of terms involving "dozenal" or "duodecimal," of course. We are working hard to expand the material on our site so that users can find us by searching for other things; music or metrology, for example. If you have material that might help with that, please let us know! As discussed above, the annual meeting for 11E9 will be in Atlanta, GA on 19 June. We hope you will be able to join us. ---------------------POETICAL DIVERSION--------------------- A DOZENALIST, TO THE NUMBER TEN O tyrant Ten, thou beast of age untold, thou worr'some number, of divisors short; too long hast thou to man thy weakness sold, the change to better numbers to abort! Too long hast thou, with meager five and two, attempted to suppress the dozen's claim; thou, though thou know'st him better by times two, hast robbed him of his rightful place and fame! So rise up, valiant foll'wers of the right! Rise up and bear the Dozen's flag 'thout shame! Throw down the tyrant Ten, let in the light, the light of Dozen's glory, of the flame; the flame of two and three and four and six, that can the sorrows of Arithmos fix. (With apologies to William Shakespeare.) ============================================================ = BACKMATTER = ============================================================ _The DSA Newscast_ is a production of the Dozenal Society of America. If you have received this publication in error, or otherwise do not wish to receive it anymore, please unsubscribe by mailing a message containing the string "UNSUBSCRIBE DSA NEWSCAST", exactly as typed, in its body, to the Reply-To address of this message. 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