From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #98
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-12 21:06:01 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Wednesday, 13 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 98
Today's Topics:
Query Replies - WHT and Cable & Voice Grade Line Bandwidth &
speed dialing, Communicating via Network - Human Communication,
Computers and the Handicapped - Color Blindness,
FYI - Xerox STAR, Humor - Reliable Computing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 0345-PDT (Tuesday)
From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: replies to technical queries
Let's see if we can answer a couple of technical questions brought out
in a recent digest...
RE: Channel 68. I am assuming that Channel 68 is a standard UHF STV
broadcaster, using one of the several common scrambling systems.
There are two problems with attempting to receive the scrambled
programming via the cable:
1) STV and Cable companies often have contractual agreements NOT
to mix premium programming. In other words, cable companies
often resist allowing the STV companies to attach descrambling
boxes to their cable (they have the right to legally prevent
such attachments). The motive is clear -- most cable companies
these days either provide their own premium programming (such
as HBO, Movie Channel, Cinemax, Rainbow, etc.), or soon plan
to. I might add that in most cases, the cable-based programming
is superior. Several of the satellite-based services run 24
hours a day -- much more convenient for persons who live during
"strange" hours than 2 or 3 movies run in the evening by the
STV outlets.
2) Generally, the STV outlets only build one basic descrambler
box for each market. These almost always have a simple
crystal-controlled UHF tuner permanently tuned to the
appropriate UHF channel. The cable companies almost universally
move all "local" UHF channels down to VHF (2-13) or MIDBAND/
SUPERBAND (channels 14-37 on cable converter boxes, often
designated by letters from A-X, etc.) These cables DO NOT pass
"real" UHF. Different cable companies might move the same UHF
channel down to totally different VHF/MIDBAND/SUPERBAND
channels, depending on their channel mix. Providing service
under these conditions would require a special box capable of
receiving whatever channel the cable company uses instead of the
actual UHF channel. While such boxes could be built, and could
even be made switchable between channels without much trouble,
there is little interest in doing so. I have seen some cases
where special boxes were provided for this purpose, but it seems
to be pretty rare.
I might add that there are situations where cable companies, who
perhaps don't have the money for a satellite earth station, contract
with a local STV supplier to pump that signal into the cable. In
these cases, they usually have an STV descrambler at the cable
headend, then RE-SCRAMBLE the signal using a different system for
which cable boxes are available. In other cases, the signal might
just be "trapped" out at the homes of cable subscribers who are not
paying for the premium service.
One other issue: some cables are so technically poor that the STV
signal could not be decoded in ANY case. Descrambling data that the
STV boxes need might be squashed, and even the audio subcarriers on
which the "real" audio is hidden can be damaged.
----
One problem with trying to get 9600 baud over a simple leased line
(and I have considerable experience in this!) is that telco lines of
almost any length are "loaded". That is, they have various coils and
other goodies installed to prevent longitudinal imbalances and other
horrid things that go bump in the night. This loading means that
impedance, resistance, capacitance, bandwidth, etc. go to hell.
However, the whole thing is designed to provide "adequate" voice
service -- and that it generally does. Feed a nice clean signal into
a leased line one day and take a look at the output on the other end
on a scope. It's crushed city, man. If you want high speed data,
simply pay a fortune (and be willing to wait for months, if you're
lucky) for a conditioned line. Good luck.
--Lauren--
------------------------------
Date: 6 May 1981 0136-EDT
From: Hobbit
Subject: ESS [reply to Ian Merritt]
Down here in Jersey, the *n convention doesn't work... It is
universally n# or nn#. You must be from old Totalphone territory, when
they first came out with the non-programmable speed calling as mixed
in with all the other features. Jersey never had Totalphone, but
started with individual 'custom calling' features. Since they never
had the *n convention here, they didn't have to implement it for
compatibility with the people who were already used to *n.
I could go on forever about New Jersey Bell... couldn't we all!
FERNS, eh? Haw! Haw! Haw!
_H*
------------------------------
Date: 6 May 1981 0359-EDT (Wednesday)
From: Gary Feldman at CMU-10A
Subject: Sociology of Computer Science
With respect to the assertion from Human-Nets V3 #92
... this is because there are a fair number of gays in computer
science ...
Is there any reason to believe that the percentage of gays in computer
science is different from the percentage in the general population (or
more properly, in the work force)? I can relate this to two
observations:
1. The commentary to the Hacker Papers (Psychology Today, Aug 80),
Weizenbaum (1976), and others observe that many people appear to use
computer interactions as a substitute for human interactions.
2. Many gays experience a sense of isolation before they manage to
meet other gays, thus giving them a need for the sort of interactions
mentioned above. In the language of Transactional Analysis, it could
be claimed that computers can provide "strokes" which are as useful as
those provided by people.
One case which comes to mind is the young man from Michigan who
committed suicide last year and who made the news with his
disappearance the year before. He was a computer whiz, was involved
with gay groups, and (as an aside) was a Dungeons and Dragons player.
He was also (according to news accounts) a very lonely person.
The answer to this question may provide insight into the general
question of what sort of people get involved with computers, and why
are there so many compulsive computer users. It also relates to the
discussion about communication of emotion via computers (which also
started as a plea against loneliness).
P. S. wrt stereotypes: some of the most macho football players on frat
row ARE gay.
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 1981 (Saturday) 1132-EDT
From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus)
Subject: Color
Jeff,
Indeed that is a problem for those who are suffering from
Color Blindness. The future of computers / human-factors will indeed
use color, perhaps quite extensively.
The proposed solution is to change the colors in the Video
Lookup Table of that graphics display so the person can percieve 2
different colors.
Some thought has been given to this situation. There are 2
major types of color Blindness: Red-Green and Blue-Yellow. There are
far more R-G color-blind people than B-Y. Initially, in Europe they
made red into Orange and the green more blueish white. Over 'there'
people seem to prefere Amber [perhaps a result of Monarchies?]. The
color blind people (they usually know they are Color Blind) are
permitted to select base colors for their use. By introducing an
additional color to one of the 2 they are able to distinguish them.
For those who are not that familiar with color-blindness, it
is described as a disorder in which a person cannot distinguish
between two colors. The colors must be complimentary, since the eye
has 'sets' of receptors for color pairs. Thus the R-G and B-Y
pairing. One who is color blind can not tell the difference between
the two colors because there is some damage or disorder to the
receptors (rods?).
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 1981 (Saturday) 2307-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Letting the colorblind user at the color tables...
Unfortunately this is no solution since it is only good for those
persons that happen to be programming the system in question. I don't
really care about those persons--they could even do something as
simple as change the numbers in their programs. The concern lies in
the use of graphics in public (like the color in traffic lights). The
guy reading a plane time schedule in the airport that is color coded
with read and green is not going to be able to go patching the color
tables for himself even if he (a) knew that they were wrong and (b)
had access to the computer that ran the display.
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 1981 0957-EDT
From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A
Subject: color blindness
I am partially red-green color blind, and I do a lot of VLSI work,
which is usually done in color. I don't seem to have a problem
because the colors are sufficiently different, and there are other
geometrical cues. As a matter of habit, I do all of my layout work in
pencil. I have no trouble understanding it, or black and white xeroxs
of color drawings, but most other people seem to have great
difficulty. So this seems to be a case where I can get by, plus
handle situations that others can't. They could understand B/W
pictures too if they took the time.
------------------------------
Date: 9 May 1981 00:31:59-PDT
From: CSVAX.halbert at Berkeley
Subject: Color blindness
I am one of those people with medium-grade red-green colorblindness.
I once took a test at Polaroid which said I was actually yellow and
purple deficient. Green traffic lights look white to me, which makes
them hard to distinguish from streetlights from far away. I have
absolutely no trouble distinguishing the green from the red traffic
lights, but yellow and red is sometimes a little tricky (the cue is
that the yellow is brighter and lighter). I also have a lot of
trouble naming, though not necessarily distinguishing, earth-type
colors, such as brown and green, tan and green, etc. I have good
night vision, but it takes me a long time to see anything in a
darkroom lit with a red safelight.
Right now there are surprisingly few things in daily life I must deal
with that use color cues. Sometimes it's hard to read resistors, but
then I just use an ohmmeter (and test 'em at the same time). But I
had a lot of trouble when I took a VLSI design course; I had to choose
my colored pencils carefully. The thin lines used in stick diagrams
were particularly hard to distinguish, which says to me that I may be
distinguishing some colors based on intensity rather than color.
But I am worried that people will use color more in the future. Red
and green LEDs for yes/no indicators are particularly annoying and
possibly dangerous for people more color-blind than myself. I have to
see them both on, apparently so I can judge intensity differences.
Red and blue would be much better (how about blue LEDS, you
semiconductor physicists?). Red and orange are also troublesome.
What I would say is that nothing vital should be based solely on color
cues. Associate shapes, positions, or labels with the use of colors
so we poor folks can tell what's going on.
--Dan
------------------------------
Date: 3 MAY 1981 2058-PDT
From: CBARNEY at USC-ECL
Subject: Xerox Star
One interesting fact about the Star is that you cannot access
HUMAN-NETS over it. The Star will talk only to Ethernet. If you also
have a $15,000 Xerox communications box you can emulate a modem; but
as is, the Star cannot shine in the outside world. Xerox promises a
modem sometime in the indefinite future/.
------------------------------
Date: 6 May 1981 1722-EDT
From: GEOF at MIT-XX
Subject: WORLD-NET reliable programs
I just heard a lecture on I just heard a lecture on
tandem computers. It brought tandem computers. It brought
to mind an interesting way of to mind an interesting way of
achieving reliability using achieving reliability using
WORLD-NET. WORLD-NET.
The idea is for people on this The idea is for people on this
side of the world to cooperate side of the world to cooperate
with computer operators on the with
other side of the world. With
a network connection between ection between
the two computers, the primary the two computers, the primary
process could be here, and the process could be here, and the
backup could be in Africa backup could be in Africa
somewhere. The advantage? somewhere. The advantage?
Better use of computers, since Better use of computers, since
our peak hours are the same as our peak hours are the same as
their slack ones. their slack ones.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #100
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-14 22:03:01 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Friday, 15 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 100
Today's Topics:
Query Replies - WHT and Cable & No Calorie Sugar
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 12:43 cdt
From: Phinney at HI-Multics (Tom Phinney)
Subject: Question about WHT and cable
WHT apparently uses the same technique as other companies in the
pay-TV trade. The video signal is "scrambled" by mixing the true video
with a sine wave phase-locked to the video's horizontal line rate,
15734 Hz. The sine wave has its greatest amplitude at the left edge of
the "line" of the true video signal, which is where the line sync
information is normally found. Line sync is determined by the lowest
amplitude point in the video signal, so adding this phase-locked sine
wave causes the TV circuitry to locate a false sync somewhere in the
middle of the normal picture. This causes the displayed picture to be
rotated by about half a screen width, more or less depending on the
amplitude of the original mid-screen video information.
The sound is "hidden" by using a technique similar to the
"storecasting" approach used by many FM stations -- a high-frequency
subcarrier (87 KHz if I remember correctly) is added to the normal
audio, which in your case is the pay-tv advertisement, and the desired
audio signal is used to FM modulate that subcarrier. This means that
the received signal must be demodulated twice to recover the "hidden"
audio, once to recover the video and wide-band audio, and a second
time to recover the "hidden" audio. As I recall, the 15734 Hz sine
wave is also mixed with that recovered audio signal (and filtered out
by a low-pass filter in your TV receiver), so that the pay-tv decoder
just mixes the recovered sine wave (inverted) with the video signal to
unscramble it.
Home-made decoders to unscramble these signals are possible, and are
fairly easy if your TV is old enough that the available signals are
not buried inside an IC. In that case you can make a demodulator with
about five ICs, and put it inside your TV. Otherwise you have to add
the RF front-end to the system, and that's a fair amount of trouble,
because you need to supply some form of AFC (automatic frequency
control) to the UHF front end to get stable reception on the channel.
There are people in most of the major semiconductor manufacturing
areas (Silicon Valley, Phoenix, Austin) who make these decoders as a
side business, and you might be able to locate one through local
residents. Otherwise check out the local pirate-tv outlet in your
neighborhood. The cable TV guys hate the pirates and sue them all the
time, so don't look for a listing in your yellow pages.
I hope this has helped a little. Tom Phinney
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 00:05:58-PDT
From: ihnss!karn at Berkeley
Subject: Pay TV decoders
I believe the Channel 68 pay TV scheme in use in Northern NJ is ON-TV,
the most famous of the over-the-air subscription TV systems.
ON-TV is being run over Channel 44 here in Chicago, and a number of us
have built decoders to receive it. This is how the signal is encoded:
The modulated video carrier is itself amplitude modulated with a 15734
hz sine wave phase locked to horizontal scanning. The sine wave is
phased such that the horizontal sync pulses occur in the "valleys" of
the sine wave. Since horizontal sync is normally supposed to occur at
maximum carrier level, the TV set (without decoder) triggers on random
video in the middle of the scan line. Thus you get the wavy vertical
black bar (horizontal sync) down the center of your screen.
The same sine wave is also amplitude modulated on the sound subcarrier
(remember, the sound carrier is normally only frequency modulated with
the sound, so the two don't interfere.) The decoder must amplitude
demodulate the sound carrier, filter the sine wave, and AM the
received video signal, usually by sending it back into the receiver's
AGC stage. Note that phase locked loops won't work, as the sine wave
is gated off during the vertical interval.
The sound is placed on a 63 khz FM subcarrier, which in turn modulates
the main FM sound carrier. This technique is identical to the SCA
system used by FM broadcast stations to transmit MUZAK or similar
worthless programming. The sound is easily received with a 565 PLL or
equivalent at the sound discriminator output. The audio "baseband" is
available for use as a "barker" channel ("Look what you're missing by
not being an ON-TV subscriber..call 555-1212, etc") but it isn't used
here except for hourly station ID's.
There are a rapidly increasing number of companies selling boards and
kits for ON-TV decoding. They are NOT selling, for the most part,
completed, working units, as this keeps them out of trouble
(especially in California).
Phil
------------------------------
Date: 05/11/81 07:38:49
From: PCR@MIT-MC
Subject: left handed sugar
I don't know about the rest of you, but I was reading about
left-handed food and how it wasn't any good for nutrition 10-15 years
ago. The idea is an old standard in science fiction.
...phil
------------------------------
Date: 10 May 1981 09:16-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas
Subject: No-Cal Sugar
(1) The use of the term "natural" for this mirror-reverse of sugar
(sucrose??), and the claim it's chemical identical to normal sugar,
are abuse of the language. Most of the biological mechanisms for
processing food and other chemicals in the body are specific to the
handedness of the chemical being processed. I'm not a biochemical
expert, but I would guess a lot of processing sites in the body would
get confused by this un-sugar, perhaps "recognizing" it as some other
chemical and attempting to perform chemical transformations on it that
weren't appropriate. I'd think that detoxifying mechanisms would have
trouble with it, and it could easily be cancerous. Can some
biochemical expert speculate further?
(2) There have long been science fiction stories about somebody
traveling around the universe or through some broken transporter
device and coming back reversed and starving because all the food was
backwards for this traveler. Looks like sci-fi has started to become
reality. Soon (30 years?) we'll be making complete DNA and life in
reverse, growing food that only reversed creatures cn eat. Imagine
the CIA arranging that wheat we sell to the USSR is reversed. It
bakes nice looking bread that doesn't support life. I wonder why
reversed sugar tastes sweet? Does the tongue measure just the gross
chemical characteristics instead of looking specifically for sugar
compounds? (For salt and sour tastes it obviusly does just measure
ionic charge balance or somesuch. But bitter and sweet I don't know
about.) Would reversed-wheat taste like wheat, or are smell receptors
more sensitive to handedness?
(3) Some of that probably is outside the subject of HUMAN-NETS, but
I'm not sure it belongs in SCI-FI-LOVERS either. Oh well. Someday
we'll have a real HUMAN-NET with threaded multi-term indexing and
keyword profiles for each user, instead of discrete mailing lists...
maybe.
(4) Reverse-handed sugar has been known for decades. How can anybody
patent it? It must be some commercially feasible way to make it that
got patened, not the chemical itself, right?
------------------------------
Date: 10 May 1981 (Sunday) 1110-EDT
From: MOSESJ (Jack Moses)
Subject: no-cal sugar....an uninformed opinion
The "L" stands for the Levo-rotary isomer of sucrose which, when
passed through a Polarized filter, will cause light to turn to the
left (rather than the commonly occuring dextro variety which turns
light to the right). The isomeric properties of most compounds is an
extablished fact; thus one must conclude that since L-sugar does exist
in nature, it would be ludicrous for the agency to issue a patent on a
naturally existing substance.
The patent must have been issued for the PROCESS that created the
substance; and therein lies a formidable problem. In organic
chemistry a slight alteration of the flowchart sequence will allow
competitors to produce the compound without infringement. So much for
the value of the patent itself.
I am not in a position to pass judgement on the medicinal, social or
economical value of the L-sugar itself, not having any info on same,
but the value of the isomeric properties is exemplified in the example
of a familiar (to most of us) Eli Lilly product known as Darvon. In
it's Dextro-rotary form, Darvon in a non-narcotic pain reliever which
acts on the synapse of certain nerves associated with pain, thus
producing relief. But when Lilly made a Levo-rotary isomer of the
same compound, it acted on the sinus node to inhibit the production of
histamines, thus offering relief from colds. This product was
appropriately named NOVRAD (Darvon backwards) .... an antihistamine.
So much for the organic stuff....now if the subject matter was
regarding the stock market (that is my REAL bag) drop me a line.
Jack
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 1981 0744-PDT
Subject: No-Cal Sugar
From: ADPSC at USC-ISI
(1) I agree that the term "natural" is a bit overused. If we are to
use the broadest definition, then anything could be called natural.
It is one of those terms which I have begun to more or less ignore in
its usual context, assuming that the term desired was "organic".
Perhaps Edwin Newman will choose to deal with this one if he hasn't
already.
(2) It appears that just the process for producing this "new" sugar
was patented. Knowledge of these substances has been around for many
years. The problem arose in trying to find commercially feasible
production methods. Apparently Biospherics feels it has found such a
process. I read most of the article as so much hype.
(3) From what little I know of sugars (not being a biochem-type), and
from what my friends have been able to get through to my non-biochem
oriented brain, "normal" and the "left-hand" sugars might be (very
simplistically) pictured as:
A B A
Normal CCCCC Left CCCCC
B
The body recognizes the A's and C's in taste, but looks for the B's
only in digestion. As a friend of mine put it, other things often get
mistaken for sugars, but sugars seldom get mistaken for much else. As
such, the potential for causing cancer is minimal. Again, not being a
biochem-type, I don't know how bacteria reacts to this stuff, so I
can't form a good opinion on the tooth decay issue.
(4) The problem of applicability of mailing list of course exists.
Too much stuff doesn't seem to fit adequately into HN or SFL. I'm
open to any suggestions on that one.
Don
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #101
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-19 19:22:55 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Sunday, 17 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 101
Today's Topics:
FYI - Call for Proposals for NCC '82,
Computers and the Handicapped - Color Blindness,
Query Replies - 3D Displays & Voice Grade Line Bandwidth
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 (Thursday) 1714-EDT
From: MORGAN at WHARTON-10 (Howard Morgan)
Subject: NCC '82
For those of you who read human-nets, please submit proposals for
sessions, or papers, directly to MORGAN@WHARTON. As technical program
chairman, I will examine submissions and proposals, and route them to
appropriate program committee members. Any of you who would like to
help with NCC in other ways, please let me know via message.
Howard Morgan
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 1981 1155-EDT
From: GEOF at MIT-XX
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #98
RE: Colorblindness.
It is unfortunate that we use red and green for no/yes stop/go
signals, since red/green confusion is the most common of all. The
problem, however, is well known, especially to designers of road
signs. For example, most traffic lights are mounted vertically, with
red at the top. If you can see the socket (a problem at night), you
can tell the color from the context. One set of horizontal lights I
saw uses a diamond for yellow, a square for red, and a circle for
green. An added clue is that there are always two red lights lit.
Similarly, in Quebec there are two sets of road- signs: those that
mean you must do X and those that mean you may NOT do X (i.e., no left
turn can be "no left turn" or "straight and right only"). The signs
were originally identical, except that the Must's were circled in
green and the Don't's in red. The colorblindness problem presented
itself, and was solved by introducing a red diagonal into the Don't
signs.
If a colorblind person can't understand a public computer
display, the fault is clearly with the designer of the software.
There are no end of additional clues which may be devised. Of course,
it is not always evident just what the clues mean (who says that a
square means red and a circle green). But for PUBLIC displays, people
who need the clues can find out for themselves rather quickly, given
that the clues are simple and consistent.
In a private display, like the VLSI plots mentioned, the
problem is more difficult, and it is not clear that it need be solved
in every case (sorry to all you color blind out there). For example,
I don't think there is a way around fancy plotting problems, other
than choosing pencils of radically different luminences (you might
also try flourescent and metallic colors). The real solution is to
use a color graphics printer, where the lines can be textured. Xerox
software uses texture to display similar plots on a black and white
dover.
------------------------------
Date: 7 May 1981 1206-EDT
From: SWG at MIT-XX
Subject: stereo display
By coincidence, I just read "Going to the Roundies" in the March
Scientific American's "Science and the Citizen". Excerpts:
Investigators at the Cinema and Photographic Research Institute
[C.P.R.I.] in Moscow are at work on a holographic motion-picture
system for public theaters. In 1976 the group exhibited a 45-second
holographic movie in which a young woman holding a bouquet of flowers
in front of her face seems to walk out of the screen toward the
audience. Each viewer, by moving his head horizontally or vertically,
could look around the bouquet and see the woman's face. The effect
was startling, although the registration of the image from frame to
frame was not perfect and the color was unrealistic (the image was
yellow). The movie and the way it was made are described by Tung H.
Jeong of Lake Forest College in \Optical Spectra/.
In the years since the 45-second movie was shown the techniques of
holographic cinematography have improved considerably. The recent
developments are discussed by two members of the Moscow group, Victor
G. Komar and O. I. Ioshin, in \SMPTE Journal/, a publication of the
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. . . .
The theoretical and technological difficulties in extending holography
to motion pictures are substantial. The [C.P.R.I.] is one of only a
few institutions where the work has been attempted. Surprisingly, the
most challenging problems may lie not in making holographic motion
pictures but in projecting them to a large audience. The projection
of the hologram onto an ordinary movie screen would destroy the
reconstructive property of the image. It is necessary for the
observer to intercept not a projection of the light rays emerging from
the hologram but the rays themselves.
One hypothetical method of presentation, explained by Jeong, would
employ a mirror rather than a diffusely reflective screen as the
projection surface. For example, the mirror might be an elliptical
one with two foci. The viewer would sit at one focus and the
holographic image would be formed at the other focus. [I assume the
image degrades gradually as the viewer moves away from the focus.]
The drawback to this method is that it would work only for an audience
of one. For a larger audience the screen would have to be equivalent
to a superposition of as many mirrors as there are viewers, with the
image at a common focus and each seat at the second focus of one of
the mirrors.
It is impossible, however, to combine mirrors in this way. The
investigators in Moscow, according to Jeong, overcame the problem by
employing as the screen a specially constructed hologram that has the
same multiple-focusing property as superposed mirrors would have. The
hologram is made by exposing a photographic plate the size of the
screen [!] to beams diverging from each seat in the theater and from
the point where the image will be formed. When light rays from the
projector impinge on the holographic screen, they come to a focus at
each seat. The movie of the woman and the bouquet was shown with a
screen that could accommodate an audience of four. The investigators
plan to construct a seven-foot-wide holographic screen for an audience
of between 200 and 400 viewers. [No doubt the size of the screen
limits not the size of the image but rather its brightness,
resolution, etc.]
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 1055-MDT
From: Spencer W. Thomas
Subject: Stereopsis
A comment on displays which attempt to simulate 3-D by presenting a
different image to each eye (so called 'stereo pairs'). A fair
portion of the population cannot see any depth in these images
(something astounding on the order of 20-30%). Back in the early days
of graphics, Ivan Sutherland was working on a stereo display, and was
having much difficulty getting it to work. Finally, he asked a
colleague, who said 'But this is great!'. Sutherland went out and got
his eyes tested and discovered that he couldn't see depth in stereo
pairs. (Allegedly a true story.) We once came up with 7 cues to depth
in normal viewing of the 'real' world:
1. Stereopsis
2. Motion parallax
3. Perspective
4. Occlusion of further objects by nearer objects
5. Color saturation (as things get further away, they tend
towards less saturated colors due to atmospheric effects)
6. Size cues (i.e. you know how big a person should be, so if
heesh looks too small, heesh must be far away.
7. Focus.
I'm sure that if you think about it, you can come up with some more.
=S
------------------------------
Date: 11 MAY 1981 2308-PDT
From: CAULKINS at USC-ECL
Subject: voice grade lines + 9600 baud
We recently leased a line from the phone company spec'd to be DC
continuity between the two connected points. We hung some short
distance modems on the line, but were unable to push more than 4800
baud over the line (we too hoped for 9600). When we checked with the
telco wizards they said that there were loading coils in the line, and
we were lucky to get 4800. To get the loading coils removed would cost
a mere $1500. We are resigned to running at 4800.
Dave C
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 01:39-EDT
From: Charles Frankston
Subject: baud vs. bps and line driver performance issues
A baud is a signal transition. As someone else pointed out, a signal
transition can very well be used to encode more than one bit of
information (quadrature modulation and other techniques). Therefore
9600 baud may not necessarily equal 9600 bits per second. Its as
simple as that. However, the computer industry constantly misuses the
word baud. It would have been much clearer for your terminal
manufacturer to say your terminal ran at 9600 bps.
Your line driver not being able to run 10 miles at 9600 bps is hardly
surprising. First thing that comes to mind is that the line you are
leasing from the phone company may not have DC continuity (ie. it is
not just a set of wires). It used to be hard to obtain a "metallic"
circuit from the phone company, but most seem to offer it now. There
are probably equalizers (capacitors) etc. on the line. Even without
that, there are not that many line drivers that are rated for that
speed at 10 miles (in fact I can't think of a single one offhand).
There ARE some short haul modems that can probably make it, (The
difference between a short haul modem and a line driver is that a
modem maintains continuous carrier on the line. The problem a line
driver will run into at high speed is that the signal transitions
having to charge a line up from the idle state on every signal
transition first have to charge the capacitor represented by a
metallic pair of any substantial length.) but they are generally more
expensive ($800 or so vs. $200 or less) than line drivers. Other
obvious factors affecting performance would be the gauge of the wire
and how well twisted it was.
Is the readership really interested in these low level
telecommincations issues? I seem to remember a huge number of issues
back recommending McNamara's book "Technical Aspects of Data
Communications" available from Digital Press (yes, that publisher is
Digital Equipment Corporation).
------------------------------
Date: 12 May 1981 1119-PDT
Subject: Leased line and line drivers.
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
Having been outfitted with a 9600 baud leased line to my house for
several months now, perhaps I can offer some help.
Firstly, you MUST make sure the line(s) you have [it takes two pair,
i.e. 4 wires] are Non-loaded and have DC continuity. You order the
lines from your local TPC mentioning this and Bell specification
#43401.
Secondly, I do not know of any regular/standard line-drivers that will
drive 9600 baud over 4 miles. However, Prentice offers a line-driver
(the one I am currently using for my hookup) called the ALD-XR (for
eXtended Range) that'll handle 9600 baud up to 6 miles. Their regular
ALD only goes 4 miles for 9600 baud.
I found all this out when Prentice sent me the regular ALD's by
mistake first and I couldn't go any faster than 2400 baud (my home
Datamedia only goes 110, 300, 1200, 2400 or 9600), and sent them back
and got the ALD-XR's.
I get a few hits on the line every now and then, with an occasional
tilda appearing in my output, but it only happens every couple of
days.
Here's Prentice's table:
Miles with Non-Loaded
26-AWG Cable
Baud ALD ALD-XR
1200 10 15
2400 8 12
4800 6 9
7200 5 7.5
9600 4 6
>From the looks of this, I'm not surprised you can't go over 2400 baud
(providing you have an ALD-XR or equalvalient).
Guess you'll just have to move in closer or spring for expen$ive and
big modems if you still want 9600.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #102
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-19 19:28:40 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Monday, 18 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 102
Today's Topics:
FYI - Tandem Computers & Pollution from trees &
CompuServe TeleText Article, Humor - Reliable Computers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 05/14/81 03:57:15
From: PHOTOG@MIT-MC
Subject: Tandem computers lecture as listened to and commented upon by
Subject: attendee (Name slips my mind)
As one of few (if not the only) tandem computers software development
people on the net, I am curious as to your comment about running a
nonstop-pair (the formal jargon) with each process in a different node
of a network. Were you describing what you thought is currently
available (in which case you are way off-base) or what you see as a
possible future extention of the system architecture? Aside: If you
can link Australia to New York / Boston on a 13 megabit bus than more
power to you, currently all cpu's in one node of a tandem network
communicate over two, high speed (guess what speed...13mg..lucky
guess...) buses 'Dynabus' which are independant of each other.
Primary/backup processes must run in the same node, actually what you
want already exists, as the normal distribution of processes among the
available cpus balances I/O intensive processes with mostly idle
backup processes. Of course, it is all under the control of the users
and naturally that means most of them screw it more than get it right
..give em a long rope and they hang themselves.... I have seen several
systems with 80 or 90% cpu utilization in cpu 0 and cpu 1, while cpu 2
and cpu 3 are sitting at 20 or 30% utilization ( as a rough example).
--SPIV-- SLASH TS.SOFTWARE.SPIV
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 1981 1213-EDT
From: GEOF at MIT-XX
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #96
RE: definition of Pollution:
There is no universal definition of pollution that I know of, so
let me suggest one. First, I have to define terms. Ecology is the
study of ecosystem. An ecosystem is a natural system which is
isolated from other natural systems except in very specific areas (the
sun, for example). Obviously, no such system exists, so the term is
usually applied to some approximation thereof: a swamp, a national
park, the ocean, and (if you believe in Forrester) the earth.
Ecosystems contain feedback loops: population of predators
maintains population of grass-eaters which maintains.... Some things
are recycled in "ecological cycles", while others enter the system
(sunlight, wind) and leave it.
Let us define a pollutant as ANY foreign matter or energy (forget
e=mc^2 for now) introduced into the system that is not a "standard
input" to the system. This would include noise, nuclear radiation,
cigarette butts, and so on. When such foreign substance is introduced
into a stable ecosystem (and not all of them are stable), the balance
is somewhat upset. Example: if nutrients (say from street runoff) are
added into a lake, it will make it possible for more algae to live.
Algae cloud the water, and cause some fish to die, others to increase
in number.
For sufficiently small amounts of sufficiently innocuous
pollutants, the ecosystem's feedback loops will restore the previous
balance in time. If the pollutant is of a sort that the system is not
able to handle (a nuclear bomb, "hazardous wastes"), or if there is
too much of a pollutant for the system to control, the feedback loops
will be disrupted. This is called pollution.
Sometimes, the system remains stable, but reaches a new
equilibrium (eg: Lake Champlain, VT, for those of your who've seen
it). Other times, it goes completely to pieces, and what's left is a
lump of dirt or rock.
The above applies in interesting ways. For example, the city of
Boston has always dumped its sewage into the Atlantic ocean. It turns
out that this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, since the sewage
is dumped into a current that scatters it over a wide enough area that
it does not change the ecosystem that is the ocean. The federal
government, which has not the man power to make case by case studies,
decreed that Boston needed a sewage treatment plant, and paid for it.
So sewage passes through the plant, and comes out as water and sludge.
Both the water and the sludge are then dumped into the ocean. Reason?
There is no place in Massachusetts where it is safe to dispose of the
sludge on dry land (the soil is too sandy).
If the above definition seems too roundabout, think about this:
"Is a car driving in rural Idaho causing pollution?"
"Is the same car, driving in downtown Boston causing
pollution?"
"Will one candy wrapper harm a forest?"
"Will 10^5 candy wrappers harm a forest?"
I hope this helps HN readers.
------------------------------
Date: 25 Apr 1981 1716-PST
From: ROODE at SRI-AI (David Roode)
Subject: CompuServe Information Service article on Teletext
CompuServe Page VIF-816 CompuServe Page VIF-817
******************************** A similar and coordinated
LA TELETEXT OPERATIONAL:4/21 electronic magazine service also
******************************** began at the same time and day
(CR Winslow Assoc) Starting at over KCET-TV28 ... one of
6am, Monday, April 6, a several public television
relatively few suitably equipped stations in the greater Los
viewers of KNXT-TV2, Los Angeles Angeles area. KCET's electronic
could press a button on a magazine is called "Now."
hand-held keypad to select and While this is not the first
watch any one of 80 pages of a public transmission, it is the
new electronic or teletext first to be offered in a large
magazine called "Extravision." metropolitan area. The Los
CompuServe Page VIF-818 CompuServe Page VIF-819
Angeles test will use authoring, developed and backed BBC Ceefax
encoding and receiver decoding teletext system.
equipment provided by the French Just about now WETA-TV26 ...
government backed Antiope system the Washington DC based public
which has the unabashed backing television station will begin
of the CBS Television Network public reception tests of the
Broadcast Group. KNXT-TV2 in Canadian developed and backed
Los Angeles is owned and Telidon system.
operated by CBS. So you can see it's shaping up
Starting 3 days later ... on to be a battle of the French,
April 9 in Chicago ... WFLD-TV British and Canadians for
began using the British eventual US adoption.
CompuServe Page VIF-820 CompuServe Page VIF-821
When we say "public" test we blanking of the station
use the term advisedly. Special transmissions.
decoding and associated While you would have
equipment is required in each of difficulty obtaining
the 3 cities to utalize the off-the-shelf decoding
information. However, if you equipment, there is nothing to
live in those cities and can prevent you from putting
receive the signals of the together something on your own
indicated stations, you will to decode and read the teletext
also be able to receive the transmissions.
digitally encoded information In the case of Los Angeles the
carried in the vertical interval French have agreed to loan all
CompuServe Page VIF-822 CompuServe Page VIF-823
necessary equipment including pivate homes.
that required for reception Digitally encoded colorized
until the end of this year. CBS alphanumeric and graphic
is managing the project with information is authored on a
cooperation of KCET. computer keyboard, encoded and
Although special mixed in with the station's
decoder-equipped sets were normal on-air transmitted
initially located in some 12 or signal. In the case of KNXT
so public locations, the intent vertical interval picture lines
is to have up to 100 reception 15 and 16 are used to carry the
points equpped and working by information.
mid-summer. This will include Circuitry at the reception
CompuServe Page VIF-824 CompuServe Page VIF-825
point "grabs" the requested The pages of information are
information frame (selected by continuously transmitted in
means of a hand held keypad), sequence. When the sequence is
puts it into local memory and finished it begins again. When
then continuously feeds it for a specific page is requested by
full screen display. This is any local receiver, it must wait
the way all broadcast teletext until that particular page comes
systems work. However, the around again.
three different systems Under the system used in Los
described above are incompatible Angeles, if 100 pages are
with each other in their present continuously cycled, a maximum
forms. of 16-seconds would be requred
CompuServe Page VIF-826 CompuServe Page VIF-827
or an average mid-point of broadcast teletext. KNXT will
8-seconds would be required to offer it's "Extravision"
obtain the desired page. transmission service 24-hrs a
You will note that in day. Thirteen different
comparison to CompuServe CIS sections will include current
which operates as a random financial, weather and news
access videotex service, the reports...sports and
wait is considerably longer and entertainment items...a guide to
no random access is available. what's on TV...consumer shopping
The purpose of the test is to information...and summaries of
see what users will actually be traffic reports, airline
interested in reading by arrivals, restaurant
CompuServe Page VIF-828 CompuServe Page VIF-829
information, etc. KCET which not cooperated with the national
transmits its own separate closed captioning system because
magazine will overlap KNXT but it argues that such a service
will largely have its own ought to be part of a larger
generated information. information service...as it is
Closed captions for the now demonstrating in it's Los
hearing impared will also be Angeles test.
offered on the Antiope system. As part of the test CBS is
This must not be confused in any authorized to experiment with
way with the now regularly the presentation of advertising
offered closed captions on PBS, although no charge may be made
ABC and NBC programs. CBS has for it. The expectation is that
CompuServe Page VIF-830
the advertising will take the
form of logos, trade marks and
short slogans.
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 0045-PDT
From: Daul at OFFICE
Subject: The ULTIMATE PROGRAM
COMPUTER PROGRAM VIRTUALLY ELIMINATES MACHINE ERRORS!
by W. S. Minkler, Jr.
Pittsburgh
Spokesmen for a local electronic firm have announced a computer
program that - through fresh application of an old technique -
virtually eliminates lost time due to malfunction of computer
components. Called OREMA (from the Latin oremus, meaning let us
pray), the program offers prayers at selected time intervals for the
continued integrity of memory units, tape transports, and other
elements subject to depravity.
Basically litugical in structure, OREMA used standard petitions and
intercessions stored on magnetic tapes in Latin, Hebrew, and FORTRAN.
It holds regular Maintenance Services thrice daily on an automatic
cycle, and operation intervention is required only for mounting tapes
and making responses, such as "Amen," or "And with thy spirit" on the
console typewriter.
Prayers in Hebrew and Fortran are offered directly to the CPU, but
Latin prayers may go to peripheral equipment for transfer to the CPU
by internal subroutines.
Although manufacturer-supplied prayer reels cover all machine
troubles known today, the program will add punch card prayers to any
tape, as needed, after the final existing Amen block. Classified
prayer reels are available for government installations.
In trials on selected machines, OREMA reduced by 98.2 percent the
average down time due to component failure. The manufacturer's
spokesman exphasized, however, that OREMA presently defends only
against malfunction of hardware. Requestor errors and other human
blunders will continue unchecked until completion of a later
version, to be called SIN-OREMA.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #103
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date:1981-05-19 19:35:40 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Tuesday, 19 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 103
Today's Topics:
FYI - Weapons Conference at Stanford,
Query Replies - Name for Bits/Second Unit & ESS details &
USPS Plans for Electronic Mail & Cost per page for Electronic Mail,
Communicating via Network - Impacts on Language & Human Communication,
FYI - Electronic Newspaper in S.F. area
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 18 May 1981 1523-PDT
From: Daul at OFFICE
Subject: WEAPONS CRISIS WEEK at Stanford
WEAPONS CRISIS WEEK
Location: Stanford University
MAY
Tuesday 26 -- 7:30 Kresge Aud.
THE MEDICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR
Dr. Herbert Abrams
-- Director of Radiology at Harvard Medical School
-- Co-Founder of International Physicians for Social
Responsibility
Dr. Kosta Tsipis
-- Associate Director of MIT Program in Science and
Technology
-- Frequent author in Scientific American
Wednesday 27 -- NOON White Plaza
THE IMPORTANCE OF INVOLVEMENT IN ARMS CONTROL
John Anderson
Former U.S. Congressman and Presidential Candidate
Michael H. Shuman
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Rabinowitch Essay Winner
Coit Blacker
Associate Director Arms Control Program
Stanford University
Wednesday 27 -- 7:30 Braun Aud.
U.S. POLITICS AND ARMS CONTROL
Rep. Les Aspin
U.S. Congressman from Wisconsin
Member House Arms Services Committee and House Budget
Committee
Prominent liberal spokesman for arms control
Thursday 28 -- 7:30 Kresge Aud.
THE ARMS RACE: SOURCES AND SOLUTIONS
Dr. Wolfgan K.H. Panofsky
Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Winner of National Medal of Science
Dr. Jeremy Stone
Director of Federation of American Scientists
Tony Webb
Founder of the British Anti-Nuclear Campaign
Friday 29 -- 7:30 Bishop Aud.
HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI RECONSIDERED
Dr. Barton J. Bernstein
Associate Professor of History at Stanford
FILM: Day After Trinity
1981 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary
Moving biography of Robert J. Oppenheimer, developer of the
first atomic bomb
Saturday 30 -- 7:30 Fairchild Aud.
DEBATE: WEAPONS IN THE 80's -- THE MX AND BEYOND
Dr. Sidney Drell
Deputy Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Consultant on arms control to the National Security Council
and Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
VS.
Lt. General Daniel Graham (ret.)
Former Director of Defense Intelligence Agency and outspoken
SALT critic
PRESENTED BY STANFORD ARMS CONTROL AND DISARMAMENT FORUM
For further information CALL 415 497 2437
------------------------------
Date: 10 May 1981 19:28:09-PDT
From: CSVAX.dmu at Berkeley
Subject: Bits/second unit
A while ago I read a proposal that seemed perfect to me: Shannons,
after Claude Shannon, father of information/communications theory. I
believe it was Shannon, who first formulated the concept of entropy as
information content of a message, and entropy per unit time as
effective bandwidth. He said that the information content depends on
the \probability/ of the symbol received, i.e. if you expect to
receive an X and you do, that tells you little. In other words, the
number of bits in a message is the sum of the negative of the logs
(base 2 for bits) of the probabilities of the symbols in the message
(assuming stationary probabilities). The bits per second is just this
number divided by the time the message took. BTW Shannon worked at
Bell Labs.
Sorry if the flame burns anyone, but I can't think of any other name
for the unit that even comes close. Before Shannon no one understood
how to factor in redundancy, etc.
David Ungar
------------------------------
Date: 13 May 1981 1453-PDT
From: Ian H. Merritt
Subject: Reply to Hobbit's message Re: phones (ferns) etc
My ESS seems to have been the first one in California and thus was,
for while, a bit experimental. I could rattle on for a long time
about all the bizarre things that have takan place on this machine,
but for now, I'll stow it.
Seriously, though, the ESS system has a very strange attribute:
Software which is loaded at any time stays in the system
apparently forever.
It is possible, I think, to clobber it, but it's difficult. It seems
that at one time or another, someone in the central office decided to
give a telephone in the office one of the speed calling features. This
was in the old days of Generic 6.3 or before, when customer changable
wasn't supported yet. Pacific Telephone NEVER offered this feature in
this office until the advent of the new form, however it seems that
the activation of it on one line caused the routines to be loaded or
something, and the format stuck. Anyway, it's still here, right in
there with the new format. One interesting detail is that the command
strings to set up speed calling from the C/O in the old days still
work on the new form stuff. This means that the code is still there
and the storage layout is the same. A friend managed to get old speed
calling just before the update, and his office-programmed codes stayed
on after the new software was installed.
Boy, those poor guys at WECO... They have to stick to SO much
consistancy...
<>IHM<>
------------------------------
Date: 05/16/81 09:04:55
From: SIRBU@MIT-MC
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #99 (USPS Plans for Electronic Mail.)
The Post Office has two technical approaches it has been working on
for electronic mail. The first to go into service (scheduled for Jan
'82) is Electronic Computer Originated Mail (ECOM). ECOM consists of
minicomputers and Printronix matrix printers in each of 25 Serving
Post Offices (SPOs). You send a minimum batch of 200 messages from
your computer via your favorite common carrier (Bell, Telenet, Western
Union, etc.) directly to the SPO and the Post Office will print it and
put it in the mail stream. You can also walk in off the street, to
one of the 25 SPOs, with a standard mag tape. This is intended to be
a service for large mailers. It is not unlikely that companies like
Telemail, the Source, Compuserve, etc. (not to mention Mailgram) will
accumulate messages from individual users and send "batches" to the
post office on behalf of these individuals.
The second technical approach is called EMSS -- Electronic Mail
Service System. In this approach, messages are primarily facsimile
encoded and printed on high speed (10 pages/sec) facsimile printers.
Input will still include direct from computers but there will also be,
at your local post office, a walk-up mail drop which scans your
unenveloped letter while you key in the address on a small keypad
(This avoids the problem of trying to "read" the address off the
letter for electronic routing purposes). The EMSS technology is
currently in the testbed stage, and it's not clear it will ever get
introduced. (Will terminal-to-terminal mail obviate the need for an
electronic input/hard-copy delivery system before you could recover
the investment in an EMSS?)
------------------------------
Date: 05/17/81 10:59:17
From: JMTURN@MIT-AI
Subject: Cost per page for electronic mail.
Shade and Sweet water to you,
The small scale delphi poll I took indicates a cost to mail a
letter electronically of about 2-5 cents a page (with 50 cents a
letter listed as a maximum if done via long distance) Thanks to
everyone who helped out!
James
P.S. Just in time for Christmas, the perfect gift! The entire HN
archives. Great for using to weigh down union members who get out of
line. Stack them up and use them as a chair. Drop them on people from
great heights! Only $9.95 (plus $12,233 shipping)
------------------------------
Date: 05/15/81 01:19:00
From: FFM@MIT-MC
Subject: English Murdering & flame about human telecommunicating
I can't seem to understand all the sighing and moaning about the
"death of the English language". It seems alive and well to me. All
languages have always had slang and argot and various other
unapproved-of features. Every so many years someone gets up and moans
about horrid things that are being done to whatever language they
happen to worry most about.
Some countries, most notably France actually have 'bodies' dedicated
to 'keeping the language pure' which in thier case means trying to
fine people who use the word "hot-dog". We could go this route and
order that MLA stylesheets be attached to all terminals and followed
scrupulously in all communications.
I however do think there is a difference in written and verbal
communications. Cue words like like "Hmmm", "I see" and "Ya-know" are
common in verbal communications, along with things of an outright
nosensical nature(if taken literally) like "How do you do?". Some of
us do not take these literally but realize they have symbolic meanings
like "Was unaware of that..", "I follow you.." and "we are sort of on
the same base...you kind of agree?? ..". Verbal communication needs
cues to go along smoothly and to work well, if it did not have these
things it would be a rather disconcerting and distressing.
I think/feel that computer communications(done between humans via
computers) lie somewhere between written and verbal communications in
style and flavor. There is an ambience of informality and
stream-of-conciousness style that pervades it but coupled with ideas
that are well thought out (usually) and deeper in insight than average
verbal communications. Does this make any sense to anyone 'sides
myself?
As far as the medium being used because people really don't want to
communicate in a 'really human way'(read snailmail(??), phone or in
person)....I really wonder about the validity of that statement. The
most important thing about electronic mail is that it is asynchornous,
if I send you a message at 2am because I had a sudden brainstorm, you
won't be rousted out of bed and wonder if someone close is in real
trouble, which would happen if you were a day person and I called you
at 2am. Snailmail is very slow and only really winning if one does
artwork in letterwriting, which I sometimes do...
It is however a more 'cowardly' medium in that if I send you something
that might provoke ire, there is little you can do to me immediately
in a physical manner, and the most likely thing that will happen is
you might yell at me in a letter or a send which is much less
bothersome than if you were doing it into my face. And even if
you(good old hypothetical you..)got angry there is a chance ,you and I
would be cooled down quite a bit before we met face to face...
However if our hypothetical communications produced some more
pleasenter passions there would be only so far we could go without
needing to see each other in person. However the same problems apply
to snailmail writers, there is only so much you can do in words...
However there are advantages in that not initially seeing a person in
the flesh. There are all sorts of things we attach to people's
appearence and the clothes they wear etc. Sometimes nice to start
relationships with- -out those things being initially the most
important, much vaunted-first- -impressions.
I feel that electronic mail is definitely a different medium than
'written' communications or verbal 'communications', after lots of
thinking/feeling it over I can not see it as a medium that is by
nature tremendously inhuman. It can definitely be used in inhuman ways
or in human ways and it has limits as to what it can do but I honestly
can't see it one way or the other. It can't replace holding someone in
your arms but neither can a letter or a phone call or a pillow for
that matter...
Enuff flaming....
Have fun
Sends Steve
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1981 1320-PDT
From: David Lowe
Subject: Electronic Newspaper
The San Francisco Chronicle ran a full page advertisement this morning
advertising "The Chronicle Electronic Edition." As they put it:
"All you need is a television set, a telephone and an inexpensive home
computer. It's fast and easy. Dial a local telephone number to
connect your home terminal to the electronic edition of The Chronicle.
An index of Chronicle news, sports, weather, business stories, opinion
and commentary ... will appear on your screen. Using the keyboard,
it's easy to quickly display Chronicle news stories and features on
the TV screen."
I've sent in the coupon for further information, and will mention it
on HUMAN-NETS when I have more detailed info. Unfortunately, the
Chronicle is a very poor newspaper in terms of content, and electronic
access will only spread the Hearst message even more widely.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #104
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-19 22:28:41 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Wednesday, 20 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 104
Today's Topics:
Query - Polling Large Lists,
Corrections - Hearst Papers & Format of CompuServe Article,
Query Replies - Pay TV System & Left Handed Sugar,
Communicating via Network - Cross Net Access & Impacts on Language,
FYI - ESS name change
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 10 May 1981 1918-PDT
From: Daul at OFFICE-2
Subject: LARGE-MAILING-LISTS
Has anyone considered how do you poll such a large group of people?
Even if you just want a sampling, how do you collect the responses
efficiently? What prompts this question was a thought I had about
what different fields the readership here entails. Anyway, I hope to
hear (read) your thoughts.
--Bill
------------------------------
Date: 19 May 1981 03:21-EDT
From: William B. Daul
Subject: Mailing List Polls
I have a quick question. Is it feasible to take polls of the
readerships of these LARGE mailing lists? Has anyone thought about
this and have some ideas to share? Planet has a good facility for
polls, but what about lists with such large readerships?
------------------------------
Date: 19 May 1981 03:27-EDT
From: Charles Frankston
Subject: Slander against the Heart empire
No arguments about the quality of the San Francisco Chronicle's
reporting, but the Examiner is the Hearst paper in this city, not the
chronicle.
------------------------------
Date: 19 May 1981 1845-PDT
From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode)
Subject: Re: CompuServe Information Service article on Teletext
Probably the biggest reason I didn't completely reformat the
CompuServe stuff was because their small screen format disgusts me and
I didn't want to fail to inform (i.e. mislead) HumanNets people about
this aspect of their service. 32 columns by 14 lines at 300 baud just
won't cut it! Perhaps my attempt at better utilizing the available
screen area by laying two of their windows side by side merely made it
worse.
It truly does seem to me that their attitude embodies the idea that
their potential customers will be ignorant of any better way of doing
things than those they choose. Their EMAIL program is the most
cumbersome messaging system I have seen, and its improved palatability
for the naive user over MM, MSG, RMAIL and the like is not clear to
me.
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1981 11:33 cdt
From: Phinney at HI-Multics
Subject: HN V3 #100 -- Pay TV decoders
The pay-TV decoder description from ihnss!karn at Berkeley is probably
correct and my description is probably wrong; I was writing from
memory, and I only looked briefly at the schematic that a friend was
using (who actually built a decoder). I do recommend that interested
people buy decoders on the open (underground) market, rather than
building them from scratch; the signal quality of most home-builts is
poor, and the "modify your TV" approach won't work with most new TVs
or with VCRs (video recorders). Shop around and compare received
signal quality as well as cost.
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1981 14:27 PDT
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #100 (Pay TV Decoders)
From: JKennedy@Parc-maxc
Wanting to build a decoder for my local subscription TV, I first
observed the baseband video (still scrambled) with a scope. I didn't
observe any superimposed sine wave, which I had heard was the case.
It is still a valid assumption when designing a decoder, because a
baseband signal will inherently have a detectable and usable 15,750 hz
content which is phase locked. In this instance (Channel 26, San
Francisco), the entire horizontal pedestal is level shifted up to a
point between black and white, and only needs to be level shifted back
down. This pedestal includes the color burst. The sound is indeed
produced like subscription FM, with one small change. Instead of L+R
from 0-15 Khz, the "barker" is there. Instead of L-R at 20-38Khz, the
movie sound is there, only a little further down than that. Down far
enough, coincidentally, for them to use a 15.75 khz stereo pilot
instead of the regular 19 khz pilot. Hence the pilot, which normally
doesn't do much except light a stereo light, can now be used to
generate phase locked pulses, which in turn can effect the level shitf
of the horizontal pedestal. My end result, which works quite well,
consists of picking off right after demodulation of the sound (not
preliminary carrier detection), the important thing being to get the
signal before any audion deemphasis occurs. This can easily be done
even in sets where the sound detection, deemphasis, and first audio
are all in the same chip. There is a pin for detector out, which is
usually connected to the pin for audio in. It helps to remove the
deemphasis capacitor which is hung on one pin of the ic. lDoesn't
seem to cause any grief. This is then fed to an fm stereo demodulator
chip, I used an LM1800. The 15.75 khz taken from the lamp driver
drives a one shot which is adjusted to trigger until the beginning of
the next horizontal line, then triggers another one shot which adjusts
the width of the correction pulse. I inserted an LM318 high bandwith
op amp in line with the detected video, before it is seperated into
video, sync, and chroma. I connected it as a unity gain buffer, and
added the correction pulse (or subtracted, whichever you prefer)
through the inverting input. This takes care of the picture nicely.
To get the sound, I took the left and right channel outputs from the
LM1800, and fed them to both inputs of a 741 op amp. The common mode
supression from this produces the movie sound, with no evidence of the
barker.
Hope all this is of some use to someone.
Joe Kennedy
------------------------------
Date: 05/15/81 09:44:27
From: TRB@MIT-MC
Subject: Left handed sugar
My dictionary says that the word is dextrorotatory, not dextrorotary.
I wonder why. Also, according to my dictionary, the word sinistrose
is available; dextrose is right-handed glucose, glucose exists
ambidexterously (why not ambimanually?), but there is no special word
for the levorotatory glucose. Sinistrose seems to have a nice ring
(sorry), and its confusingness with dextrose would probably appeal to
avant garde snobbish scientist types. Not being erudite enough to
qualify myself, would someone explain whether dextrorotatory is the
digestable form of all sugars, the naturally occuring form of all
sugars, and what about racemic (combined dextro-levo) forms?
Andy
------------------------------
Date: 05/18/81 09:19:28
From: Jerry Leichter at Stoned via
Subject: Reversed sugar.
If I remember my chemistry right, sucrose is a dimer (if that term is
applied to sugars) of glucose and its R-varient fructose. Hence there
is no such thing as "reversed" sucrose - it's already 50-50.
Further, many of the simple sugars exist in nature in both forms -
fructose is called fructose because it is common in fruit.
There are big differences in sweetness; I really don't remember the
numbers, but fructose is something like 12 times as sweet as glucose.
Both of these are equally digestible; R and L variations really aren't
all that important for the very simple molecules.
Hence: Whatever it is these people are selling, it is more complicated
than people are assuming. There are an infinite number of possible
sugars (polymer forms of the simpler ones), although the big polymers
are called starches and have rather different properties. Sweetness
is a rather sensitive issue and even among sugars (there are other,
unrelated substances that taste sweet - sacharrine is quite different,
and some (quite poisoness) lead salts are sweet) the range is 2 or
more orders of magnitude. I would assume that these people have some
fairly large, complex sugar polymer that is screwy enough to be
undigestible but tastes sweet. I believe several of these are already
known - is sorbitol, used in some no-sugar gums - one of them?
-- Jerry
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 07:55 PDT
From: ChiNguyen.ES at PARC-MAXC
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #98 (Accessing Human-Nets)
Right now I'm sitting in front of a Star workstation and typing this
message to be sent to you and the Human-Nets folks. If you had
intelligently reflected before issuing your statement, I believe you
would not have mailed it to the Human-Nets world.
Regards,
Chi.
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 0933-PDT
From: Michael D. Dolbec
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #99 (Accessing Human-Nets)
Well this is another interesting case of accessing Human-Nets.
Usually, I look at Human-nets using my Dolphin but today PARC-MAXC is
down right now. So I go over the Ethernet to a dial line server (a
dial out modem that accepts phone numbers, calls them and connects you
to a site at 300 baud. I am on the line to Stanford right now since
Score is up I can reach the Arpanet that way and talk to Human-nets.
Its really not hard to connect to other nets, you just use a little
imagination sometimes.
--Mike
------------------------------
Date: Sunday, 10 May 1981 16:44-EDT
From: Jonathan Alan Solomon
Subject: Influencing Language.
I tried that in my Fraternity house, I started using the 'hacker buzz
words' around all the people (those like Foo, bletch, barf) but also
some of the TOPS-10 system calls (exit, init.) and machine
instructions (skipa, lsh). What I found was that people didn't catch
on to the machine dependent stuff, but my room (which was room #2 in
the house) was called 'Room FOO' and some of my hacker friends were
branded "foo people".
And then there was the day that this was discovered scrawled
on my refrigerator....
"Foo Bar Baz Waldo Pepper Salt Pork Sausage Links Chains Bondage
Discipline Ahh....."
Translation not available, but THAT bunch of meaningless words
caught on like wildfire!!
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 1981 2316-EDT
From: Hobbit
Subject: Jargon
I have my parents and friends using all kinds of ITS-ey jargon by this
time! They didn't quite understand it at first, but now they'll say
things like 'that would be a fun hack' or 'don't barf all over me' or
'enough flamage'... It's an integral part of my vocabulary by now and
becoming part of theirs, simply by hearing me use it so much. In
context of course it's easier to understand.
_Hobbit_
PS. Next time you go into McDonalds, order 'Chicken Frobs'!
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 1981 0316-CDT
From: Mabry Tyson
Subject: Influencing Language
Unfortunately I can't remember all the details, but a few weeks back
(April 17?) I was listening to a radio network (CBS?) newscast and
they carried one of their editorial-type features. The newscaster
(whom I recognized as a newscaster for one of the TV networks but I
can't recall his name) was saying something to the effect of "Let's
show these word experts who really is in control of the language - the
people." He made a proposal of adopting a particular word (already in
use with a totally different meaning) to mean "totally exhausted". He
wanted to see just how long it might take this usage of the word to
get into the general language and then into the dictionary. Obviously
it didn't impress me too much as I can't remember what the word was
supposed to be. (On the other hand, maybe this note will result in
more people finding out about his attempt and increase its chances of
success.)
Anyone else out there hear this newscast and recall the word or other
details?
------------------------------
Date: 05/11/81 09:44:11
From: TRB@MIT-MC
Subject: ESS and the feminists
In response to heavy pressure from the feminist quarter, the Bell
System will change the name "ESS" (Electronic Switching System) to "".
This change in nomenclature will start with #5ESS, which will
hereafter be known as #5. A spokesman said, "We're trying to
eliminate all sexist prefixes and suffixes from our product names."
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #105
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-23 21:12:21 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Sunday, 24 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 105
Today's Topics:
Queries - CompuFiction & Fortran Speed Queues & Holographic Printer,
Correction - Ownership of S.F. Chronicle,
Communicating via Network - Impacts on Language,
Impacts of Automation - Screen Size
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1981 1137-PDT
From: LEWIS at SRI-AI (Bil Lewis)
Subject: "Compu-fiction"
As I remember, at the West Coast Computer Faire there were
some people pushing some sort of computer based fiction story that
allowed the user\\\\reader? to stick in their two-bits worth and
redirect the story. Anyone out there know more about this?
There is method to my madness here, as some of us are going to
meet with a gentleman from a large publishing firm next week that is
interested in exploring the possibilities. Now I have a good idea of
the general type of things that are possible, but would love to her
what others think.
Full text generation from some sort of formal schema is out of
course (See Mann & Moore in AJCL V7 N.1. They cover the work of
Badler, Meehan, Schank, Carbonell, &c.). Thus we can't pretend to use
AI, but are rather stuck with writing out all of the text ourselves
and using "clever programming". The real question is "How clever can
that programming be?" Ideas?
-Bil
------------------------------
Date: 5 MAY 1981 0948-PDT
From: TCWCSS at I4-TENEX
Subject: Fortran Speed Ques
Dear folks- I'm polling y'all for benefit of a person trying to
accumulate some stats on the subject of execution times for operations
written on 11/34 in assembler versus Fortran. I realize this is too
open-ended a question to make any sense..considerations (nature of
routines, total number of shift-ops, environment and hdwe config)
notwithstanding but if anyone has something to contribute i'm most
certain it would be invaluable, in lieu of stats, the general topic
(considerations in software evaluations) is addressable as well.
Response is kindly appreciated. The DEC contact (unnamed to protect)
has no "generalized" offering, so i thot it best to 'go to the people'
for the empirical approach. thankyou.
@I4-Tenex
------------------------------
Date: 11 May 1981 1705-EDT
From: GILBERT at MIT-XX (Ed Gilbert)
Subject: holographic laser scanning
>From the Wall Street Journal - Friday, May 8, 1981 - p.29:
----------------
Laser printing is becoming less expensive.
A small private company in South Plainfield, N.J., General
Optronics, introduces a desk-top machine that uses a beam of
concentrated light to produce an image or text on ordinary paper.
Instead of the spinning mirrors found in high-speed laser printers
made by Xerox and others, the slow General Optronics printer employs
holograms, a form of three dimensional photography, and has only one
moving part in its optical system. The manufacturer says its new
machine will produce up to 2,600 lines of letter-quality print a
minute and will be sold in about a year for less than $4,000 dollars
to companies that will resell it as a computer or text-editing
printer.
----------------
Does anyone know anything about this technology, or know enough about
holograms to guess?
Ed Gilbert
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1981 18:51 PDT
From: Reed.ES at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #104
I beg to differ with Frankston on the ownership of the SF Chronicle.
The Examiner and Chronicle are both owned by the Hearsts. They even
have many of the same features and news articles, as well as jointly
publishing a Sunday paper.
-- Larry --
------------------------------
Date: Wed May 13 12:21:33 EDT 1981
From: Greg Woodbury (mhtsa!hocsr!ggw)
Subject: Lingo and human communications
My comments concerning the source of the term was not
intended as meaning that the word was specifically taken from the gay
subculture for this purpose, but to point out that various minority
subcultures are the breeding ground for new uses of language in
general. Certainly, a "few Eyewitness news accounts" is not a
sufficient amount of information to base any kind of valid judgment
upon, but MANY times in human history such miniscule information has
been used to judge and condemn many minority groups to oppression and
extinction.
The most interesting effect that I have noticed from this
discussion so far, is that that term has practically dissappeared from
the net. Are the denizens of this world any less intolerant of others
because of their "liberal" education and attitudes? I had a better
opinion of the computer using community.
Etymologies of many words are totally lost because their origin
or variation of usage was based in a transient or oppressed
subculture. Further commentary on etymology I leave to the
professional wordmongers.
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 1408-PDT (Thursday)
From: Mike at UCLA-SECURITY (Michael Urban)
Subject: Lexicography
There sure seems to be a lot of discussion generated by the
suggestion that homosexual jargon is present in the Hacker lexicon.
But, aside from the pretty weak example given in the original message
("Flame" in hackerese and "Flaming" in homophilese), nobody seems to
have come up with any concrete examples of ANY sort of linguistic
penetration into the hacker jargon, or at least none that isn't also
present in the general language.
In fact, most of the movement seems to have been in the other
direction. Computerese, through management, has managed to get into
the general language pretty well. Many people seem to think of it as
"Watergatese". This Management Subset of Computerese consists of
phrases like "parameter" (often misused)), "buzzword" (nicely
recursive), "time-frame" and "scenario". However, at this point in
time, to the best of my recollection, I cannot think of a single
jargon phrase from Black or Gay or even Science-Fiction-Fannish
subcultures that have managed to get exclusively into the CS
vocabulary.
OK, someone, prove me wrong! Please?
Mike
PS. I am not necessarily an expert on Black or Gay or even
Science Fiction Fannish dialects. Sheeeeeeeeeeit!
------------------------------
Date: 17 May 1981 07:17:18-PDT
From: ARPAVAX.olson at Berkeley
Subject: furthering feldman's cry -- Re: HN(v3)#98
A study of the demography of computer science would be
interesting. I have no idea whether the gay population in the field
would be disproportionately high, but see no reason to suspect so.
Most of my gay friends are involved with computers somehow, but this
could well be because I met most of them at work.
The suggestion that gays are using computers to get "strokes"
is more interesting, but I doubt that the trend is limited to gays; it
seems instead to be the norm for the programmers I know. The feeling
of control I get (well, sometimes) over the huge beastie in the
corner, as well as a sense of accomplishment and usefulness, make me
enjoy my work. That's why I'm still at it, and not loading boxes at
Sears. Most of the people I spoke to about this voiced similar
opinions -- one hard-core hacker told me that he'd rather work with
machines than people, because "machines are more reasonable. People
get bitchy, but machines never do."
That's really a frightening statement. The whole idea of
computers is to >improve< human communication, not provide a
substitute for it (item: this digest). Assuming that my friend's
feeling is, indeed, the norm, hackers must be generally ill-prepared
for "real life" (as "The Hacker Papers" suggests). We may have just
met the enemy (and yes, he may be us) -- hackers are, after all,
people, too (after a fashion). If we as a group continue to be
predominantly machine-oriented, it's going to be ugly the next time
the system crashes.
So what should >our< role be? Is it important for the people
who write the programs that make the world go 'round to be more than
just information processors? How do we make them that way? Awaiting
the reply of any sociologists out there...
Mike
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 13:27 cdt
From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan)
Subject: 32x14 characters NOT considered harmfull
I don't appreciate ROODE's short-sighted and thoughtless
opinion. To understand the need for 32x14 characters on a page, one
must look at the audience that CompuServe, The Source, and such
information utilities are directed at: the home computer user who does
not have "free" and possibly sub rosa access to a KL-10 or a Multics
that's being paid for out of somebody else's budget.
If you're not going to be a parasite, you use what you can afford.
And what most people can afford has (surprise!) 64x16 (TRS80) or 40x16
(Apple ][) or 32x16 (TI and Atari(?)) characters on its screen - and
no way to display larger screensfull of information. Furthermore
their modems run at 300 baud. The reason is price.
You can talk all you want about how "losing" home computers are, but
I'd like to see what you would do deprived of resources like ARPAnet
and mainframes that you did not and could not afford to pay the rent
on.
--Bill
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 1400-PDT
From: ROODE at SRI-KL (David Roode)
Subject: affordability
There are several 24 by 80 CRT terminals available for $600-800. This
competes quite favorably with the Videotex gizmo that requires that a
television be tied up while it is in use and does not cost that much
less. I imagine the keyboard is improved as well as the size of the
screen.
A fully utilized DEC-20 with all the trimmings ought to be operable
for a connect time charge of under $2 per hour, 24 hours a day.
Telenet and Tymnet offer network access for $.75 per hour to volume
users at the hours CIS and The Source operate, and these services
restrict operation to off hours. They sell time at much higher rates
in the daytime.
The volume of use on a CIS-like service that charged $3 per hour and
was available 24 hours a day (by local phone call only during the
daytime, to avoid net charges) would be many times that CIS and The
Source are experiencing now.
As for 1200 baud modems, you have a point. However there is no reason
not to offer that service for those who wish to buy them.
Furthermore, if 2,000 people use each of these Infomration Utility
machines, and there were 10-20 established around the country, and the
1200 baud modems were given a chance to catch on, the price would come
down to much the same as the 300 baud modems.
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 17:57 cdt
From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan)
Subject: Re: affordability
It would be incorrect to suppose that a terminal could or would
replace a personal computer, even if there were no price differential.
I doubt that many Apple users are solely interested in The Source, and
Radio Shack's sales of pure Videotex terminals (which, even including
the TV, are cheaper than a 24x80 with modem) are not high.
Ya can't play Space Invaders or Zork on an adm3a.
Worth noting: the Compuserve page size may be screwy, but at least
it's a page, which is more than I can say for good old TTY-oriented
things like Human-Nets.
Bill
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #106
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-25 05:00:16 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Monday, 25 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 106
Today's Topics:
Correction - Fortran Speed Queues Query & ESS Name Change,
Query Replies - Holographic Printer,
Communicating via Network - Impacts on Language,
FYI - Xerox STAR,
Computers and the Handicapped - Color Blindness,
Humor - SubGenius Foundation & OREMA
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 24 MAY 1981 0834-PDT
From: TCWCSS at I4-TENEX
Subject: Fortran Speed Ques.
The reprint of message regarding Fortran speed 5May81
resent 24May to Humnet readers ought be recinded since
dialog has concluded and ends served. Thanx to those
readers that did respond.
thx,tcw
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 0900-PDT
From: Ian H. Merritt
Subject: ESS & the feminists
It seems to me that there IS no #5 ESS. However, 'They' have been
calling these things by their numbers for years. Try again.
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 1033-PDT
From: Richard Pattis
Subject: If Bell really wants to purge its sexist language...
...it should rename UNIX. I resent the fact that UNIX is billed as
the operating system with everything that a programmer needs.
Rich
------------------------------
Date: 23 May 1981 2318-PDT
From: Les Earnest
Subject: Holographic laser printer
The General Optronics laser printer mentioned in the Wall Street
Journal article (Ed Gilbert in HN V3 #105) uses a rotating hologram to
deflect a laser beam in a sawtooth fashion across a xerographic drum
so as to function as a raster printer. A solid state laser is used,
which is modulated directly by a computer/controller.
Functionally, the rotating hologram is equivalent to a rotating
mirror, but G.O. claims that it can be manufactured at lower cost than
the usual spinning octagonal mirror. Don't be misled by the quoted
$4,000 price, however -- that is for purchases in quantities of 5,000
or more and does not include the controller.
In order for this device to function as a computer printer, the
controller must synthesize digital video at a rate of about 3 million
bits/second, which requires a lot of computing with fairly fancy
hardware. When and if printing systems based on this technology
appear, they are likely to be introduced at end user prices in the
vicinity of $20-30k.
Les Earnest
------------------------------
Date: 05/24/81 22:38:40
From: TK@MIT-AI
Subject: Optronics Laser printer
The Optronics laser printer doubtless is using an acousto-optic
modulator for beam deflection. This is a piezoelectric material
(lithium niobate is common, as is ammonium dihydrogen phospate)
through which high frequency (tens of megahertz) sound waves are
propagated. The sound waves distort the surface flatness of the
crystal, which is used as a mirror. The wavelength of the sound waves
is comparable to light wavelengths, setting up an diffraction grating.
The angle of deflection of light from the surface is controlled by the
precise frequency of the sound waves in the crystal, and thus can be
controlled electronically. Now one could claim that this was a
hologram, and I suppose it is (you can even send two different
frequency signals in and get two reflections out), but that sounds
like a piece of advertising hype for a basically simple and
off-the-shelf piece of opto-electronics. Those of you with Xerox
laser printers have these devices in your printer: they are used to
modulate the beam, essentially by deflecting it through an aperture or
not. There are problems associated with using these devices as a
deflector, related to the effective resolution. This is limited by
two factors, one, the larger the spot, the better diffraction
focussing (more wavelengths of mirror), but the larger the spot, the
slower the device is to respond, since to change the frequency now
requires that the sound wave's change in frequency propagate across
the width of the spot.
------------------------------
Date: 18 May 1981 1236-PDT
From: Kleiser via
Subject: Telecommunications doesn't have this problem (yet)
PRONOUNCER'S BOO-BOOS TURN HIM OFF
from the san jose news by syndicated columnist Sydney J. Harris
(reproduced here exactly as printed -sgk)
MEMO to TV and radio announcers, newscasters and commentators:
* There is no "boat" in "boutique." (Johnny Carson is a chronic
offender with this word.)
* There are only two syllables, not three, in "hindrance." (It is
not "hinderance" any more the "suffrance" is "sufferance.")
* For the 10th time is as many years, be reminded that there is no
"ray" at the end of "lingerie." (and the word doesn't mean in
French what it has come to mean in English.)
* That, speaking of French, the fish called "turbot" should be
rhymed with "sherbet" and not give a phony Gallic pronunciation of
"turbo". (An excusable solecism only in an untrained waiter.)
* That "flaccid," meaning limp or flabby, does not rhyme with
"placid," but with "crack Syd."
* A man who runs a restaurant is a "restaurateur" without the "n."
(It's astonishing how many announcers seem unaware of this.)
* That while "frequent" as an adjective takes the accent on the
first syllable, "frequent" as a verb takes it on the second.
* There is no such word as "accompanyist"; a pianist who plays for
a singer is an "accompanist."
* That "tortuous" means winding or twisting, and has nothing to do
with pain or anguish, which is "torturous."
* Perhaps the ugliest vulgarism of all is "Mayder D" for the maitre
d'hotel who takes your reservation and shows you to your table. (If
one's French is so lamentable, what's wrong with "head waiter"?)
* Incidentally, "lamentable" is properly accented on the first
syllable, not on the second. (This common shift is called
"recessive accent" in English, as "hospitable" and "formidable"
have no "spit" or "mid" in them.)
* Hard though is is to believe, highly-paid and presumably tested
announcers still put an extra syllable in "mischievous," calling is
"mischievious." (They also put an extra "a" in "rigmarole."
* Once again into the breach: Commentators should know that the
famed "Elgin marbles" were taken from Greece by Lord Elgin, whose
name does not sound like the Illinois city or the watch, but has a
hard "g" as in Edward Elgar.
* That "genealogy," the study of ancestors, is not an "ology," any
more than the study of minerals, "mineralogy."
* If you like rum, be advised that there is no "dak" in a
"daiquiri" (which is easier to pronounce than to spell).
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 14:21:20-PDT
From: ARPAVAX.ghb at Berkeley
Subject: Random Mutterings about dead issues.
Due to some administrative hiccupping, I have gotten a bit out
of phase with the Human-nets discussions, so I will now put in my two
cents on some things which no one else wants to hear any more about.
About 3-d technology: When in high-school (nay, junior high
school), a friend of mine (name of Steve Summit, currently hiding
somewhere at MIT), came up with an interesting 3-d plotter. The basic
idea is that of a large cube (walled with glass or something) filled
with Vaseline petroleum jelly (or something more transparent). In the
cube, there is a series of arms which can move to any position in the
cube. The arms is capable of ejecting purple ink as they move. Thus
you get a cube containing the graph in full three-dimensions. (The
problem is either cleaning the ink out of the Vaseline, or a huge
budget for new Vaseline.)
About the Onyx system: (For some reason, Lauren mentioned one
some issues back). The onyx is a fairly powerful Unix (blah trademark
blah blah Bell blah) system (at least in terms of the programs it
has), but is REAL slow. Current record (unofficial) is two and a half
minutes to run the w program (tells who is on, and what they are
doing), with only one person logged on. By the way, it is possible,
although not necessarily easy, to get sources, as we recently got the
sources sent to us.
I'll go back into my cave and leave you all alone now...
--george bray
------------------------------
Date: 05/23/81 01:46:03
From: PHOTOG@MIT-MC
Subject: interesting trivia about the XEROX star
Recently, a few of us at TANDEM were discussing the XEROX star
network. As a msg from someone at XEROX-PARC demonstrated, the STAR
can acess other systems (i.e. act like a gateway), the question is: is
that a toy at PARC like many other things, or is that a real feature
('dial-up server' in ethertalk) that will be available to STAR owners,
or a long-time-off thing?
Also, note that the STAR system cannot be networked in a star
(lowercase) network topology. I guess that is why a group of stars on
an ethernet are called a 'CONSTELLATION'. I wonder how CORVUS Systems
feels about that. Is not 'constellation' a trademark for the corvus
disc controller-level multi-port multiplexor (otherwise know as the
poor-man's local area network??)
p.s. i just got my demo 'compuserve' account and I cannot believe they
charge folks to use that system. it is junk!! the 'rubberbanding' of
many disjoint programs into a menu-driven package is the worst job i
have ever seen, from a human-use point of view to exit from one mode
to another often takes different commands even if exiting to the same
common mode (environment). And the electronic mail system is very
primitive. Any other compuserve offenders (or maybe DEFENDERS) around
on human-nets?
------------------------------
Date: 05/15/81 07:42:21
From: LLOYD@MIT-AI
Subject: Xerox 'Star'
I had the "pleasure" of getting the Xerox pitch at NCC '81. "Yes",
they said, "Star is only $16,300!"
Me: "That's all?!?"
Them: "That's right! Only $16,300."
Me: "Great! Here is my check for $16,300. Please deliver my 'Star'
to. . ."
Them: "Well...Uh... You have to buy a file server too."
Me: (eyebrows up) "How much is that?"
Them: "$20,000"
Me: "What about hard copy?"
Them: "A printer server is $25,000."
Me: "Good bye."
Well, it was a great idea, but I don't think it will sell too well.
$16K is one thing, but $60K is quite another, "mouse" or no "mouse".
Brian Lloyd
P.S. Please forgive me if the prices weren't exactly right. They were
on that order tho'.
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1981 22:44:17-PDT
From: decvax!duke!duke34!chris at Berkeley
Subject: Color blindness ( HN V3, #98)
I am seem to be minorly red-green color blind in my left eye. The
shades I see with that I are more blue. I discovered this while
reading under a high intensity lamp. My father claims to have the
same problem. Interestingly enough, I can pass the color tests.
However, I have always done them with both eyes. Does anybody know if
there are many people with a similar type of color blindness? How
common is it? The color blindness has never been a major problem so
I've never bothered to look into it but this discussion has raised my
curriousity.
Chris Woodbury
Duke University
------------------------------
Date: 05/15/81 11:11:39
From: TRB@MIT-MC
Subject: The SubGenius Foundation
The SubGenius Foundation
Box 140306
Dallas TX, 75214
TSGF is a cult, but they won't hassle you. They are devo-esque, and
extremely humorous. Founded by J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, the creed of the
SubGenius is: The SubGenius must have SLACK. Send a buck (and your
address, of course) and they'll send you some clever literature.
------------------------------
Date: 18 May 81 8:33:32-EDT (Mon)
From: Bob Rahe
Subject: OREMA - plagiarism???
That 'local electronics firm' had better watch out. They have
apparantly plagiarized that software. That particular OS was
announced by a 'Los Angeles electronics firm' in early 1966, and the
announcement was duly reported in the \SDS USER'S NEWS/ dated March
1966.
(SDS = Scientific Data Systems, which was later XDS (Xerox Data
Systems), which was later defunct although I have heard
that the name has been resurrected.)
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #107
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-26 01:54:31 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Tuesday, 26 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 107
Today's Topics:
Queries - Fiber Optics & EtherNet & Xerox STAR,
Query Replies - Xerox Star & Holographic Printer & CompuFiction,
Communicating via Network - Polling Large Lists & Impacts on Language
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 May 1981 0024-EDT
From: Hobbit
Subject: Lines and things
Has anyone investigated the possibility of getting a lightwave 'cable'
run from here to there? Of course you would eliminate capacitive
*and* inductive loading, and your bandwith would be tremendous. Down
here in Jersey there is supposed to be a new lightwave system being
put in between Newark and New Brunswick, and the blurb says something
about it will carry voice and data communications. Any ideas? Has
anybody asked the phone co. about it?
_H*
------------------------------
Date: 14 May 1981 09:52:54-PDT
From: Greg Woodbury (mhtsa!hocsr!ggw) via
Subject: ETHERNET query
Can anyone on the net provide some hard information on the
methods that Xerox uses to interface terminals, CPUs, printers, etc..
to the Ethernet? In particular, are ther figures available that tell
the overhead that an interface device (e.g. Xerox 8000) incurs in
talking to the ethernet? I seem to remember hearing that up to 30% of
available computing power could be taken up by the interface. Is this
true? Does a terminal have to have an 8000 or something similar to
connect to the Ethernet? Many Thanks for the info.
--wolfe
[Please reply directly to Greg via Steve Upstill,
(CSVAX.upstill at Berkeley), who has volunteered to act as a
Human-Nets gateway for the UUCP net recipients. --DE]
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 2108-EDT (Wednesday)
From: Lawrence Butcher at CMU-10A (X335LB50)
Subject: Xerox Star workstation
I have before me an article from the April 27, 1981 issue of the
Seybold Report titled "Xerox's 'Star'". Inside there is a picture of
the Star's keyboard. The keyboard contains no "control" key. Can
someone who actually uses the machine tell me what trick Xerox uses to
replace the control key?? The software described in the article runs
on the Star, and doesn't seem to need a control key. When the machine
is being used as a terminal accessing some other resource on the
Ethernet, that other machine might want to see for instance Ctrl C's.
How do you type a Ctrl C to MAXC??
Butcher
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 1981 13:34-EDT
From: J. Noel Chiappa
Subject: Xerox STAR misconceptions
I don't know what you people know about STAR, but you must
have been reading ComputerWorld or something. A 'gateway' is a machine
that can connect two (or more) networks. The Xerox EtherNet is a bus
network, not a star, but what makes you think that makes any
difference? I fail to understand the significance of its not being
able to assume cretinous configurations. As far as the user/server/
network stuff, I don't know what you supposed they were going to run
on STARs, but given the tools (not toys) PARC has had running on
things like Altos for years (far in advance of ALL university research
labs, which are now running flat out to try and catch them) I would be
grossed out if they offered anything BUT network based stuff. The fact
that they are selling gateways, file servers and printer servers
(which were announced BEFORE STAR) seems indicative. As to the cost,
the cost of the servers (although high) isn't that bad because a large
number of stations will share one set, so the avarage cost is much
lower. It wasn't intended for home computer use, but for an office (or
somesuch) where you have a whole slew of workstations sharing servers.
As a general comment (from a network/network system expert, on
the other side of the Contintal Divide, who doesn't and never did work
for a commercial computer outfit) Xerox has forgotten more about
advanced network stuff and network based tools and systems than the
rest of the commercial opposition put together ever knew. If I were
you, I'd investigate a little more closely before badmouthing their
stuff.
"He who laughs last..."
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 1981 13:32 PDT
From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC
Subject: $4,000 Laser Printer
The ads for the General Optronics Laser printer got several of us here
at Xerox rather excited and naturally we checked up on it. The story
I got from my boss was that it was at least two years away from any
real production. The real kicker is that the first customer is going
to have to come up with over $200,000 in development costs to get it
off the ground. Note: This is NOT an official Xerox statement, just
what some of us who work with laser printers have been told by our
boss.
Alan Frisbie
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 1981 12:36-EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas
Subject: "Compu-fiction"
My method is the same as the chess network. At all branch points,
stubs are put in. When a stub is hit, electronic mail is sent to a
human who will fill in the structure below that level, putting new
stubs at all the branch points within it. Thus you have at all times
a sparce tree, with new structure being filled in on an as-needed
basis. Commonly-used branches are filled in already and get instance
response when the reader (or the player, in the case of chess or other
game) selects them, while branches not before explored require the
reader (player) to wait while an expert is consulted to fill in the
not-yet-extant information. Thus a book with many alternate
scenerios, or a dynamic Modern Chess Openings, can grow over the years
to immensity. Maybe this can even be used for DELPHI predictions of
the future. The player picks which branch to explore where a single
decision can make a difference (to release PCNET now or wait until
next year, to shoot Reagan again or not, to write a letter to the
editor or not), while the concensus of the DELPHI poll determines the
course of the model in cases where it looks like things are stable,
where the future can be predicted and individual choice dosn't
significantly change the results. Imagine a DELPHI dynabook where
anyone can explore any of millions of different possible futures in
this way.
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 1981 1039-PDT
From: Zellich at OFFICE-3 (Rich Zellich)
Subject: Re: Compu-fiction
I don't have any ideas along those lines myself, but thought I'd
mention some of the things I've seen/heard of. There is, of course,
the recent interactive TV (QUBE, I think) experiment with a soap; at
the NY World's Fair (1964), one of the soviet-satellite countries
(maybe Czech's) had a movie theater with yes/no audience-reaction/
participation buttons in each right-hand seat arm, and a movie (sort
of a short soap) that was periodically interrupted by a narrator who
asked the audience if a particular course of action should follow or
not - they had it rigged so that all the branching plot-lines came
down to the identical ending - even letting the audience back up and
try one of the decision-points a second time after the ending had been
reached; I also remember reading either in Human-Nets or SFL some
mention of a juvenile book that had a similar setup - the reader would
turn to the next page or to page x depending on plot decision made.
Cheers,
Rich
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 (Wednesday) 1033-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Polling by digest
One of the later designs for our local bboard provided special "query"
keys. The author would put a line such as:
Q:[filename]"What do you think about foo?"
and the bboard processor would ask the question and append the answer
to the named file. This never was implemented due to lack of interest
and I think that there would be advanced trouble doing so over the
ARPAnet.
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 13:53 cdt
From: VaughanW at HI-Multics (Bill Vaughan)
Subject: influencing the language
It would be nice if some of the MIT community (who seem at times to
dominate these lists) would recall that there are indeed members of
the lists who do not use such terms as foo, hack, frob, moby and mung
in their everyday language; that those people probably have their own
jargon (many folk seem to use "fred" where an MIT'er would use "foo");
but particularly that some parts of the MIT jargon (I have in mind
"win" and "lose") are also in the standard language with different
semantics and are therefore likely to be misinterpreted by the rest of
us.
(A word to the wise: "to hack" and its derivatives have strongly
different semantics in most of the world than at MIT, such that one
would not willingly admit to being a hacker - especially not on an
interview! In industry, the practice we call "hackery" is the
antithesis of good design.)
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 1441-EDT
From: Steven J. Zeve
Subject: Language, influencing it and the death of english
It is possible to influence another person's language, I have
done it unintentionally. I believe that slang is transmitted that
way, you hear someone say something often enough and you pick up the
context. Once you pick up the context of the word, you start to use
it (I spread the term MUNG that way at my last job).
The "death of the English language" is being announced somewhat
prematurely, but it may well be inevitable; assuming of course that
what you mean when you say "English" is English as we currently
speak/write it. For example, compare current American, or British,
English with the English of 1600, there are some serious differences.
Better yet, compare current English with the English that Chaucer or
Mallory spoke/wrote! As anyone studying linguistics will tell you,
languages evolve (or devolve depending on your point of view.
The French system tries to defy this evolution, but I think they
are pushing a lost cause. When the general population decides it
needs a new word, it will get a new word. That is why the fashionable
English words like "hot-dog", "weekend", and many others are creeping
into French.
The real problems in American English, as I see the situation,
are 1) the loss of clarity and preciseness caused general misuse of
certain words, 2) the loss of understandability caused by poor grammer
and incorrect spelling. For instance, what is the difference between
libel and slander? or between comprise and compose? I find both of
these pairs of words misused fairly consistently, so consistently that
the language may well lose their difference. Although this won't be a
disaster, it will create some confusion until new words are created to
maintain the more precise definitions.
If you think that spelling and grammer aren't important, try
reading something where the spelling is really bad, or where the
grammer is really wrong. After spending a long time figuring out what
the writer meant to say, you will realize how much more quickly you
would have gotten the meaning if the grammer and spelling had been
better.
L. Sprague DeCamp wrote a very readable article on the subject of
language evolution. He was describing what factors to consider if you
wanted to use a "realistic" future English in a science fiction story.
He also showed examples of how modern English differed from older
"versions".
steve z.
p.s. Left to my own devices, I would guess that "poisoness" is a word
used to describe a woman who feeds you poisonous, or maybe a dangerous
ESS system. I figured that one out from context, but context isn't
always available. Sometimes the context itself depends on the word
that is incorrect, or on a poorly worded/constructed piece of a
sentence.
p.p.s. If I don't quit now, I'll spend all day trying to fix my
spelling, wording, and grammer.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #108
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-28 02:52:39 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Thursday, 28 May 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 108
Today's Topics:
Correction - Number 5 ESS,
Communicating via Network - Impacts on Language,
Query Replies - No Calorie Sugar
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 17:20:32-PDT
From: ihnss!hobs@BERKELEY(John Hobson) via
Subject: #5 ESS
Ian--
Yes, there is such a thing as a #5 ESS. This is a bigger and better
ESS, designed to be a replacement for all others. That is, there is
one basic configuration, and different versions depending on the
capacity needed. This is an improvement over the #1/1A, #2, #3 and #4
ESSes, which are fundamentally different machines, each designed to
cover one range of line/trunk numbers. (#1/1A is used in large,
metropolitan switching offices, #4 in small, rural ones.)
The #5 ESS is expected to be out in the field starting sometime next
year.
The term ESS means simply Electronic Switching System, and even the
most ardent feminist that I know here at BTL-Indian Hill (where the
main ESS work is being done) does not consider ESS to be a sexist
term. She also did not think that UNIX (tm, etc) was sexist. The
-ess ending to words is sexist, but ESS switching systems are not.
She does think it funny that Grace Hopper was DPMA's first "Man of
the Year".
May you always fold your roadmaps easily,
John
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 1013-PDT
From: Daul at OFFICE
Subject: LEARNING COMPUTERESE
NOW I HAVE TO LEARN COMPUTERISH - AND WHOSE DEFAULT IS IT?
from the san jose news by editorial writer H. Bruce Miller
(reproduced here exactly as printed -sgk)
Life handed me a couple of exciting new experiences this month. First
I had two impacted wisdom teeth removed. Then I underwent two and a
half hours of training in how to use our new computer system.
Since the computer training was done without benefit of nitrous oxide
or Novocaine, I'd have to rate it as somewhat the less pleasant of the
two.
Some of you might infer from this that I don't like computers. Nothing
could be further from the truth. I am not one of your technological
Neanderthals who want to go back to cooking on an open fire instead of
a microwave and using slide rules instead of pocket calculators. I
love computers. It's the computer people I can't stand.
The trouble with computer people is they don't know how to speak
English. They speak something that sounds sort of like English, but
when you listen closely, it's not. It has some English-sounding words
and some structural similarities to English, but it's not English, nor
is it any other known human tongue, ancient or modern. It's
Computerish, which resembles English roughly and pig Latin resembles
the language of Virgil and Cicero.
Computerish is a language in which words and their meanings undergo
bizarre and seemingly random transmogrifications. Verbs metamorphose
into nouns, and nouns transform themselves into verbs at the drop of a
suffix. New words magically appear from nowhere, and old words take on
meanings completely unrelated to their accepted ones.
The result is a form of prose that for incomprehensibility is rivaled
only by the discourses of 12th century theologians and the press
releases of the Environmental Protection Agency. Here, for example, is
a paragraph from the manual used in my training session, in the
original unexpurgated Computerish:
"All forms, prompts. and template takes are treated identically with
regard to cursor movement and the editing data. The appropriate
message - 'FORM,' 'PROMPT' or 'TEMPLATE' - is displayed in the bright
attribute on the status line. In any of these modes the cursor may be
moved only within variable fields; it may not be moved into protected
areas."
A few definitions may further illustrate how Computerish works.
First there's the word "access" used as a verb, meaning "to call up"
or "to obtain," viz.: "To access your basket, press Command D."
There's the word "prompt" used as a noun, meaning a group of
underlined spaces that appear at the top of your computer screen and
into which you type directions, viz.: "When you press Command 2, a
prompt will appear on the screen."
There's the word "default" used as a noun, meaning, as far as I can
determine, one of the functions that an individual computer user is
empowered to perform, viz.: "A list of user defaults may be accessed
by pressing Command U."
There's the noun "attribute," which is what we newspaper old-timers
used to call a type face, such as italic, boldface, or bold italic,
viz.: "Ten VDT attributes are available for use with STYL typesetting
procedures.
Then there's the word (this is one of my all-time favorites)
"template." As we all know, in English a template is a cardboard or
plastic or metal pattern used for cutting something to a particular
shape or marking the correct location of something, as in installing a
doorknob. But in Computerish, templates are "openings ... wherein the
user may draw or, in this case, enter and edit texts. In template
takes, the openings are called fields." I hope that's perfectly clear.
Now, template is a very nice word. So are charabanc and quinquereme
and peritoneum, any one of which would have served just as well as
"template" for the particular purpose.
That's the maddening thing about computer people. They use words
interchangeably, like pieces of an Erector set, with blithe disregard
for their individual meanings. Need a noun? Just throw one in, first
one that pops into your head. "Template"? Sure, that's fine, why not.
Need a verb? Stick "ize" on the end of a noun and you've got it.
Computer people are like Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty: When they use
a word it means what they want in to mean.
Newspaper people, on the other hand, regard words as precision
instruments to be used as carefully and accurately as possible. It's a
matter of training and, I suspect, temperament. Consequently, the
relationship between newspaper people and computer people is an uneasy
one, marked by chronic mistrust and occasional overt hostility.
There are just two possible cures for this. One is to get the computer
people to learn English. The other is to teach the newspaper people
Computerish. From what I've seen of computer people, learning English
is beyond the capacity of virtually all of them, so newspaper people
presumably will have to take courses in Computerish.
Eventually this will improve communications between computer people
and newspaper people. What it will do to the quality of American
journalism is, of course, another matter. But that's a template of a
different attribute, and I guess we'll have to parameterize that
default when we access it.
------------------------------
Date: 24 May 1981 0259-CDT
From: Clyde Hoover
Subject: Inflicting of hacker language upon others
Thinking about the recent discussion of the linguistic
miscongenation particular to the computer field, and how other
non-hacker types react to it, I get the feeling that the non-hackers
are right in a quizzical and/or negative reaction to such jargon.
I work programming computers about 40 hrs/week, and when I
finish with my work day, I really don't want to think about or talk
computers until I go to work the next day (whole weekends have been
known to pass sans a cybernetic thought on my part), unless of course
I run into another computer person (which I do occasionally).
This feeling is particullary interesting because I live in an
environment that has its own pecular slang, and do find myself using
that home slang at work, at times to the consternation of my
colleages.
My feelings about hacker jargon (and all other vocational
vocabularies), is that they should be left at work, and one should
talk normal English to the people around you (especially spouses and
companions). In short, STOP BEING A HACKER when you aren't working
and be a regular human being relating with other people on their own
terms.
It does take a shifting of the mental gears, but I've found
that I can deal with people MUCH better when I don't bombard them with
terms they don't understand, and in turn they can really relate to you
as a PERSON, not as some 'computer jock.'
One of my colleages stated this dichotomy that I feel one
should maintain in respect to ones's vocation vs the rest of life very
aptly as :
"With human beings I will communicate;
with computers I will interact."
Cheers,
Clyde Hoover
(writing this at a bizzare hour of Sunday morning because
it finally struck my fancy to add my 2c worth).
------------------------------
Date: 20 May 1981 (Wednesday) 1036-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: Etamology of FLAME
I thought that this word was an attempt to verbalize (in the
linguistic sense) the adjective "flambouyant". I can see how the word
as such could have crept into male-gay language since the typical "tv"
stereotype of a gay male includes advanced rings and flashy clothing,
etc. I would not necessarily go so far as to claim that the gay
community had derived the word. Also, in that sense, RAVE still seems
a better word than FLAME for what we do in electronic mail.
------------------------------
Date: 05/20/81 10:47:54
From: TRB@MIT-MC
Subject: Influencing Language
At Worcester Tech, I think our favorite word in the hacker lexicon had
to be "CUSP." In DEC parlance, or at least TOPS-10 parlance, CUSP was
the acronym for Commonly Used System Program. CUSPs (usually after
having been rewritten by local hackers) were excellent programs, and
CUSP took on the meaning of something that was winning. The usage was
almost always: "She's a CUSP of a ." She's a CUSP of a car,
she was a CUSP of a movie. Anything good was a CUSP, except your
girlfriend, as you didn't want to call your girlfriend commonly used.
As cusp was already in the dictionary, we confused our share of
dentists, astrologers, and mathematicians...
Conversely, the word NUSP (Never etc.) caught on to a lesser extent,
to describe DEC standard software and other losing things. "The drum
is fried again? What a NUSP!" Ah, the good old days.
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1981 0803-PDT
Subject: Isomers and digestion
From: WMartin at Office-3 (Will Martin)
As has been mentioned, isomers and handedness reversal have been
common themes in SF, usually involving some device which as a side
effect (usuallly unintentional) reverses a person, so that normal
foods are, to him, reverse isomers. Consequences are usually supposed
to be fatal.
This brings to mind an old idea I first heard many years back,
regarding "heavy water", wherein the normal water hydrogen atoms are
replaced instead by atoms of deuterium (hydrogen with a neutron
added). It was said that this is also not usable by normal bodily
processes which require water. The postulation was that, by putting
someone in a closed system, where all the water was in fact deuterium
oxide, they would notice no difference between that and regular water,
but would die of thirst while swimming in the heavy water. (A
singularily expensive method of execution...)
Anyway, can anyone say if this is in fact true, or merely balderdash?
One would think that the gross chemical reactions of body chemistry
would handle deuterium the same as hydrogen; maybe some particularly
delicate process would be fazed by the changed behavior of the atom
due to its greater mass, but wouldn't most function unchanged?
With regard to the sugar isomer: if this stuff is in fact natural
sugar, with the isomers selected out, or processed to reverse the
form, how can the FDA be involved with it as an "additive"? How could
this process be legally distinguished from baking, say, which also
causes chemical changes in sugar, I believe? Does the law which
permits the FDA to be involved cover preparation processes in addition
to ingredients?
Regards, Will Martin
------------------------------
Date: 15 May 1981 1629-EDT (Friday)
From: Bruce.Lucas at CMU-10A (C410BL50)
Subject: reversal
Of course, the problem with sending someone through a reversing device
is that (presumably) not only would the molecules be mirrored, but so
would the electrons, protons, etc. The mirror-image of matter is
antimatter, and we all know from Star Trek what happens when matter
and antimatter come into contact.
-Bruce
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #109
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-05-31 20:22:43 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Monday, 1 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 109
Today's Topics:
FYI - Recent update to CBBS file,
Query Replies - CompuFiction & Fiber Optics,
Rights of Access to Information - Terminal Eavesdropping &
Computerized Cadillacs,
Computers and the Handicapped - CBS and Teletext
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 05/31/81 05:20:42
From: W8SDZ@MIT-MC
Subject: New list of Public Access Message Systems
Those interested in Bill Blue's list of public access message and file
transfer systems will find the latest version on MC in
CPM;BBSNOS BYNAME
Many new systems have been added and some corrections have been
made. Thanks to Bill for a fine job!
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 2003-EDT
From: Paul A. Karger
Subject: Audience Determination of Plot
You don't need computers to have the audience determine the flow in a
stage play. Ayn Rand's 1933 play, "Night of January 16th" featured a
trial in which the jury members were selected from the audience. The
jury heard evidence in a murder trial and rendered a verdict on the
heroine. As a result, it was never known at any performance how the
play would end. (There were two endings written for each possible
verdict.) So that I don't generate an SFL-style spoiler, I won't
reveal the ratio of guilty to not-guilty verdicts that occured during
the play's run in New York.
------------------------------
Date: 05/26/81 10:25:31
From: TRB@MIT-MC
Subject: Running lightwave cables from here to there
Bell Labs & the Bell System are doing lots of work in lightwave
cables. The winter olympics at Lake Placid were served by a switching
system which had fiber optic links. I don't recall the specifics, but
there will be a connection between Washington, New York and Boston in
the mid-80's with something like 600 miles of lightwave cable.
------------------------------
Date: 29 May 1981 2315-EDT (Friday)
From: Peter.Lucas at CMU-10A
Subject: terminals and privacy
The other night I was watching television on a cheap ($60 Admiral) TV
while on the other side of the room (~15 feet) my wife was working at
a cheap (Perkin-Elmer Bantam) terminal. The picture on the TV was
picking up some interference from the terminal and when I adjusted the
tuning, I discovered that I was able to tune in a perfectly readable
image of the terminal screen. It apparently does not take terribly
sophisticated equipment to perform electronic eavesdropping at the
terminal end of a data link. Something to think about if you don't
get along with the folks in the next apartment.
-PAL
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 21:08 PDT
From: Frisbie.EOS at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Big Brother rides with you!
You may not have a plastic Jesus riding on the dashboard of your car,
but a silicon Big Brother is riding under the hood if you own a new
Cadillac. According to an article in the May 25th issue of Electronic
Engineering Times, General Motors has been served with a 22-state
class-action suit. The suit deals with problems in the 1981 Cadillac
with 4-6-8 cylinder microprocessor control. Problems include
indecisive shifting which causes bucking surging, poor fuel economy,
and "hunting" of the 4-6-8 cylinder mode.
The "Big Brother" aspect came to light when an unnamed Florida video
engineer purchased a copy of the service manual for the system. He
was amazed at the sophistication of the design which monitored 12
sensors for engine, water and air temperature, fuel flow, throttle
demand and so forth. If any faults are discovered, the fault
condition and location are stored and a "CHECK ENGINE" dashboard light
is lit.
If the driver doesn't go to a Cadillac repair center within 30 engine
starts of the fault, the computer records the driver as being
"negligent". In addition, if the car is ever driven over 85 mph, this
fact is recorded!
I could be persuaded to excuse the first on grounds that it is needed
for warranty purposes, but only if the owner is told that he is being
"watched", and how. The recording of speeds over 85 mph, however,
strikes me as nothing less than an invasion of privacy. How long will
it be before this becomes standard equipment on all new cars, complete
with recording of time, odometer reading and speed? And how long
before the police are equipped with devices that plug into your car's
computer and extract this information?
Never before have I felt the presence of Big Brother quite so close to
me. As one who makes a good living with computer technology, I
welcomed the use of computers in cars, but now I'm not so sure.
Keeping watch over my car's engine is one thing, keeping watch over my
personal habits is quite another.
Alan Frisbie
(Yes, I have been known to drive over 55 mph, but I don't recall going
over 70 in the last two years, at least.)
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 1981 1734-PDT (Wednesday)
From: Lauren at UCLA-SECURITY (Lauren Weinstein)
Subject: The Cadillac Lemon
A recent issue of "Electronic Engineering Times" had an interesting
article regarding the much touted "4-6-8" model Cadillac -- the super-
computerized version which automatically changes the number of
cylinders in use according to "need".
According to the article, the thing is a REAL lemon. Many, many
buyers of this vehicle have suffered numerous problems related to the
computer-controlled fuel and ignition system. The cars "cycle"
through cylinder changes at random times, frequently stall at bad
times (even during motion), and get worse gas mileage than a straight
8 cylinder Caddie. Buyers have been horrified to see the bills for
"repair" (which usually doesn't work) would be costing them thousands
of dollars if they were not under warrently. Frequently the whole
computer system has to be replaced, and even that doesn't fix the
problems for long.
Cadillac dealers have begun to "suggest" that owners disconnect the
computer's fault sensor circuits -- they point out the plug to pull,
but of course will not do it themselves. The vehicle has a very
sophisticated diagnostic system that can be plugged into a dealer's
computer for all sorts of nifty readouts -- but the only indication to
the owner that ANYTHING is wrong is a simple "check" light on the dash
-- there is no indication of seriousness, and the check light seems to
be lighting up all the time! This car, by the way, is the first that
has NO direct physical connection between accelerator pedal and fuel
system -- some engineers are beginning to wonder if the computer could
"crash" in ways that would "jam" the pedal down, so to speak!
An engineer who had bought the car, and was disgusted with the
problems, decided to delve into it himself. He managed to get hold of
the service manual and learned all sorts of interesting goodies. For
example, by pushing the turn signal, pressing the brake pedal, and
actuating a climate control switch at the same time, he could get the
car's computer to display internal readouts on the digital speedometer
display, just as if he were using the dealer diagnostic computer!
Seems there are some interesting little tidbits that the computer
keeps track of for the dealer! For example, if you fail to bring the
car to the dealer within thirty engine starts of the "check" light
coming on, this fact is noted. If you EVER drive over 85 mph, THIS
fact is noted. [This reminds me of a series of radio commercials I
heard many years ago here in L.A. The idea was that this car
dealership had every car attached to a workbench in the service
department by BIG rubber bands. Whenever it was time for regular
service, the rubber band would SNAP the car back!]
It is very unfortunate that the first fullscale "computerization" of a
commericial passenger vehicle seems to be such a disaster. Hopefully
these problems will work out with time, but it still certainly is not
good publicity for Cadillac OR the computer industry. Gee, I wonder
if the car keeps track of radio stations you listen to, or how many
times you use the lighter, or whether you use seat belts? Next, there
will be a plug that the highway patrol can attach their computer to!
Retroactive traffic tickets. Big Brother is here, and he is a
Caddie!?
--Lauren--
-------
------------------------------
From: ljs at DNGC
Date: Tue, 26 May 81 07:30-EDT
Subject: CBS and Teletext
On Tuesday, May 19, 1981, the National Association of the Deaf
(NAD) together with B'nai B'rith International, friends, parents of
deaf children, consumers and other supporters carried a day of boycott
of programs telecast by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).
For one year now, deaf people have had access to television through a
closed captioning system known as Line 21. Programs and commericals
on ABC, NBC, and PBS are captioned and thus available to deaf people
on their TV screens by means of a special decoder. These decoders are
known as "Telecaption" and are available nationwide through the Sears,
Roebuck and Company chain stores for approximately $250.
CBS has steadfastly refused to allow its programs to be captioned for
deaf viewers...instead, it is pursuing experimental work with another
system which is referred to as Teletext. The CBS Teletext system is
not compatible with the decoders that deaf people currently have
available to them. The still-experimental Teletext system will not be
available for for purchase for an undetermined number of
years...perhaps ten or more.
When it eventually reaches the market, the Teletext system will
require that deaf people invest in still more expensive special
equipment in order to have access to the CBS programs. All attempts
by the deaf community, advocates, and supporters to reason with CBS
officials for nearly ten years have been in vain. CBS, in fact, has
even removed captions from already prepared commercials before airing
them.
On May 19, 1981, the NAD and other national organizations conducted
demonstrations in over 12 major cities around the country which have
important CBS stations, including New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis,
Chicago, and Los Angeles.
LJ's additional info:
BBC (Great Britian) sells CEEFAX for over $1000 to its country TV
viewers and France sells ANITOPE twice that amount to French viewers.
It is assumed that the cost of Teletext here in USA might cost in this
price range ($1000-$2000) approximately in ten years from now. Those
14 million hearing impaired population in United States cannot afford
that unusually expensive price in order to have the access to TV. The
reason for saying "10 years" is that the CBS is filing at FCC for
standarization of teletext signals. Its time length is stretched when
the BBC eventually applied for same , but better standarization with
the possiblity of being compatible with Line 21. Recently the CNA
(Canada TV Broadcasting Company, I think) joined those two stations in
filing for same reason, but Canada's is already compatible to Line 21.
So those three filings will make long and long processings and
hearings with FCC.
If you are interested in these matters, you may write to: Mr. Edward
C. Carney, Public Information Director, National Association of the
Deaf, 814 Thayer Avenue, Silver Spring, Md. 20910.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #110
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-06-01 20:36:00 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Tuesday, 2 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 110
Today's Topics:
FYI - Improper Channels & Xerox Star,
Computers and the Handicapped - CBS and Teletext,
Communicating via Network - Human Communcation & Impacts on Language
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 25 May 1981 1939-EDT
From: Jeff Shulman
Subject: Improper Channels - a review
The premise of this movie is this:
Due to a misunderstanding, a couple's child gets taken
away from them by the Department of Social Services.
The couple want to get their child back.
The misunderstanding happened because an over-zealous social
worker illegally obtained computer records from the Social Service's
computer. When the characters found out how it was done, they planned
revenge. The revenge occurred in the last 15 minutes of the movie,
and is a MUST SEE by all "net-type" computer people (since you are
receiving this over the ARPANET, you are a 'net-type'). It was
hilarious!
I was pleased to see that the computer (a CDC) looked like a
'real' computer. The 'center' was an electronically secured room. In
the room was a console (with printer), tape drives, disk drives, and
the mainframe (not JUST tape drives or CRT's as usually portrayed.)
However in the end, the computer (or the info on it) did wind
up to be the fall guy (oh well).
I recommend it (if even only for the last 15 minutes.)
Jeff
------------------------------
Date: 1 Jun 1981 1313-EDT
From: Sross at MIT-XX (Sandor Schoichet)
Subject: Star Survey Results
I have compiled and tabulated the responses to my survey on the Xerox
Star, and added in some other material on the Star as well.
See ps:star.mss on mit-xx.
Thanks to all who contributed, further opinions and comments are
welcome.
Sandor Schoichet
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 08:33 PDT
From: ChiNguyen.ES at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #106, Xerox Star
Dear Brian,
you fictitious story is somewhat misleading. This is something that
would be real:
-------------------
I had the "pleasure" of getting the Xerox pitch at NCC '81.
Me: "Great! Here is my check for $61,300. Please deliver my 'Star'
to. . "
Them: "Please leave your name and address to the young lady over
there. And please, don't call us we will call you !!"
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 1981 19:37-EDT
From: Brian P. Lloyd
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #106, Xerox Star
My "fictitious" converstion was not fictitious. Perhaps you had
better train your booth people better. If I got the exact numbers
wrong I appologize, but that is the only place where my recreation of
the conversation might be in error. I was DELIBERATELY led to believe
that the cost of a STAR was $16,300 and it wasn't until I pushed
[hard] that I got the real numbers. Again, I suggest you ride better
herd on your booth staff.
Brian
------------------------------
Date: 06/01/81 05:05:39
From: SIRBU@MIT-MC
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #109, CBS and Teletext.
The people at ABC would certainly be pleased if they could have seen
LJS's recent message. All this antipathy against CBS by the deaf
community is just what they hoped for when they supported line 21
captioning. You see the people at ABC are opposed to Teletext. They
know that teletext decoders are cheap (perhaps $200 not $1000 as ljs
reports) and that the technology could be quickly implemented (indeed
a CBS affiliate in Los Angeles is already broadcasting Teletext
material as part of a market trial). But the people at ABC were
afraid that Teletext would mean fewer viewers watching regular
programming, and that would cut into their advertising revenue.
How then could they slow the introduction of Teletext? The needs of
the deaf for closed captioning provided the perfect alibi. Under
pretext of helping the deaf, if they could convince them to buy
decoders which could only receive closed captioning of the most
limited sort, they could tie Teletext up for years in regulatory
delay. Too bad if it meant that the deaf would pay more for their
decoders than they would if decoders capitalized on the economies of
scale of Teletext terminal production. And too bad if it meant the
deaf would have to shell out another $200 if they wanted Teletext
reception later. After all, who cares about the deaf when advertising
revenue is at stake.
And the sad thing is, it's working out just like they planned.
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 1981 0209-EDT (Wednesday)
From: Gary Feldman at CMU-10A
Subject: sociology and psychology of computer use
Permit me to carry the doom-crying one step further. I am curious
whether the increasingly easy access to computers by adolescents will
have any effect, however small, on their social development. Keep in
mind that the social skills necessary for interpersonal relationships
are not taught; they are learned by experience. Adolescence is
probably the most important time period for learning these skills.
There are two directions for a cause-effect relationship. Either
people lacking social skills (shy people, etc.) turn to other
pasttimes, or people who do not devote enough time to human
interactions have difficulty learning social skills. I do not whether
either or both of these alternatives actually occur.
I believe I am justified in asking whether computers will compete with
human interactions as a way of spending time? Will they compete more
effectively than other pasttimes? If so, and if we permit computers
to become as ubiquitous as televisions, will computers have some
effect (either positive or negative) on personal development of future
generations?
I am not trying to be anti-technology. In fact, my hunch is that the
answer to the above questions is either no or only slightly. However,
as an ethical computer scientist, I believe in asking these questions
in advance.
One aid in answering these questions is to get psychological profiles
of people involved with computers (not necessarily demographic data).
A direct psychological survey would be most precise. However, getting
indirect data such as gender, marital status, membership in
fraternities/sororities, etc. would also be useful, if properly
interpreted. The only reason for picking on sexual preference (apart
from the unfounded claims that have been made in these digests) is the
slight correlation between sexual preference and other psychological
factors.
Anyone have other ideas for evaluating the psychology of using
computers? I would certainly like to see some sound research efforts
in this direction, although I don't for a minute believe that the
economics of research would permit such efforts.
------------------------------
Date: 26 May 1981 18:07:23-PDT
From: sdcsvax!bob at Berkeley via
Subject: Steven Zeve, the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of English
Any discussion of language usage ought to be preceded by the
excellent advice, "Judge not, lest ye be judged". (Steve - That's
"grammar", not "grammer", and why invent words like "preciseness" and
"understandability" when we already have "precision" and "clarity"???)
If only "evolution" in language meant clearer ways of
expressing difficult concepts! However, the magic words "linguistic
evolution" are usually invoked to protect and defend muddy, redundant,
pretentious and lazy non-style.
Wouldn't you be disgusted with a programmer who whined "Well,
the computer KNEW what I REALLY meant! It was just being
old-fashioned and picky!" The reader is usually at a disadvantage,
and often DOESN'T know what you mean. I believe that Steve made this
point, in a roundabout way. (Something about context? Obviously
self-definition.)
Here are three rules I've found useful: (1) Don't kludge,
rewrite! (2) Mean what you say, and say what you mean. (3) Edit!!
That usually means condense, not elaborate.
Strunk & White, in "The Elements of Style", say:
Clarity, clarity, clarity. When you become hopelessly
mired in a sentence, it is best to start fresh; do not
try to fight your way through against the terrible odds
of syntax. Usually what is wrong is that the construction
has become too involved at some point; the sentence needs
to be broken apart and replaced by two or more shorter
sentences.
Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a
destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway, caused by
a badly worded road sign, heartbreak among lovers caused by
a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter, anguish of
a traveler expecting to be met at a railroad station and not
being met because of a slipshod telegram.
Couldn't we all add to that: programs that aren't used, and
systems that fail, because of obscure documentation. I recommend
Strunk & White, and also Wilson Follett's "Modern American Usage".
These are essential for anyone who writes, and cares whether they
communicate.
Bob & Mary Hofkin
------------------------------
Date: 22 May 1981 17:48:26 EDT (Friday)
From: Dan Franklin
Subject: language evolution
Some comments on language evolution, in response to a recent letter on
the subject:
Of course languages evolve, and of course they become more useful as
they do so. The introduction of new words and phrases, such as "smog",
"rush hour", etc. obviously improves a language. A shift in meaning
(the word "organized" once meant "drunk") can also be quite useful.
But too often languages degenerate purely through sloppy usage and a
desire to use a less-common word whose meaning the writer isn't really
certain of, but which sounds good. The most obvious example is the use
of the word "infer" to mean "imply". The two words mean different--in
some sense opposite--things. To slur their meanings together removes a
useful distinction from the language. Alas, Webster's Third
International does just that (and commits other egregious sins--get an
American Heritage dictionary instead!). Another distinction--this one
a lost battle, I guess--is the difference between "verbal" and "oral".
There was a time when "verbal" wasn't just a fancy synonym for "oral";
"verbal" referred to words in any form (thus, Human-nets and Sf-lovers
are almost entirely verbal forms of communication). Now that no one
knows that anymore, what word can I use instead when I want to talk
about words apart from their oral or written forms?
Then there's "flout" vs. "flaunt," and "jejune" (which once meant
"insubstantial, dull, unsatisfying"--but because of its resemblance to
"jeune" people started using it to mean mean "immature, childish"
too). I could go on, but others have done it better. I guess I'm just
getting old and cranky. I already have a hard time convincing some of
my friends that "its" is sometimes spelled without an apostrophe (and
not just when it refers to the Incompatible Time-sharing System)...
Dan Franklin
------------------------------
Date: 27 May 1981 14:49:00-PDT
From: vax135!mh135a!rba at Berkeley via
Subject: Influencing Language
The existence of verbal conditioning (that people will imitate other
people in the words they use) is well established by experimental
psychologists and not too surprising. Beyond that, psychological
research has focused on: (1) the issue of how aware people are of this
imitation (do they imitate on purpose or as a result of subliminal
processes); and,(2) whether imitation of anything more complex than
word usage (e.g. grammatical structures) occurs. For a review of the
literature see "Principles of Behavior Modification" by A. Bandura,
pp. 568-577.
Bob Allen
------------------------------
Date: 25 May 1981 06:14:17-PDT
From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley via
Subject: Flaming/Gay vocabulary
Greg, I hadn't noticed too much use of the word "flame" on the net
except for a brief period just prior to your article. Some, yes, but
not to excess. As for the drop-off afterwords -- well, you're
probably right, it's probably homophobia. But usage is picking up
again; maybe it's still curable.
--Steve Bellovin
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 06:33:38-PDT
From: decvax!duke!unc!bch at Berkeley via
Subject: origins of flame
It strikes me that you folks are making an etymological mountain out
of a molehill. I seem to remember using the term "flaming as....le"
in which the word "flaming" had precisely the same connotation as it
does in hackerese in the late 1950's and very early 60's. Later, the
usage seems to have been shortened to "flamer," hence the verb "to
flame" as logical fallout. I don't believe the term came out of any
particular subculture or at least was not adopted directly from any
particular subculture before it was in the general slang heap.
More interesting to me are words in hackerese which replace other made
up words in general use (i.e. "frob" for "gizmo.", "foobar" (fubar)
for "snafu", and so on.) I don't believe there is historical
precedent for replacing linguistic artifacts with other linguistic
artifacts, but then computer folk always did like re-inventing the
wheel.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #111
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-06-03 23:42:48 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Wednesday, 3 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 111
Today's Topics:
Administrivia - Content of Human-Nets,
Left Handed Sugar - Isomer Chemistry
& Heavy Water Biology & Reversing Matter
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 06/03/81 00:49:19
From: The Moderator
Subject: Submissions to Human-Nets
Increasingly, Human-Nets has become a broader and broader
discussion, until now there are clearly people that view the list as
a place to discuss whatever happens to be on their mind. To a certain
extent, this may be due to the age of the list. Perhaps we have
discussed so much of the area directly related to our supposed
subject, that it is difficult to find new ideas in those areas.
I have been receiving complaints recently, about the
randomness of the topics discussed in Human-Nets. Consider,
(especially just before you send that message!), that over 3,000
people will be reading it. Does it really have anything to say? Roger
Duffey established the policy of never rejecting a message that wasn't
in some way out and out objectionable. Since then, the list has grown,
and the incidence of submitted messages, which say nothing of
interest, EVEN ON THE TOPIC THEY PURPORT TO DISCUSS, has grown
sharply. The combination of the breadth of the discussion, and the
high ratio of nonsense to informative, interesting messages, is
causing a real problem in that they grossly slow down the exchanges,
and annoy a good many people, particularly those with slow terminals.
Please think a little longer before sending in an off-the-cuff
comment, or a message that really doesn't make any point.
I should never have allowed the left handed sugar discussion
to take place. I first published the reprint of the news article
because someone had sent it in, it wasn't objectionable, and I even
thought there might be a fairly wide interest in it. Unfortunately,
the latter was all too true. I really had not thought that a
discussion was appropriate over the list. However, all of these people
worked hard on the messages, so here they are. Please, keep further
discussion among yourselves, as it really has no relevance to
Human-Nets. Thankyou,
Don
------------------------------
Date: 21 May 1981 04:36 edt
From: JSLove at MIT-Multics (J. Spencer Love)
Subject: Re: Jerry Leichter's message on sugars
Your memory of chemistry is faulty. There are LOTS of ways to hang 6
water molecules worth of atoms on 6 carbons; these are called isomers.
Glucose (also called dextrose), fructose (also called levulose) and
mannose are just three; there are many others. Those three are all
"right handed" sugars; none are mirror images of each other. My CRC
gives fucose as a left-handed sugar; where it occurs I don't know.
Then there are the 12-carbon sugars, of which sucrose, maltose, and
lactose are examples. And 18-carbon sugars like raffinose. Sucrose
is glucose + fructose - H2O, while maltose appears to be glucose +
glucose - H2O. Unfortunately, this is an oversimplification: my CRC
gives alpha and beta forms for glucose, with slightly different
characteristics.
Lactose is a 12-carbon sugar that can be found in milk and that some
people lack the enzyme to digest. Actually, most people lose it when
milk stops being a significant component of their diet, but lacking it
is much more critical at age 3 weeks. I don't know if it is a
component in milk allergies, but if it is, then it would be an example
of a toxic sugar isomer. It would be nice to know whether any mirror
image sugars (of nontoxic sugars) are toxic; I expect we will find out
soon.
As I remember it (my term to go out on a limb), we can only metabolize
(that is, make ATP using) one sugar isomer: dextro-glucose (by various
pathways), so to utilize another sugar we must have an enzyme to mung
it into one or more glucose molecules. That is why fructose is said
to be better for you; the conversion acts as a bottleneck and causes
the glucose to be released into your system more gradually, which is
less of a shock to the regulatory mechanisms. Of course, any isomer
that we lack the enzyme to convert is just so much bulk (like adding
cellulose to food). This difference is more subtle than simple
"sugarness", so it isn't surprising that levulo-glucose can't be
converted. At least it's safer than eating antimatter...
How are calorie counts calculated for such foods? The energy is there
but inaccessible. For some foods I have read that simple burning will
suffice, measuring the heat produced, but this fails when much
cellulose is present, and indigestible sugars will make it worse. Are
there microorganisms that are cultured for this purpose that have
similar digestive capabilities to homo sapiens?
I have read of an amino acid combination that tastes sweet, although
you can't heat it up much or it denatures. It seems the critical
thing is some bond angles on the sugar, which any compound might
duplicate. So it seems quite plausible that the mirror image of
glucose would taste identical to glucose; same for sucrose.
Would some PRACTICING biochemist like to set the record straight by
typing in a list of six and twelve carbon sugars, the breakdown of the
more complex ones,and their handednesses (if different from the
right-handedness that has been repeatedly mentioned in this forum for
glucose)? Toxicity and sweetness levels would be nice, too, but I
guess that diagrams showing exactly how all the isomers differ would
be too much to ask (tho you could include a reference, a CRC is pretty
useless for this). Thanks...
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 2005-EDT (Thursday)
From: Mark.Sherman at CMU-10A
Subject: Left vs. Right Handed Substances
During the sugar discussions, I got the impression that some people
were not convinced that different stereochemistries of a substance
could have different effects in the body. According to the Wasacz in
the latest copy of American Scientist, morphine comes in both left
handed (levorotatory) and right handed (dextrorotatory) forms, but
only left handed morphine is analgesic and addicting.
-Mark
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 (Thursday) 0754-EST
From: RUBENSTEIN at HARV-10
Subject: Heavy Water and isomers
Since deuterium is heavier than normal hydrogen, reactions involving
it are slower when the hydrogen is involved in the rate limiting step.
Certain enzymatic reactions are slowed considerably when run in heavy
water; the example that comes to mind is the family of sugar
isomerases which are slowed by something like 45%. The net effect of
all this, if I remember correctly, is a horrible, retching death after
12 to 16 hours, with LD50 around 150 or 200 ml for adults. I don't
have a Merck Index handy, but that's what I remember.
As to mirrors, would your mirror change a positive to a negative
charge? No? Then don't worry about that anti-matter explosion. The
difference between matter and anti-matter is more than handedness.
The spin would reverse, but most stable systems consist of pairs of
electrons with opposite spin. Likewise for nuclear spin (unless
you're in a magnetic field of the tens of kilogauss variety).
Hope this clears up a few misunderstandings.
Stew
Btw, heavy water always struck me as a really neat murder weapon. 200
mls isn't that expensive (about $80). Who ever heard of doing a mass
isotopic abundancy analysis during an autopsy?
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 (Thursday) 1607-EST
From: RUBENSTEIN at HARV-10
Subject: Heavy Water and isomers
Upon checking my source, I have to admit that my memory of the lethal
dose of heavy water was based on an oft-repeated myth. According to
Merck Index, Heavy water is considered non-toxic, though it stunts the
growth of mammals on prolonged exposure, presumably due to the
slowdown of enzymatic reactions.
Too bad, I still think it would have made a great murder weapon.
Almost as good as the dagger made of ice.
Stew
------------------------------
Date: 05/28/81 08:08:22
From: TK@MIT-AI
Subject: Heavy Water
Deuterium oxide (heavy water) is poisonous, and will kill you when
consumed such that your total water intake is about 60% D2O. The bug
is apparently the rather subtle change in the hydrogen bonding, which
makes things like DNA work.
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 06:11:15-PDT
From: decvax!duke!unc!smb at Berkeley via
Subject: sterioisomers
About Will Martin's query on deuterium: I'm a little skeptical that it
would have much effect, but it might. For one thing, biologists often
tag molecules with tritium, and I've never heard that this interferes
with their function. On the other hand, the ratio of O-16 to O-18 is
used as a clue to climate in the past, so there is SOME effect there.
Incidentally, not all science fiction writers have neglected the
anti-matter problem. The reversing machine in Zelazny's "Doorways in
the Sand" was described second n-axial inversion unit. It seems that
the first one lacked a "particle exceptor program"....
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 11:26:42-EDT
From: cjh at CCA-UNIX (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: chemistry and reversal
As an ex-chemist, my first remark about the alleged problems of
deuterated water (i.e., \\not// tritiated, which would be radioactive)
is that it's almost certainly nonsense. The problem is that the old
definition of isotopes as those forms of an element that were not
separable by chemical means is fading as the boundaries between
physics and chemistry are fading; the latest CHEMICAL & ENGINEERING
NEWS reports from the last national ACS meeting that someone has found
a reaction that behaves differently if several of the hydrogens are
replaced with tritium. Since this is still a relatively subtle
difference, I strongly doubt that it supports the idea that deuterated
water would not serve the same physiological functions as ordinary
water. Biochemical reactions are primarily a matter of sizes, shapes,
and relative concentrations, and the size, shape, and molecules/space
of heavy water are all \\very// close to those of ordinary water.
With regard to the proposed sugars, the first question is what
process is used; the FDA has standards for decaffeinated coffee, for
instance, because decaf is sometimes made by dissolving out the
caffeine from the beans with methylene chloride, which is \\not//
something you want to consume. Any process that would invert a normal
sugar would be fairly drastic chemically, so the same standards
against residuals would apply. Of equal concern is the effect of
another indigestible substance on the body; the low-bulk American
standard diet has disadvantages but a high-bulk diet is not without
problems either. (This is more of a concern for the plan to bind the
sugars to indigestible polymers.) Also, when I was doing some
research several years ago in producing a preponderance of one optical
isomer of a given amino acid, I remember being told that some of the
mirror images of necessary amino acids were known to be toxic; without
any preexisting information the FDA is right to be concerned about
this. If the manufacturing proposals were simply to sort out an
isomer from a mixture of sugars known to be tolerable, there wouldn't
be a problem; but I don't think that is the case.
------------------------------
Date: 28 May 1981 at 0842-PDT
Subject: Reversal Symmetry
From: zaumen.tscb at Sri-Unix
There is a technical error in Bruce Lucas's comment about
mirror images: the mirror-image of matter in not anti-matter because
anti-matter differs in other quantum numbers besides parity (such as
lepton number, baryon number, etc).
The confusion is over symmetries: Certain physical laws are
invarient under parity (mirror-imaging), others are invarient under
charge-reversal, and others under time-reversal. It turns out that
all of these seem to hold for the strong interactions (nuclear forces)
and all of these fail (individually) for the weak interactions.
Quantum field theory predicts (assuming only causality) that all
physical laws are invarient under the combination of all three
symmetries (CPT invarience). So far, CPT is the only one that works
in every known case, and if that fails, either relatavistic quantum
mechanics or causality is in serious trouble.
------------------------------
Date: 05/28/81 17:38:40
From: KWH@MIT-AI
Subject: Reversing atoms?
:flame
Huh? The mirror image of matter is antimatter? You're confusing
topological and physical terminology- The mirror image and fourth
dimensional twisting, and the handedness issue is all a part of
topology- Look at your right hand- and your left hand- and try to
transform them into each other. The difference between them is
topological, and you can't do it, by the same token that by twisting a
right-hand glove around, you can't fit it on your left hand. You can
flip a two-dimensional object from right to left handed, by just
flipping it over (Physically) But you can only flip a three
dimensional object over in a fourth spacial dimension- (You can also
flip a two dimensional object over, however, by running it over a
mobius strip, and if you jam yourself through a Klein bottle, you will
flip around)
But you still wouldn't be made of antimatter- Matter is RADIALLY
symmetric, with electrons around a positive nucleus, antimatter is
similar, but with postive particles around a negative nucleus, but in
either case, flipping gets you nowhere- How can you have a
"right-handed" ball? Flipping it does nothing.
However, there is a neat theory by Feynaman that proposes antimatter
is regular matter moving backwards in time... Maybe that's why we
don't have visitors from the future, they start up the time machine
and blow the earth and themselves to pieces.....
:unflame
Ken Haase
------------------------------
Date: 29 May 1981 (Friday) 0324-EDT
From: SHRAGE at WHARTON-10 (Jeffrey Shrager)
Subject: ragus desrever
I suspect that this entire conversation belongs in SFL but... Firstly,
who says that sending someone thru a reversal machine will reverse
down to the subnuclear level? Did you build the machine? Do you have
any idea how it works? Maybe is has a LOOP UNTIL LEVEL=ATOMIC in it
someplace. Also, what would the result be if we went and reversed
even deeper than the anti-matter level? Can you reverse quarks? Can
you even reverse anything lower than a molecule in the isomeric sense
(probably not). At lower levels you're dealing with spins and
resultant charges rather than structure but I don't think that anyone
really knows what's what down there so maybe the structure of a proton
dictates the charge.
As to the FDA's legal rights and their interpretation of the law...
given half a chance, they'd outlaw distilled water!
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************
From: DERWAY@MIT-ML (DERWAY@MIT-ML)
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #112
Newsgroups: fa.human-nets
Date: 1981-06-04 20:47:34 PST
HUMAN-NETS AM Digest Friday, 5 Jun 1981 Volume 3 : Issue 112
Today's Topics:
Admistrivia - This List & Goodbye,
FYI - Personal Work Stations Mailing List,
Query Replies - Xerox Star,
Communicating via Network - Human Nets topics
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 6 June 81, 22:34 EDT
From: The Moderator
Subject: This list, and so long.
Sorry for the lengthy administrivia, but I need to explain a
bit further some of my comments in the previous issue. First of all,
though I did not realize it, Roger Duffey was doing considerably more
topic control than I have been doing. He would suggest to people that
a message would be more appropriate on another list, or whatever he
felt was the right thing to do. I had been under the impression that
the only time I should refuse a message is when it was blatantly
unacceptable, like an advertisement, personal insult, etc. Thus, I
"invented" the FYI section, for items submitted which were not of
direct relevence to any ongoing discussion, but which seemed to be of
a fairly broad interest. The problem is that discussions often take
off from these starting points, and the discussions would be more
appropriate in another forum. For example, with the Left Handed Sugar
discussion, SF-Lovers would have been more appropriate, since the
overlap between that list and this is quite high, and those on
Human-Nets, but not on SF-Lovers are just those that would not be
interested in the Left Handed Sugar discussion. Similiarly, the
various BBoards may be more appropriate destinations for items of
general interest, but not related to telematics, or one of the major
sub-areas that have grown in this list. I realized too late that I was
opening the door for a meta-discussion, i.e. a discussion on what we
should be discussing. I hope it will not interfere with the ongoing
discussions too long.
This will be the last digest that I will moderate. I leave
tomorrow for Los Angeles to work at JPL for the summer. I have truly
enjoyed the interaction with all of you, and appreciate all the
support, as well as the criticisms, which were always helpful. I hope
that I have done an acceptable job with moderating, though I know it
was far from ideal. This is definitely an on the job training program,
because there simply are no set rules by which one might operate.
There will probably be a several day hiatus in the digests, with the
new moderator starting early next week. I wish you all a good summer,
and look forward to being among you again next fall, (as a
contributor/ reader!). Thankyou,
Don
------------------------------
Date: 2 Jun 1981 (Tuesday) 1906-EDT
From: DREIFU at WHARTON-10 (Henry Dreifus)
Subject: Announcing Apollo@MIT-AI mailing list.
A new list to discuss personal workstations is being formed. The
discussion will be centered around the Apollo computer, but not
restricted. The hope is to discuss what a personal workstation should
be, and review the existing systems available.
Currently being discussed are:
Xerox Star
Perq
Apollo
Alto
If you are interested send mail to APOLLO-REQUEST@MIT-AI. Pass along
to anyone also interested.
Henry Dreifus
------------------------------
Date: 05/26/81 10:10:43
From: REM@MIT-MC
Subject:interesting trivia about the XEROX star
Indeed, it makes a difference. If gateways are provided in the
standard package of the star, so random people getting them can form
larger networks, or even if hardware and software for gateways is
provided as a standard pay-extra option, that's good. But if gateways
exist only internally at XEROX, and commercial users must start from
scratch and design some program to act as an interface, can't even
request the XEROX modems and software because they aren't available
for release, then each star local-net will be isolated from each other
and from the world of true networking (arpanet, tymnet, telenet, et
al) for a long time.
------------------------------
Date: 05/27/81 14:51:29
From: DLW@MIT-MC
Subject: Xerox STAR
Someone just reported that he was told by Xerox salespeople that you
can't just buy a single Star; you have to buy a $25K file server and
an equally expensive hardcopy device in order to actually do anything.
However, it says here in the Seybold Report (v. 10 # 16 27 Apr 81)
"Star can operate as a self-contained, stand-along workstation. For
an additional cost, you could plug in a Diablo 630 daisy wheel printer
and have a super-powerful word processor". Although the Report goes
on to explain that in reality, the intended mode of usage of the Star
is as a node on a network of many Stars plus some shared resources, it
does sound like you can buy just one and still do good things with it.
Does anyone know more about what the real story is?
I am also very interested in just what the Star provides in the way of
interactive, incremental text justification. The Seybold Report
article is very informative but still leaves a whole lot of
interesting questions in my mind. Does anyone know if the text
justification tools in the Star perform automatic chapter-numbering
and section-numbering, generation of tables of contents, indexes, and
cross-references, and are these things done incrementally or not?
Also, when you edit graphics (draw diagrams), do you actually edit
them in place in the midst of your text, and do they display that way
as you edit them and edit the text?
------------------------------
Date: 05/29/81 00:49:39
From: PHOTOG@MIT-MC
Subject: a clarification of xerox star 'trivia' comments
in response to a comeback from an mit user
I should have defined my terms better, my use of the word 'toy' in
describing the gateway link in use at Xerox PARC to access ARPA via a
dal-server was a complementary statement. a 'toy' is (to me) a
computer machine, program, device, peripheral, operating system, etc.
that everyone and their brother/sister would love to have. But,
political, economical, and/or marketing considerations may prevent or
delay the release of the desirable item. How long have people been
drooling over smalltalk waitng for Xerox to either license it or dnate
it to the public domain? How long have we waited for UNIX to hit the
micro market? (A feat technologically feasible many moons ago....)
Finally, the comment about stars was a bit of humor. I am assamed that
you think I am not aware that the star / ethernet is a local area
network (rather than a star or master/slave network)
also, to answer a query, the actual interface to the ethernet is
usually accomplished by a dedicated controller. A new company,
founded by the Zeus and Father of ethernet, Mr. Metcalf, is making a
black box interface for ethernet. The name of the company is 3com,
and they are out to give all ethernet's PCM vendors the tools they
need. Of curse, they (curse may be a freudian slip) are planning
their own servers, etc.
the really big ethernet issue is, when and/or if, will xerox publish
or comit to higher levels of interface standards that allow brand a
prnters to make sense out of brand b spool files. I.E. ethernet
currently defnes low-level electrical and packet frame interfaces but
none of the higher levels such as those of the 'Open Systems
Architecture' model for inter-connecting different computers .
--spiv--
------------------------------
Date: 03 Jun 1981 1122-PDT
From: Jorge Phillips
Subject: administrivia
Although I am personally not interested in chemistry discussions over
the net I disagree with the moderator's recent displeasure with
message content. Even if we have shifted away from discussing human
networks, we are getting a first hand EXPERIENCE of what they are
through this mailing list. No amount of ``a priori'' theorizing of
their nature has as much explanatory power as personal experience. By
observing what happens when connectivity is provided to a large mass
of people in which they can FREELY voice their ideas, doubts, and
opinions, a lot of insight is obtained into very important issues of
mass intercommunication. The fact that such disimilar topics as
antimatter, left-handed sugar, the telephone network, etc. have been
discussed in our own instance of a human network says a lot about its
nature and the interests and nature of its members and should not be
considered as detracting from the quality of the discussion.
Rather than censoring messages, I propose that this mailing list
support free speech and encourage lots of different topics. When a
topic gets out of hand (like for example left-handed sugar and related
chemistry) the people involved in its discussion should form a new
subnetwork (which of course in our primitive version of a human
network takes the form of a new mailing list). All further discussion
on the topic will go through the newly created communication path.
The decision of when a topic is getting out of hand should be a
consensual decision among the members of the particular network, to be
enforced by the moderator. The people interested in the topic can
then decide the best way to discuss their own interests, and manage
their discussion. I would like to see HUMAN-NETS adopt this policy.
A human network is a springboard for human interaction and thus for
human action. Lets view it as such and keep repression and censorship
at a minimum.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 1981 at 1636-PDT
Subject: Topics for Discussion
From: zaumen.tscb at Sri-Unix
With regard to the Moderator's editorial comment about
irrelevant discussion topics, I would like to suggest that if a topic
appears in a large number of messages, one automatically assumes that
that topic is of interest. Ideally, human-nets should have an index
or table of contents so that readers can look only at what interests
them. Since most of us (including me) do not have the software to
support such a structure, perhaps we should break human-nets up into a
series of related mailing lists with a common table of contents
replicated in each list (so one can decide which of the sublists to
read). Alternatively, one of the sublists could be a table of
contents. Presumably, each human-nets reader would receive all the
sublists at once. Perhaps the subject field in the sublist would
contain the specific subject area. Thus, one could easily delete the
sublist containing all the comments on left-handed sugar or whatever
as desired. Sublists could be added or dropped as interests changed
without altering the human-nets mailing list.
Any thoughts on the best way to implement this (or which of
the many conceivable variations is best)?
Bill
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jun 1981 0750-PDT
Subject: Re: HUMAN-NETS Digest V3 #111
From: the tty of Geoffrey S. Goodfellow
I'd like to register my feeling on the matter that i found the Left
Handed sugar discussion very interesting and the fact that if it
wasn't mentioned in HUMAN-NETs i would have missed it. hence, i thank
you for letting it go over HUMAN-NETS, and hope things like it in the
future will be permitted as well.
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jun 1981 19:46:17-PDT
From: ARPAVAX.ghb at Berkeley
Subject: I agree with Don.
Don's comment about some of the messages that have been
showing up in human-nets echoes my feelings. Some of the messages
seen recently seem to have the tone of showing off the author's
knowledge of some topic. Many topics have been beaten to death, and
yet one still sees letters on the subject. I understand the desire to
get our two cents in (that's what I am doing right now), but we all
have to keep the purpose of these mailing lists in mind.
Just thought I would give Don some moral support.
-george Bray
PS. Someone somewhere on the net has been trying to send me something
for about the last week. What-ever it is, the protocol has confused
our old network server, and all I have recieved for the last week is
776 (so far; they come every 20 minutes) Sender Aborted Connection
messages. If someone reading this has tried to send me mail and I
haven't replied, it's only the Ing70 getting confused.
------------------------------
End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
************************