HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: uucpmap@rutgers.rutgers.edu (UUCP Mapping Project)
Newsgroups: can.uucp.maps
Subject: UUCP map for u.can.ab.2
Date: 8 Nov 92 11:03:49 GMT
Expires: 23 Dec 92 11:03:47 GMT
Supersedes: <Oct.8.07.26.39.1992.12480@cs.toronto.edu>

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: This archive created: Sun Nov  8 06:03:41 1992
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#	u.can.ab.2 : last updated Sun Mar  8 13:20:36 EST 1992
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Newsgroups: can.ai
From: neveu@tintin (Jean-Sebastien Neveu)
Subject: papers needed
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:34:59 GMT


I have to produce pretty soon an oral presentation on an application
of pattern recognition.

I will certainly do bibliographic research on my own but if you have in
mind a particularly good paper on weather prediction or medical diagnosis
that doesn't go too deep in its treatment but is rather a broad overview
of something related to these topics, I'd appreciate if you take the time
to send me the reference.

PS: My News reader seems to have problems with my "To:" line.  My adresse
in the header is not complete.  Take the one in my .sig.

Thanks in advance to all those who will respond.

JS

*:-)

--
/************************************************************************\
* Jean-Sebastien Neveu, ing. jr.  | Humain, sais-tu comme c'est interes- *
* Laboratoire de Genie Logiciel   | sant, cette chose que tu decris ?    *
* Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal | Avata n'a pas de dieu.  Comment se   *
* CP 6079, succ. A,               | fait-il que tu aies un dieu ? Avata  *
* Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3A7       | a le Soi, Avata a cet univers.  Mais *
* Tel: (514) 340-4599             | toi, tu as un dieu.  Ou as-tu trouve *
* FAX: (514) 340-3240             | ce dieu ?              KERRO PANILLE *
* E-Mail: neveu@rgl.polymtl.ca    |           Les traductions de l'Avata *
\************************************************************************/
Newsgroups: can.newprod
From: "steve hartwell" <steve.hartwell@canrem.com>
Subject: what is allowed here?
Reply-To: "steve hartwell" <steve.hartwell@canrem.com>
Organization: Canada Remote Systems
Distribution: can
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:20:07 EST






 Hello All - and powers that govern:

 I would like to learn what is allowed here in the way of advertising
 anything for sale or trade.

 - Does it have to be one's own possession, or can it be commercial ?

 - Can there be UUENCODED GIF's sent by Email thru here ?

 - If so, would/should there be a size limit on # of messages per GIF?

 - Would there be sufficient interest for Email GIF's ?

 - Or is there sufficient interest in access to downloading GIF's ?

 Many thanks for your responses of enlightenment.

 Please reply, including where you saw this message,

 steve.hartwell@canrem.com  <in Toronto, Ontario, Canada>



---
  ACCESS/MAIL 1.00 #0274  Tagline frequencies are Open....
--
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044
Xref: sparky can.general:5316 can.politics:9538 soc.culture.canada:8431
From: dearden@cs.ubc.ca (Richard Dearden)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Proportional representation
Date: 05 Nov 92 18:13:07 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
	<1992Oct31.221944.5501@thinkage.on.ca> <1d9q47INN68t@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca>
	<DRT.92Nov5110502@e51-007-7.mit.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pacific.cs.ubc.ca
In-reply-to: drt@athena.mit.edu's message of Thu, 5 Nov 1992 16:05:21 GMT


Interesting that all this talk about PR should appear here, New
Zealand has just had a referendum on PR, and all of these topics were
pretty thoroughly thrashed out there.

One argument for Single Transferable Vote (STV) type voting schemes is
that they count everyone's votes, thus avoiding the problem with First
Past the Post (FPP) voting, where only a (usually) minority of people
actually end up with any say about which candidate enters parliament.
This is good, although any true PR scheme achieves this. 

  What STV isn't is a PR system. In a PR voting system, the parties
are supposed to get seats in parliament based on the proportion of the
population that supports them. STV in fact tends to achieve exactly
the opposite, and can often perform worse than FPP systems.

  The problems with STV arise because (this is a quote from a
supporter of STV) "I can vote for the candidate I like as my first
choice, and then make my vote count by voting for someone who will get
in with my second choice". This attitude, which STV promotes, leads to
exactly the same candidates being elected as FPP.

David Tucker asks:
>  Is there a better system than these? 

The answer (at least according to the royal commision in New Zealand
that investigated this) is yes. A true PR system such as Mixed Member
Proportional Representation (MMP).

In MMP, everyone makes a single vote for whatever party they support.
In each electorate, the candidate with the most votes is elected to
parliament. In addition, the country-wide total votes for each party
are counted, and extra seats in parliament are allocated to each party
to bring their total representation up to the same level as their
total proportion of the vote.

This means that: 
	Everyone's vote counts
	Parliament is truely proportional.
But:
	It's harder for independants to get elected (since usually
electorates are twice as large as under FPP)
	It's hard to get a majority in parliamnet, so coalition
governments maybe necessary.

For an example of MMP at work, try the German system. Coalition
governments are common, but do not seem to cause a great problem.

Richard Dearden.
Kiwi in exile :-(



Xref: sparky can.general:5305 can.politics:9491 soc.culture.canada:8392
From: ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca (Keith Ramsay)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Voting Systems (was Re: Proportional representation)
Date: 8 Nov 1992 23:02:37 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca

In article <1992Nov8.074732.7435@ee.ubc.ca> jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca 
(John Paul Morrison) writes:
[Regarding the Arrow impossibility theorem:]
>I would like to see how this following system is affected. I believe
>that the theorem you mention can't apply in this case.
[...]
>This is similar to the way shareholders elect a board (but not really,
>so don't bother picking on this point).
>
>1. A voter can only vote for one person, no prioritizing
>2. The candidate is elected if he gets at least one vote.
>3. The candidate is actually a delegate, so in parliament, he or she
>   represents as many votes as they received.

For this voting system the "alternatives" being chosen from, i.e., the
possible outcomes of the vote, include all the possible ways of
selecting a group of delegates, with weights assigned to them (which
total up to the number of voters). It is clearly not allowed for
voters to arrange all of these (zillions of) possibilities in priority
order.

There's no way to express the preference, for instance, of those who
might mainly want some kind of coherence and consensus of purpose in
the parliament, for efficiency, and aren't as concerned about getting
their own first choice of representative into it.

It also fails another condition of the theorem, in that it is possible
for a person to cause an option A to be selected instead of an option
B, by deciding to try to get C instead of D. Suppose there are a
number of us who'd like to vote for Smith, but for whatever reason
we'd rather she not have too much power. If, however, she already has
sufficient votes, then we'd rather vote for Jones.

Let A, B, C, and D be possible compositions of the legislature, where
A differs from B only by Smith getting some of the votes Jones got in
case B, and likewise for C and D, where A and B are alternatives in
which Smith gets enormous power, and C and D are alternatives in which
Smith gets either a modest amount or none at all. The condition
described by the theorem, requiring that changing preferences between
A and B will not affect whether C or D is chosen, is violated by this
voting system. By trying to ensure Smith gets a modicum of influence,
we could end up giving her more than we had wanted, or conversely.

The conditions about "independence of preferences" are in some sense
the stiffest constraints placed by the theorem, and are often
violated. It is often possible for it to be the case that if you
prefer A to B to C, you are well advised to vote as if you prefer B
most of all, so as to make sure that B rather than C occurs.  This
"sophistical voting" is what the Arrow conditions are formulated to
preclude, and the upshot is that there always is a price paid for
avoiding it.

Keith Ramsay
ramsay@unixg.ubc.ca
Newsgroups: can.general,rec.sport.baseball,soc.culture.canada
From: ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn)
Subject: Re: The Upside-Down Canadian Flag
Organization: Not Philips.
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 01:30:20 GMT

In refd article, rstory@elegant.com (Robert Story) writes:
>In article <1992Oct29.181751.2304@bcars6a8.bnr.ca> clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes:
>> The white parts that border the bars aren't equal width.  You fly the flag
>> such that the wide white bordering the diagonal that points to the top of the
>> flagpole is on the flagpole side of the bar....  (rather difficult to explain
>> in English).
>
>I always remember it as "white to the hoist".

The "white" is the white of the St. Andrew's cross.  I always remember it
as "Scottish Supremacy".

-- 
Ray Dunn at home        |  Beaconsfield, Quebec  |  Phone: (514) 630 3749
ray@philmtl.philips.ca  |  dunn@cam.org          |  uunet!sobeco!philmtl!ray
Newsgroups: can.general
From: jdnicoll@prism.ccs.uwo.ca (James Davis Nicoll)
Subject: Re: Why aren't things like plutonium shipments kept secret?
Organization: University of Western Ontario, London
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 21:56:34 GMT




In article <1992Nov11.134036.26973@becker.GTS.ORG> bdb@becker.GTS.ORG (Bruce Becker) writes:

	On plutonium:

>	Aside from being extremely radioactive with a
>	very long half-life [...].

	Could  you please explain how an isotope with
a long half-life can also be highly active?

>	Greenpeace very much represents the concerns
>	of everyone who demand to know what is going
>	on and who want to have a say in it (such as
>	"Plutonium - just say NO"; or the new video,
>	"this is your reactor [picture of atomic reactor]...
>	 this is your reactor on plutonium [picture of
>	 Chernobyl]")


	Oh, yay, informationless scare tactics. By any chance,
will you be using Mr Horton as an example of plutonium, since
he gave such good service as a boogyman for the Republicans?

						James Nicoll
 

Xref: sparky can.general:5322 can.politics:9554 soc.culture.canada:8442
Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 02:56:51 EDT
From: andy <2893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Voting Systems (was Re: Proportional representation)
 <92313.2156392893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> <1992Nov10.055830.12949@ee.ubc.ca>

In article <1992Nov10.055830.12949@ee.ubc.ca>, jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul
Morrison) says:
>
>In article <92313.2156392893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> 2893684@QUCDN.QueensU.CA
>(andy) writes:
>>
>>Is this done on a riding basis or a national basis
>>
>
>what does that have to do with Arrow's theorem? Have you been reading or
>not??
>>
>>How are these people paid. Do all delegates get the same wages, do they all  t
>ge
>> support staff, offices, constituency offices etc. Your system has the
>>potential for dramatically increasing the number of reps we have and the
>>related expenses. Also, you ignore that there is more to being an MP than
>>voting, there is also lobbying on your constituents' behalf and helping them
>>with their problems and bureaucracy. Obviously a riding with 4 MPs has an
>>advantage, even if their delegates votes have the same weight as a riding
>>with one delegate, they are still better represented and have better service
>>and better access to the government and bureaucracy.
>>
>
>Fos crissake, the specifics have nothing to do with whether or not this
>system falls into the range where Arrow's theorem applies. If you had been
>following the discussion, you might have realized that.

testy, not going to win converts with that attitude
>
>If you DO want to discuss details of this hypothetical system, I would
>would suggest that the delegate get payed proportionally to how many votes
>they get.

and how bout staff? Look there is no point in discussing hypotheticals if
they are impractical, there's no point in getting all huffy at questions

>
>Whether or not there is more to being an MP, is a statement of opinion, and
>has no bearing on the theorem.
>
>And "obviously" a riding with 4 MPs has no more advantage over a riding with
>1 MP if the delegates have different numebers of votes to cast. A
>delegate-MP with 400 votes has an equal amount of power as 4 MPs with 100
>votes each.

It does as far as constituency work and access to the bureaucracy goes
there is more to Parliament than voting

>
>>It's a very complicated system whose goals could be better achieved through
>>other methods, like the German model.
>>
>
>the merit was not the topic of discussion. Anyway, it's about as conceptually

Well, if it's not practical, why discuss it?

>complicated as tying your shoelaces, you mange that, or don't you?

I don't usually eat my shoelaces. Try to be less testy when people
dislike your pet theories, and yes, there is more to MPs than voting,
there is constituency work which many constituents feel is important
>________________________________________|_________________________________
Newsgroups: can.general
From: leei@lightning.mcrcim.mcgill.edu (Lee Iverson)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: Proportional representation
Date: 7 Nov 92 20:58:57 GMT
Organization: McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

This discussion is interesting but sadly uninformed.

There is a well-known theorem which essentially says that there is no
system of voting system which accurately reflects a system of
preferences without introducing paradoxes (i.e. situations in which
moving up in the rankings of some subset of voters will actually cause
someone to do worse)!

Although I don't have a quick reference handy, a quick review of our
library's catalog shows a surprising number of books dealing with
exactly this subject, e.g.:

Brams, S.,  Approval Voting JF1001 B72 1983
Nurmi, H., Comparing Voting Systems JA74 N86 1987
Abrams, S., Some Conceptual Problems of Voting Theory JF1001 A25
Merrill, S., Making Multicandidate Elections More Democratic JF1001 M47 1988
Coughlin, P., Probabilistic Voting Theory (new)
Moulin, H., The Strategy of Social Choice HB846.8 M68 1983

I'd suggest that anyone wanting to carry this further check some of these out.

--

Lee Iverson			McGill Research Centre for Intelligent Machines
leei@mcrcim.mcgill.edu		Computer Vision and Robotics Lab
				McGill University, Montreal
Xref: sparky can.general:5291 can.politics:9415
From: close@lunch.wpd.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.politics
Subject: Simpsons Poke
Followup-To: can.general
Date: 6 Nov 1992 18:58:57 GMT
Organization: Self employed, eh.
Distribution: can
NNTP-Posting-Host: lunch.wpd.sgi.com

So did anyone else catch the Simpson's poke at the Canadian referendum
the other night?  I thought it was a cute comment on the general
U.S. lack of interest in Canada.  The details:

Marge is trying to convince Homer to let her take a job at his plant
so they can get enough money to fix their faulty foundation.  In the
midst of the argument Homer grabs the local paper and says something
like "Oh, I can't talk now Marge.  I see Canada is having a
referendum.  Gotta read!"  It's not an exact quote (being from my
day-old memory) but it gets the gist of it across.  Pretty funny,
imho!
-- 
Diane Barlow Close
	close@lunch.wpd.sgi.com 
	I'm at lunch today.  :-)
From: buckland@ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: US Presidential Vote Results
Date: 6 Nov 1992 19:25:43 GMT
Organization: University Computing Services, UBC, Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: swiss.ucs.ubc.ca

 Well, it's a good thing the US had the Electoral College, or we'd
 now be in a totally fevered campaign for a runoff election between
 Bush and Clinton.
 
 Anyhow, I ran down the popular votes for the states, and I note
 something which is going to provide material for books and
 arguments for years to come; in every state but Arkansas and
 Mississippi, enough people voted for Perot to have swung the
 election in that state the other way had they voted for the
 losing candidate instead.
From: buckland@ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: A Constitutional Convention?
Date: 6 Nov 1992 19:12:02 GMT
Organization: University Computing Services, UBC, Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: swiss.ucs.ubc.ca

 One idea brought up during the referendum debate was replacing
 the present progression from public hearings up to a First
 Ministers (and other parties) meeting that decides everything,
 with a convention.  The notion of around a hundred "ordinary
 Canadians, no politicians" was also mentioned.
 
 Well, if we were going to have a convention, how would it
 actually work?  How would the delegates be selected?  I don't
 imagine appointment by the governments - say, 10 per province
 and 10 for the Ottawa - would go over very well (from here on,
 I'll omit without prejudice Native leaders, etc., for simplicity,
 but let's all understand they'd be involved somehow).  It would
 just be the First Ministers meeting on a larger and much slower
 scale, with the delegates on the phone all the time for
 instructions.
 
 Selection by election?  Let anybody run, or keep down to a
 bearable number of candidates by requiring a number of supporters?
 But in the latter case, you have to find say 1000 people who agree
 with you enough to nominate you to represent them.  How does that
 differ from political parties and interest groups?  You're not
 an ordinary Canadian any more, you're de facto a politician.
 Even supposing OCs could somehow be the candidates, how do they
 get to be elected?  They have to present themselves to the public
 as more desirable than the other candidates.  Even if they are
 to represent something no bigger than a riding, that takes money;
 even if TV time and newspaper space were free, there is still
 expensive preparation of commercials and ads - if you expect to
 win over others who use these techniques.  You need people behind
 you.  Rich backers, political parties, interest and pressure groups.
 Politics, again.
 
 Selection by lottery?  Now no interest group or party is represented
 except by pure luck.  And every one of them will be screaming that
 whatever agreement is reached doesn't have their input and likely
 doesn't meet their demands.  And some of them, such as the party in
 power in any province, are powerful enough to veto the agreement
 after the convention.  Unless, that is, you intended the convention's
 product to be put into power by decree with no subsequent votes,
 amendments, acts of various legislatures or referenda.
 
 Assume - which, frankly, I don't - that the convention could somehow
 be assembled in an acceptable way.  How would it reach a decision?
 I think a lot of people would insist on consensus.  Given the issues
 in this country, I think that would be completely impossible to reach.
 But if they decide by majority vote, the interest groups behind
 the nay-voting elected delegates, or the interest groups who
 disagreed with the result if the delegates were selected by lottery,
 would declare the result unacceptable.
 
 I don't think the notion of a constitutional convention would solve
 anything.
From: root@catnix.UUCP (Wonder user (M.Simond))
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: A Constitutional Convention?
Date: 10 Nov 92 01:49:59 GMT
Organization: Rhinoceros, chargez!


buckland@ucs.ubc.ca (Tony Buckland) writes:
>
>[...]
> Selection by lottery?  Now no interest group or party is represented
>[...]

Why not something ressembling a jury. Maybe I am wrong, but as
I understand the process, if a jury cannot be put together for
a trial, people are picked up randomly on the street to participate
to that jury.  And as far as I know, jury decisions are enforceable.
 
> I don't think the notion of a constitutional convention would solve
> anything.

We cannot know before we try.
Newsgroups: can.general
From: labach@acs.ucalgary.ca (Terence Michael Labach)
Subject: Re: Why aren't things like plutonium shipments kept secret?
Originator: labach@acs5.acs.ucalgary.ca
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 17:56:55 GMT
Organization: The Bobby Jurasin Fan Club

In article <1dotkuINNek2@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> buckland@ucs.ubc.ca (Tony
Buckland) writes: 
> 
> I wonder why governments ask for so much trouble by doing in
> the glare of publicity some things, like shipping masses of
> plutonium out of France by sea, that could easily and with
> considerable justification be done secretly.

How about this as an answer: governments should be the servants of the
citizens, and not the other way around.  They should be doing what we
wish, rather than paternalistically deciding it's best for us if they
ship tonnes of hazardous material around willy-nilly.

(Was this a trick question?)

- terry -
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Disobedience in the eyes of any one who has read history is man's
 original virtue."
 - Oscar Wilde
From: scott@skypod.gts.org (Scott Campbell)
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Canada 125
Date: 5 Nov 92 22:27:28 GMT
Distribution: can
Organization: Skypod Communications Inc., Toronto, Ontario

In article <schuck.720911775@sfu.ca> Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca writes:
>amdunn@mongrel.UUCP (Andrew M. Dunn) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Nov3.175158.20317@sfu.ca> schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck) writes:
>>Don't bring the Tories into it.  If they hadn't had to strike budgets
>>with 30 billion a year in debt service (courtesy of the preceeding
>>Liberal government which ran up the debt in the first place) I'm
>>_sure_ the budget could have been well-balanced.
>
>But they did have such a deficit, and you govern the financial situation
>you have -- not the one you wish you had.

Huh? The financial situation they had was the situation of having to
pay billions of dollars to creditors.  Where was this money going to
come from?
>
>The "it's all the Liberals fault" excuse was vaild the first and
>second year in power. It hasn't been valid since 1986/87.

That debt did come from them.  It's the interest payments that are 
killing us.
>
>Hell, in the inflationary 80's all they had to do was freeze the
>budget and inflation would have solved the problem [a little
>simplistic maybe]. 

Just maybe.
>
>However, the Tories never had the *will* to solve the deficit.
>
And we should have let the fiscally responsible Liberals runs things
more into the ground?  Or maybe the NDP? Hahahahahahahahahahaha

-- 
Scott J.M. Campbell            The truth hurts... Oh sure, maybe not as much as
Skypod Communications Inc.      jumping onto a bicycle with the seat missing...
Toronto, Ont. (416) 465-6504                            ..but it hurts. 
  scott@skypod.gts.org              Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup in '93!!!
Newsgroups: can.general