HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: bevans@carina.unm.edu (Mathemagician)
Subject: Re: Sex Change
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 10:53:34 GMT
Organization: Society for the Preservation of E. coli

In article <BtMq3D.n1M@acsu.buffalo.edu> kriman@acsu.buffalo.edu (Alfred M. Kriman) writes:
>Some of the following is sure to be inaccurate, since memory is fallible,
>but hey, that's what the net is for!
>   Let's be a little less abstract here.  In the Dominican Republic, where
>every instance is traceable to a single ancestor, it is widely appreciated
>in the one affected "tribe" (or whatever; I'm wearing my asbestos) that
>being male is more fun and less drudgery than being female.  The adolescent
>boys who carry this genetic defect are simply thrilled to discover that
>they will have all the perquisites and indolent pleasures of being male.

No, it isn't widely appreciated (well, that depends upon how you
define "fun" and "drudgery.")  It is true that the males lead a much
more "carefree" lifestyle whereas the females are more restricted, but
there is some debate as to whether or not the females think the males
"have it good" (as my source put it, "thinking that it's nice to be a
girl in a world where men are constantly botching things up.")

>The phenomenon is called "huevos a doce" (_eggs_ at [age] twelve).

No, it's "guevedoce" syndrome...which means, literally, "*penis* at
twelve years of age" (emphasis mine) or, alternatively, "machihembra"
("first woman, then man").

J. Imperato-McGinley did a study of 38 subjects with guevedoce
syndrome in the Domincan Republic.  Of these 38, 18 had been raised as
girls, had gone through puberty, and were available for detailed
interviewing.  All 18, according to interviews with the 18 subjects,
their siblings, parents, neighbors, and girlfriends, were raised
unambiguously as girls.  In 17, the gender identity gradually changed
over several years, beginning before 12 years of age, as they began to
feel and look like men.  In 16 of the subjects, there eventually
occurred a switch to a male gender role at an average age of 16, and
15 of these eventually lived with a woman.  They were capable of
intercourse but haven't fathered children.

(_Hormones:  The Messengers of Life,_ Lawrence Crapo, Stanford Alumni
Association for the Portable Stanford [note, in previous postings
where I have mentioned this book, I may have claimed the publisher to
be the Stanford Press, not the Stanford Alumni Association.  I regret
this error.])

-- 
Brian Evans                |     "Bad mood, bad mood...Sure I'm in a bad mood!
bevans@carina.unm.edu      |      I haven't had sex...*EVER!*" -- Virgin Mary
Xref: sparky sci.edu:944 comp.lang.logo:191
From: chuck@ksr.com (Chuck Shavit)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,comp.lang.logo
Subject: Re: Children's Comp. Sci. education
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:05:46 EDT
Organization: Kendall Square Research Corp.

In article <17lq4tINN7uv@agate.berkeley.edu> bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey) writes:
>People who use Logo with very young children often set up a simple procedure
>that allows the child to "drive" the turtle with single keystrokes.  For
>example:
>
>to instant
>make "char readchar
>if :char = "F [fd 10]
>if :char = "B [bk 10]
>if :char = "L [lt 15]
>if :char = "R [rt 15]
>if :char = "U [penup]
>if :char = "D [pendown]
>instant
>end


I am asking the following question for the purpose of learning something
new, and not for provocation.

Why would you want to teach Logo to very young children?  As I understand
it, Logo is a tool for developing math and programming skills.  But at the
level described above, it seems to me that there is very little educational
(math and programming) value to a session in which the very young kid press
some buttons on the keyboard and watch the effect on a graphics display.
Would it not be more educational to use more entertaining games that are
not related to a computer (I could think of a dozen of so board and card
games that develop the concepts of counting, addition etc.), or computer
educational games like Number Maze et el?

Maybe a more general question is what is the optimal age (or skill level,
if you like), if any, to introduce Logo to kids?

One last question: did any of the netters have any bad experience in
exposing a kid to Logo before he or she was ready for it?



Chuck Shavit
chuck@ksr.com
From: Antoine@osd.ulaval.ca (Antoine Gautier)
Newsgroups: sci.edu
Subject: Re: An Agenda for Education in Scientific Visualization
Date: 2 Sep 92 16:39:58 GMT
Reply-To: Antoine@osd.ulaval.ca    (Antoine Gautier)
Organization: Universite Laval

In article <1992Aug28.124357.13043@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE>  
domik@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Gitta Domik) writes:
>  
>                         Call for Participation
>                         half day workshop on
>            "An Agenda for Education in Scientific Visualization"
>                  to take place at Visualization '92, 
>                   October 20 (Tuesday afternoon), 
>                            Boston, MA.
>  

HELP!! what IS Scientific Visualization?
thks

puzzled
Xref: sparky sci.edu:933 alt.folklore.science:3151
From: asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi (Antti Siivonen)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: 2nd law not taught in the ex - Eastern block?
Date: 26 Aug 92 11:47:04 GMT
Organization: University of Joensuu

ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:

>I recently heard from a friend that some universities in what used to be
>the Eastern block did not teach the second law of thermodynamics to
>their students, because that was seen to collide with Marxist philosophy
>that the world was going to perfection, and was therefore politically
>incorrect to the highest degree. He also mentioned that Goedel's theorem
>was taught to be fallacious, for the same reason. Is this true?

	I suppose it isn't true. I'm myself from Leningrad. I don't have 
	noticed it. 
-- 

		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint

	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !
Xref: sparky sci.edu:935 alt.folklore.science:3157
From: baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: 2nd law not taught in the ex - Eastern block?
Date: 26 Aug 92 16:14:18 GMT
Reply-To: baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Organization: LMSC, Sunnyvale, California

In article <1992Aug26.114704.6663@cs.joensuu.fi>, asiivo@cs.joensuu.fi 
(Antti Siivonen) writes:
>ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:
>
>>I recently heard from a friend that some universities in what used to be
>>the Eastern block did not teach the second law of thermodynamics to
>>their students, because that was seen to collide with Marxist philosophy
>>that the world was going to perfection, and was therefore politically
>>incorrect to the highest degree. He also mentioned that Goedel's theorem
>>was taught to be fallacious, for the same reason. Is this true?
>
>	I suppose it isn't true. I'm myself from Leningrad. I don't have 
>	noticed it. 
>-- 
>
>		Andreas - Siperian Sirri   Siberian Stint
>
>	No ITU, love, evolution.           Tuusniemi ! Siis imein suut !

Although, when I was in college I had heard a story (with attributed quotes, 
which makes it more credible) about the communist party originally rejecting
the concept that there was no ether (a hypothesized medium through which
light waves were supposed to propagate) and therefore no absolute (true 
rest) frame of reference for motion, because the idea that there are no 
absolutes is contrary to the principal of dialectic materialism.
Time frame on this story is a good 80 years ago, but tall tales might
have stretched it to the story Koenig told.


RB
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
From: amconn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Subject: Re: Sartre's 3 laws ( was Re: 2nd law not taught etc)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 15:31:01 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville

In article <1992Sep2.022653.28657@u.washington.edu>, grimjack@milton.u.washington.edu (Leslie Basel) writes:
> 
> I am not really sure who it was who came up with this redefinition of
> the 3 laws but I like 'em anyhow:
>   1) You can't win,
> 
>   2) You can't break even,
> 
>   3) You can't get out of the game.
>

Good laws, but regarding #3: Suicide is painless (as the song goes)

Connor/Castigat ridendo mores
 
Newsgroups: sci.edu,comp.lang.logo
From: pete@bignode.equinox.gen.nz (Pete Moore)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: 2nd law not taught in the ex - Eastern block?
Date: 28 Aug 92 14:24:29 +1200
Reply-To: pete@bignode.equinox.gen.nz
Organization: Equinox Networks
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com writes:
>
>Although, when I was in college I had heard a story (with attributed quotes, 
>which makes it more credible) about the communist party originally rejecting
>the concept that there was no ether (a hypothesized medium through which
>light waves were supposed to propagate) and therefore no absolute (true 
>rest) frame of reference for motion, because the idea that there are no 
>absolutes is contrary to the principal of dialectic materialism.
>Time frame on this story is a good 80 years ago, but tall tales might
>have stretched it to the story Koenig told.

The following is quoted without permission from Banesh Hoffman's biography
`Einstein':
  In 1965-67 the Russians brought out the complete scientific works of
  Einstein in 4 volumes ... But in earlier days Communist officialdom had
  never quite known what line to take about Einstein's theory of relativity.
  In 1952 a Soviet Academician attacked it as being contrary to Dialectical
  materialism, the philosophical basis of Marxism, and he chided certain
  Soviet scientists for supporting Einstein's theory. On receiving a letter
  about this, Einstein replied in lighthearted vein, saying that it had
  cheered him up considerably.

The promotion of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union during the same period is
probably the most notorious example of this kind of thing.  
--
 +-------------------  pete@bignode.equinox.gen.nz  -------------------+
 | The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things |
 | that lifts human life above the level of farce, and gives it some   |  
 | of the grace of tragedy   -  Steven Weinberg                        |
 +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
Xref: sparky sci.edu:957 alt.folklore.science:3214
From: eirvine@metz.une.edu.au (Edward Irvine, , ,(Oz) 067 73 2039)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Neat graphics
Date: 2 Sep 92 03:38:45 GMT
Reply-To: eirvine@metz.une.edu.au
Followup-To: sci.edu
Originator: eirvine@metz.une.edu.au

I am doing some high school lessons on computer graphics.  Can anyone
recommend some ftp'able pictures of:

	*	Space probes flying into space (computer generated
		graphics).
	*	Landsat images.
	*	anything else that ties in computer graphics
		and space flight.

Thanks in advance.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------


But what if the whole thing is conscious ?           eirvine@metz.une.edu.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.edu
From: hadgraft@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au (Roger Hadgraft, Civil staff, ext 4983)
Subject: PBL - Problem-Based Learning
Organization: Faculty of Engineering, Monash University 
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 01:53:28 GMT


If you have an interest in the application of PBL to education, you can 
subscribe to the PBL mailing list. Just send a one line message of:

        sub pbl-list firstname lastname

to listserv@eng.monash.edu.au. To get help, send a one line HELP message. To 
send messages, send them to pbl-list@eng.monash.edu.au, and to talk to the 
maintainer of the list (me) send a message to pbl-list-request@eng.monash.
edu.au.


--
Roger Hadgraft, Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering
Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, AUSTRALIA, 3168.
phone: 03 565 4983  fax: 03 565 4944 or 3409 intnl: +61 3 565 ....
e-mail: roger.hadgraft@eng.monash.edu.au
Xref: sparky sci.edu:937 alt.folklore.science:3176
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: 2nd law not taught in the ex - Eastern block?
From: Alexandre Pechtchanski <APPMS@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Date: Thursday, 27 Aug 1992 14:28:39 EDT
Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Supersedes: <92239.115833APPMS@CUNYVM.BITNET>

In article <1992Aug26.023245.11738@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz
(Thomas Koenig) says:
>
>I recently heard from a friend that some universities in what used to be
>the Eastern block did not teach the second law of thermodynamics to
>their students, because that was seen to collide with Marxist philosophy
>that the world was going to perfection, and was therefore politically
>incorrect to the highest degree. He also mentioned that Goedel's theorem
>was taught to be fallacious, for the same reason. Is this true?
>--
>Thomas Koenig, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib09@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
>The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
>diagram.
This is a piece of x-Eastern Europe folklore.  I'm not sure about Goedel's
theorem (most of stuff we were tought was renamed after some russian guy -
"Russia is the motherland of elephants" (quote from something famous in
Russia, don't remember what, sorry), and also it all was pretty long ago
:-( ), but the rumor you heard is not true.  Such things happened all
to often in '40s-'50s: "Cybernetics is a burgeous anti-science",
"Weismanism-Morganism (for genetics) is a capitalistic whore" (translation
from Russian and all awkwardness of it is mine:).  In '60s and later the
trend became more subtle: they didn't drop or forbid ideas which apparently
contradicted marxist ideology; in an exercise of double-talk they "proved"
that there is no contradiction or that "marxist philosophy" dealed with
higher-plane ideas than mere physics, so any contradiction was deemed
apparent only.

Alex "But I finished 3 years at MFTI" Pechtchanski
P.S.  I just recalled that my son, who studied for a year in one of the
Moscow universities quite recently, was not tought anything funny (like
"no 2-nd law" etc.)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
From: grimjack@milton.u.washington.edu (Leslie Basel)
Subject: Sartre's 3 laws ( was Re: 2nd law not taught etc)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 02:26:53 GMT


I am not really sure who it was who came up with this redefinition of
the 3 laws but I like 'em anyhow:
  1) You can't win,

  2) You can't break even,

  3) You can't get out of the game.

Rodger Coghlan

Xref: sparky sci.edu:972 alt.folklore.science:3241
From: enw2049@zeus.tamu.edu (WALKE, ERIK N)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Sartre's 3 laws ( was Re: 2nd law not taught etc)
Date: 4 Sep 92 16:14:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: zeus.4SEP199211141077
Distribution: usa
Organization: Texas A&M University, Academic Computing Services
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Sep2.022653.28657@u.washington.edu>, grimjack@milton.u.washington.edu (Leslie Basel) writes...
> 

>I am not really sure who it was who came up with this redefinition of
>the 3 laws but I like 'em anyhow:

>  1) You can't win,
> 
>  2) You can't break even,
> 
>  3) You can't get out of the game.
> 
>Rodger Coghlan
> 

       At the end of our first semester p-chem course, after many weeks 
       thermodynamics, phase diagrams, enthalpy & entropy, our prof
       gave us this summary of the 3 Laws:


   First Law of Thermodynamics:  You can't win.

   Second Law of       "         You can break even only if you
                                   work at absoloute zero.

   Third Law of        "         You can't work at absolute zero.


***********************************************************************
 All opinions expressed by this user are well-reasoned and insightful. 
  Needless to say, they are not those of his advisor or university.
**************************************************************************
Xref: sparky sci.edu:946 alt.folklore.science:3186
From: baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: 2nd law not taught in the ex - Eastern block?
Date: 28 Aug 92 21:41:39 GMT
Reply-To: baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Organization: LMSC, Sunnyvale, California

In article <pete.036g@bignode.equinox.gen.nz>, pete@bignode.equinox.gen.nz (Pete Moore) writes:
>baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com writes:
>>
>>Although, when I was in college I had heard a story (with attributed quotes, 
>>which makes it more credible) about the communist party originally rejecting
>>the concept that there was no ether (a hypothesized medium through which
>>light waves were supposed to propagate) and therefore no absolute (true 
>>rest) frame of reference for motion, because the idea that there are no 
>>absolutes is contrary to the principal of dialectic materialism.
>>Time frame on this story is a good 80 years ago, but tall tales might
>>have stretched it to the story Koenig told.
>
>The following is quoted without permission from Banesh Hoffman's biography
>`Einstein':
>  In 1965-67 the Russians brought out the complete scientific works of
>  Einstein in 4 volumes ... But in earlier days Communist officialdom had
>  never quite known what line to take about Einstein's theory of relativity.
>  In 1952 a Soviet Academician attacked it as being contrary to Dialectical
>  materialism, the philosophical basis of Marxism, and he chided certain
>  Soviet scientists for supporting Einstein's theory. On receiving a letter
>  about this, Einstein replied in lighthearted vein, saying that it had
>  cheered him up considerably.
>
>The promotion of Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union during the same period is
>probably the most notorious example of this kind of thing.  

That's what I was trying to remember!! The actual quote included references
to other well-discredited early scientific theories, (maybe the 
spontanious generation of rats from dirty rags & grain?) and would be 
well worth an upload, if only I had it.
Xref: sparky sci.edu:945 comp.lang.logo:192
From: bh@anarres.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Harvey)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,comp.lang.logo
Subject: Re: Children's Comp. Sci. education
Date: 28 Aug 1992 23:56:08 GMT
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: anarres.cs.berkeley.edu

chuck@ksr.com (Chuck Shavit) writes:
>Why would you want to teach Logo to very young children?  As I understand
>it, Logo is a tool for developing math and programming skills.  But at the
>level described above, it seems to me that there is very little educational
>(math and programming) value to a session in which the very young kid press
>some buttons on the keyboard and watch the effect on a graphics display.

Certainly I wouldn't want a kid (or anyone!) to play with Logo *instead of*
having lots of other experiences, both with and without a computer.

Caveat #2:  My teaching experience is all high school and above, so I'm now
talking about my understanding of other people's ideas, not my own work.

I think that the idea of Logo for young kids is partly to get across the idea
of algorithms -- that a repeatable set of instructions causes something repeatable
to happen on the screen -- and also partly to begin developing the ideas of
distance and angle.  The kid who uses an INSTANT program isn't working with
numbers, but is doing a sort of pre-number exploration in which pushing the
button once causes a little change and pushing the button a bunch causes a
bigger change.

Much of this sort of thing has been done by researchers whose interest was to
see just how young a child can be and still understand mathematical things.
(Did you see the article in the news yesterday about some study that seems
to show tiny preverbal kids understanding 1+1=2?)  I'm not terribly interested
in accelerating kids, but it *is* interesting to know what's possible.

By the way, programming skill isn't mostly what Logo is about; the idea is to
use programming in service of the mathematics.  (Although I'm an exception
because I use Logo to teach people computer science.)
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
From: purves@jarthur.claremont.edu (Bill Purves)
Subject: Re: 2nd law -- Marxist science
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 03:56:39 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.003205.7166@ac.dal.ca> mspencer@quasar.sba.dal.ca writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.023245.11738@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz>, 
>      ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig) writes:
>> I recently heard from a friend that some universities in what used to be
>> the Eastern block did not teach the second law of thermodynamics to
>> their students, because that was seen to collide with Marxist philosophy
>... [text omitted]
>
> Related to this is _The Strange Case of the Midwife Toad_
>(very well-known author, but I forget his name...) about a biologist
>named Kammerer with god-faith data appearing to support Lamarkism, a
>murky controversy around him and his subsequent suicide.

The very well-known author is Arthur Koestler.  I believe the actual
title is "The Case of the Midwife Toad."

(bill)

Xref: sparky sci.edu:961 alt.folklore.science:3217
From: baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: Re: Sartre's 3 laws ( was Re: 2nd law not taught etc)
Date: 2 Sep 92 15:55:33 GMT
Reply-To: baylor@force.ssd.lmsc.lockheed.com
Organization: LMSC, Sunnyvale, California

In article <1992Sep2.022653.28657@u.washington.edu>, 
grimjack@milton.u.washington.edu (Leslie Basel) writes:
>
>I am not really sure who it was who came up with this redefinition of
>the 3 laws but I like 'em anyhow:
>  1) You can't win,
>
>  2) You can't break even,
>
>  3) You can't get out of the game.
>
>Rodger Coghlan
>
I rather liked an addendum I heard:
    Every major philosphy designed to make sense of of life relies on 
    denying one of these rules.
	1) Capitalism denies you can't win.
	2) Communism denies you can't break even.
	3) Mysticism denies you can't get out of the game.
Xref: sparky sci.edu:932 alt.folklore.science:3144
Newsgroups: sci.edu,alt.folklore.science
Subject: 2nd law not taught in the ex - Eastern block?
From: ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz (Thomas Koenig)
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 02:32:45 GMT
Organization: University of Auckland, New Zealand.

I recently heard from a friend that some universities in what used to be
the Eastern block did not teach the second law of thermodynamics to
their students, because that was seen to collide with Marxist philosophy
that the world was going to perfection, and was therefore politically
incorrect to the highest degree. He also mentioned that Goedel's theorem
was taught to be fallacious, for the same reason. Is this true?
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ecmtwhk@ccu1.aukuni.ac.nz, ib09@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
Xref: sparky sci.edu:941 comp.lang.logo:189
From: seymour@ast.saic.com (Ken Seymour)
Newsgroups: sci.edu
Subject: Re: Neat graphics
Date: 2 Sep 92 17:13:33 GMT
Organization: SAIC

In article <1789@grivel.une.edu.au> eirvine@metz.une.edu.au writes:
>I am doing some high school lessons on computer graphics.  Can anyone
>recommend some ftp'able pictures of:
>
>	*	Space probes flying into space (computer generated
>		graphics).
>	*	Landsat images.
>	*	anything else that ties in computer graphics
>		and space flight.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>But what if the whole thing is conscious ?           eirvine@metz.une.edu.au
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Try the directory /pub/SPACE/GIF on ames.arc.nasa.gov.

It contains space images from Voyager, Magellan, Galileo and others.
-- 
Ken Seymour
seymour@ast.saic.com
Newsgroups: sci.edu,comp.lang.logo