Interestingly, article fails to mention John Harrison [1], the inventor of marine chronometer. There was a rivalry between Maskelyne and him, one considering lunar positions to be the best method to solve longitude problem, and the other believing that the accurate timepiece is the answer. You may say that Harriosn won at the end, but it was kind of bitter victory.
Article quotes praise from Cook, but on next voyages Cook also tested chronometers made according to Harrison's design and praised them as well.
If you are into this stuff there is a book "Longitude" by Dava Sobel.
"Longitude" is a great book as an introduction, but it doesn't let historical accuracy get in the way of a good story. It's biased against Maskelyne, and gives undue attention to crazy ideas (about how to determine longitude) that were ridiculed at the time.
Her other book, "Galileo's Daughter", is just like that. Drama and story above facts.
Harrison won the the "X-Prize" money in the end. He spent decades perfecting his watches. H4 was the version that one. I took some inspiration from his persistence when I named my mobile software company h4labs.
Indeed, Cook says "My trusty friend, the watch" in reference to using Harrison's clock (or at least, the first copy of it - K1) during his second voyage.
For those visiting London (or who live here), I highly recommend a visit to Greenwich. There are several museums, including one at the Royal Observatory, a planetarium, a brewery that sells its own creations at the naval college and a huge park for those rare moments of sun.
I also strongly recommend membership too. There is so much to see that a single visit will never be enough - time is complex and the astonishing story of measurement and ties to astronomy and navigation which were a coernerstone to allowing discovery and for our modern society to evolve are astonishing.
The time and navigation section at the Smithsonian in Washington is also an interesting adjunct but the true gem (to me) is Greenwich.
Plus, membership also gets free access to the Cutty Sark and the Queens House making for an interesting day or two in London for anyone to enjoy.
I tried to visit when I was last there but the DLR was out of action completely, and when I asked the staff how else I might get there from where I was they were completely out of ideas (one said "nah you're pretty much fucked...")
You can select what modes of transport you're interested in (so you could disable the tube if the DLR isn't running). It'll show you boats too which is cool and definitely the best way to get to Greenwich.
Welcome to UK customer service. You got one of the good ones - there are many much much worse.
There is a convenient river boat you could have taken from the center of London but don't expect anyone to tell you.
Screw you customer service is one of the worst things about living in the UK - especially if you're used to North America. I constantly dream of the days I can move back to my lovely house in Canada and put all this behind me.
As a born and bred Brit, I have to thank you for being so kind as to put "UK" and "customer service" in the same sentence. That's quite generous of you.
Thing is though, I find that when we do try to do North American style customer service, we tend not to like it and find it fake and tacky, and judge actual US customer service in the same way. We simply don't trust it and think we are being BSed. When some one serving us in some way says "have a nice day, Sir" or some such, the British mind seems to internally mumble "Yeah, like you give a toss, don't think I'm falling for that one old chap", or worse!!!
But equally, we get really agitated when something happens like the previous poster experienced. We too would want the alternate information to help us on our way.
So, we tend to get neither the information we need, nor the NA style "Sir" and "have a nice day stuff". What we too often get is the nice words, but not the information or action required. Its like the nice words are seen as a cheap replacement for action.
Of course this is all rooted in the centuries old class resentment thing. In short many here still see service as subservient. Both ways. Those serving resent serving, those being served look down on those doing the serving. Isolated, its ridiculous, but in historical context, you can understand why.
Oh, also there is nothing in it for us. In the US, a lot of service work is usually tipped, coupled with a low initial wage, right? Not so, generally, in the UK. Good service gains the employee little. Might be great for the business, but again, there is this them and us thing between the business owner and the employee. So, the employee just looks at it as gaining them nothing while making the owner more prosperous.
No idea if things are improving, as I live here. That is a question that a frequent foreign visitor would be better placed to assess for us.
On one hand I think its all very amusingly "British", but I do think the whole class resentment attitude really holds us back. But, I have to be honest and admit that even though I think I can see through it, and I can see the really problems with it, I still "feel" in those limited class resentment terms. Its like its genetically bred in.
As a native of the US of A, I've found that customer service can often be improved by being a congenial customer. Better customers get better customer service (generally).
Where I grew up, where I did my PhD, and where I now work, it has only ever been used as an informal work for "rectangle." I see Wikipedia say "sometimes used of any shape longer than it is wide." I would find it interesting to see a world map of that usage - it's completely foreign to me.
I feel like we lucked out with the international dateline being exactly half way around the world from the observatory -- were it not for the random chance of geography, the dateline could have easily ended up in the middle of a populated landmass.
