HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: habs@panix.com (Harry Shapiro)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Extropian Digest available
Date: 5 Jan 93 03:31:34 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC


					This message is copyleft! - habs

First! Ray Cromwell (rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu) is a true Extropian hero.

Acting in his own self interest he has hacked together a working
version of an Extropian digest. Of course all of us will benefit.

		Three cheers for Ray!

1) The main list is and will remain operating as a real time
reflector.

2) Add and drop requests from the "real-time" list should be
as always, made to: 	Extropian-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu

3) Add and drop requests for the Digest must be made to:
			exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu

4) If you wish to add one list and drop the other, requests must be
made to Both addresses, as both lists are maintained in separate files
and I do not compare them, nor do I alway maintain them at the same
time. Also, some "beings" have indicated they would like to get both!


			How does it work?

   Mail comes into FSF (gnu) and is processed by a perl script
written by Perry. Each piece of mail is sent to everyone on
the real-time list and a single copy is passed to Ray's code.
   Ray's code is also a perl script which stores the message;
when the file gets to be >45K an other perl script is
called and it formats the "digest." This digested version
is mailed to each person on the digest list.
   Digested messages contain the x-Extropian date of when
they are sent and contain a "serial number" which is incremented
every time a digest is sent out.


			How are replies handled?

Replies to the digested version of the list are set, in the reply-to
field, to the real time list. Anyone responding to the digest and who
quotes the entire digest or a large part of it will be removed from
the list without further notice. 

Remember, quote as little as possible.


			How about the rules

Legally speaking it is the same list and the same rules apply!


			Will it come once a day?

*No!* In respect to both old out dated mailers still on the net and
the disk-space at FSF (It doesn't stand for Free Storage Foundation),
we mail out the digest whenever the collected messages get to be
greater than 45 kilo bytes. In practice that means each digest will be
about 50k and will be sent on average of 1 to 3 times a day; depending
on the bandwidth of the list. It is possible on a very busy day you
could get more than three messages, esp. if there are lots of long
posts.

			Send in your requests!

Ok we are ready for your requests although you will not be added until
sat. Send them to, as indicated: exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu

Remember to send a separate request to:
Extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu if you wish to drop the real time
list.

-- 
habs@acf3.NYU.EDU
habs@gnu.ai.mit.edu
habs@well.sf.ca.us
habs@panix.com


-- 
Harry Shapiro  				      habs@panix.com
List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List
Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991
From: tinker@soliton.physics.arizona.edu (Frank Tinker)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Fullerene Bibliography (1/1/93 version) available
Date: 5 Jan 93 03:49:52 GMT

The January 1, 1993 version of the fullerene bibliography is now
available via anonymous ftp at physics.arizona.edu in the afc
directory.

If there is enough interest, I'll post the bibliography here.
However, it is 238 pages long so I hesitate to post it without
good reason.

Frank A. Tinker
--
Frank Tinker
University of Arizona
Physics Bldg. #81
Tucson, Arizona 85721
From: dkrieger@netcom.com (David Krieger)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Controlled Release (was: To Spread The Meme)
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:12:48 GMT

> I've read some postings by Mr. Donaldson (and was impressed by them), 
> but I haven't run across the phrase "capital-N Nanotechnology".  
> How is this differ from, say, "n"anotechnology?

Capital-N Nanotechnology assumes the same role as "the revolution"
in old Communist tracts, or "the Rapture" in fundamentalist Christian
dogma -- when Nanotechnology gets here, everything will be possible
and the world will be made new and no one will ever have any problems
ever again.  It's taking a religious attitude toward nanotech and
ignoring both the possible downsides (conscientiously stressed
in both _Engines_ and _Unbounding_) and the possibility that not all
problems have technological solutions.  JoSH has an excellent article
on the subject in Extropy #9.	

> >...For example, Pat
> >Robertson (televangelist) has mentioned "Engines" on his "700 Club" 
> >television program.
> 
> What did he have to say about it?  
> --Will
> willdye@helios.unl.edu

My knowledge of the mention is second-hand.  As I recall, he showed
the book to the camera and said it was good.  My informant is under
the impression that Robertson was recommending the book on someone
else's say-so, rather than having read it himself.
					dk
From: cairnss@ucsu.colorado.edu (Launcelot Gobbo)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Homebrewed STM
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:00:35 GMT

gbloom@nyx.cs.du.edu (Gregory Bloom) writes:

>How hard is it to build an STM or AFM?  Does it seem like a project
>that could be made on the scale of 'The Amateur Scientist' series
>from Scientific American?  I have heard that getting the monatomic
>tipped probe is perhaps the hardest part.  Could standard
>electronics crystals, removed from their cases, be used to position
>the probe?  How noisy can the controlling current be?  How hard is 
>it to observe tunneling current?

>Is 'rolling your own' STM merely unlikely, or am I asking something
>more like 'how do I build a space shuttle in my backyard?'

>Gregory Bloom
>gbloom@nyx.cs.du.edu

It would be quite possible to build an AFM/STM given time and patience.
The actual mechanism is fairly simple.  I am sure that there would be 
a very large amount of difficulty in actual fine tuning the instrument,
and wouldn't be very easy for a very skilled electrician, let alone
someone who may have less experience.  As far as the piezo you could
use any crystal that you thought was reliable in its movement. 
Mind you by reliable I mean to the accuracy of the instrument you
want to produce.  The point is a tinker may be able to 'rough out'
a microscope with optical-microscope capabilities, but if you want 
true atomic resolution or micrometer AFM resolution you have got alot of
work in fine tuning.  I have worked on AFM/STM for a year or so and still
have only a basic idea as to their workings, their concept is simple, the trick
is the accuracy of imaging.  For example, the vibration in an average desk
sitting in a quiet room preceived to be motionless by human detectors,
is far to violent to even hope to use your AFM/STM.
As for the STM/AFM tips, they are available comercially, they are costly,
but not hard to get.

In other words, It would be extremely dificult for a person who throughly
understood all aspects of AFM/STM workings, including computer interface,
electronics, and control, to actually build an AFM/STM although 'possible'

For me, it would be most impossible, and I am not nessicarily ignorant of
the workings of these machines.  It would help to have a team of designers
and nearly unlimited funding, and if you had that you might as well go 
buy one.
-- 
         %            I am the shadow child of my world.          % 
        %                 cairnss@ucsu.Colorado.EDU                %
       %    F1V]D('-A=F4@=&AE(%%U965N+"!';V0@8FQE<W,@=7,@06QL+@I    %
From: ear@clockwise.att.com
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: home built stm
Date: 12 Jan 93 04:56:44 GMT


Re: home built stm

>How hard is it to build an STM or AFM?  Does it seem like a project
>that could be made on the scale of 'The Amateur Scientist' series
>from Scientific American?  I have heard that getting the monatomic
>tipped probe is perhaps the hardest part.  Could standard
>electronics crystals, removed from their cases, be used to position
>the probe?  How noisy can the controlling current be?  How hard is 
>it to observe tunneling current?

I haven't done it but I am planning to.  With a PC and some
electronics hacking it should be possible.  Here are some leads:

K. Besocke, "An Easily Operable Scanning Tunneling Microscope"
Surface Science 181, 145-154, (1987)

R.A. Lewis et al., "Student Scanning Tunneling Microscope"
Am. J. Phys. 59 (1), 38-42, (1991)
From: schaefer@young.ece.cmu.edu (Roland Schaefer)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Homebrew STMs
Date: 12 Jan 93 04:58:35 GMT


A friend of mine forwarded to me the message about homebrew STMs and whether
anyone else actually built one.

I built the one that the ECE Department here at Carnegie Mellon has -
haven't worked on it in 3 years, so I don't know what the status on it is
these days.  I got atomic reslution of graphite with the instruments - I
believe that they are now working on using it to do doping profiles of p-n
junctions.  

I know that a bunch of people at Stanford built themselves STMs as well
(this was around 1988).  I could give names and more details if anyone's
interested.

Roly.
From: jmains@aurora.engr.latech.edu (John P. Mains)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Smart Micromachines
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:12:16 GMT
Organization: Louisiana Tech University

Out of curiosity, how small a microrobot can you make and still program it to
go to a specific location, say in a vast sewer system (a very VAST system)?
The smaller the better, of couse ;)

---------
Thanx
JP
---------

[If you're looking for the ratio between the volume of the robot and that
 of the system, how about the Voyager probes?  :^)
 Seriously, I don't know of any complete, working, and autonomous 
 robots much less than about a cubic inch (though I'd love to be 
 shown incorrect!)
 --JoSH]
From: IFF118@djukfa11.bitnet
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Raster Tunel  Microscopy / Litography ?
Date: 12 Jan 93 04:57:15 GMT
Organization: Forschungszentrum Juelich

I'm looking for any references to that subject that
appeared after 1986. ( papers of McCormac and Pease )
Any comments of possible combination of Raster Force
Microscope and direct writing in resists with RFM tip
are higly appreciated.

Regards, Piotr

also IFF118@ZAM001.ZAM.KFA-JUELICH.DE
From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Mass molecular positioning with fabricated catalyst
Date: 5 Jan 93 03:44:23 GMT


Lithography has been used to fabricate a series of catalytic
towers on a chip (Science 20 Nov. '92, pg. 1337).  The towers
consist of alternating layers of SiO2 4.1 nm thick and Ni
2-10 nm thick.  The deposition process achieves nearly one atom
thickness control for both SiO2 and Ni.

Previously it was thought that positioning in three dimensions
was required for good catalysis, but this catalyst's nanoscale 1-d 
surface force reagants into the proper binding pattern.  It
achieved six times the reaction rate of traditional cluster catalysts 
on the hydrogenolysis of ethane to methane, C2H6 + H2 --> 2CH4.
The thickness of the nickel and silicon dioxide layers can be varied 
to match the size of molecules to be reacted.


Nick Szabo					szabo@techbook.com
From: kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu (SunCat)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: _Up The Infinite Corridor_ Fred Hapgood
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:14:51 GMT

Fred Hapgood has a book out re the joys of engineering called _Up The
Infinite Corridor_.  In the chapter on nanotechnology he mentions a
micromachine with a molecular thread bridging a *very* small gap which
would be useful as an olfactory sensor.  Could be used to detect drugs and
explosives.  

I haven't read the whole book but I think it looks like a cross between
_The Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition_ (by the other Ed)
and _The Existential Pleasures of Engineering_.

Fred Hapgood has written on nanotechnology for _Omni_.

SunCat           kamchar@ibm.cl.msu.edu
From: landman@hal.com (Howard Landman)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Homebrewed STM
Date: 12 Jan 93 04:59:21 GMT
Organization: HaL Computer Systems, Inc.

In article <Jan.4.22.43.27.1993.8155@planchet.rutgers.edu> gbloom@nyx.cs.du.edu (Gregory Bloom) writes:
>How hard is it to build an STM or AFM?  Does it seem like a project
>that could be made on the scale of 'The Amateur Scientist' series
>from Scientific American?

JoSH replies:
>[Homebrew STM's are a definite possibility;  the only one I've personally
> seen built was done by a couple of grad students in a lab here at
> Rutgers, though.

If I recall correctly, a year or two ago a high school student near
Stanford built one for his Science Fair project.  He used about $100
in parts.  The scan circuitry was scavenged from a discarded TV, so he
only had one scan rate available, but it was TV-compatible so he could
use an ordinary TV set for display.

STMs are therefore "easy" in some sense.  It would have been possible to
build one in the 1930s, if anyone had thought to do it.  You would have
had to use vacuum tubes for all the control, of course, but so what?

Be creative!  You might even come up with a better way of doing things
than anyone else!  This is still a young field.

>I have heard that getting the monatomic tipped probe
>is perhaps the hardest part.

One normal procedure for making tips, for a while, was to hold a piece of
wire against a belt sander.  Some reasonable fraction of the time this
gives you a good probe tip, and if it doesn't you can just try again.

Probe tips tend to become unusable fairly quickly (MTBF of hours at best),
so you need to have a way to get more inexpensively.  The most common failure
mechanisms are "head crashes" and the simple accumulation of "dirt".

	Howard A. Landman
From: tsf@CS.CMU.EDU (Timothy Freeman)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Controlled Release (was: To Spread The Meme)
Date: 12 Jan 93 05:41:50 GMT

In article <Jan.4.22.34.53.1993.8115@planchet.rutgers.edu> willdye@helios.unl.edu (Will Dye) writes:

   dkrieger@netcom.com (David Krieger) writes:
   >...There
   >are plenty of people who could do a lot more harm than Leary by embracing
   >what Thomas Donaldson calls "capital-N Nanotechnology".  

   I've read some postings by Mr. Donaldson (and was impressed by them), 
   but I haven't run across the phrase "capital-N Nanotechnology".  
   How is this differ from, say, "n"anotechnology?

(I invited Donaldson to respond to this, but he hasn't yet, and I'm
assuming he won't.)

Capital-N Nanotechnology differs from nanotechnology in that it
assumes that Drexler's ideas (nanomachines with rigid moving parts)
are the only way to get the job done.  Donaldson noticed this when he
was discussing nanotechnology with somebody who believed that we'd
eventually have microscopic artificial submarines swimming around in
our blood killing diseases when artificial antibodies would get the
job done much more simply.  I don't remember how the Cap-N Nanotech
enthusiast responded to Donaldson's claim that the submarines were too
complex.

I agree with Donaldson (and Drexler) that Drexler's schemes are
probably not what is going to happen.  However, many people seem to
not take Drexler's ideas seriously as a lower bound to what will
happen, which is a mistake, in my opinion.  

--
Tim Freeman <tsf@cs.cmu.edu>    CompuServe ID 71045,2267 checked occasionally.
When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent.
When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun.
Now they've come for the first amendment, and I can't say anything at all.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu (Robert McGrath)
Subject: Re: Glub Glub... Any Floods in Human History?
Reply-To: mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:32:37 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.040948.13969@gallant.apple.com>, batman@apple.apple.com (Ken Laws) writes:
|> I was talking to a friend of mine about how I'd heard that most flood myths
|> originated from an event that may have happenned in the Tigris and Euphrades
|> delta area a few thousand years ago. So, is there evidence that a flood in
|> that valley may have turned into "THE FLOOD?"

A more likely hypothesis is that "THE FLOOD" is a concatenation of many
real life disasters.  Floods are memorable, but very similar, and tend
to run together in memory.  The biblical flood story has so many obviously
"instructive" elements that it seems to me more like a moral tale grafted
onto generic "flood" themes than any sort of historic or scientific report.

|> Part 2: my friend said he'd heard of "geological evidence" of the ocean level
|> rising a couple hundred feet sometime during humanity's existence. Sounds
|> like creationist pseudo-science to me. Anyone know where this idea came from?

There was an article not long ago in the NY Times (and presumably elsewhere)
recounting a place in France where a cave occupied by prehisoric humans.
The entrance was many hundreds of feet below the current level of the
Mediterranean.  But there are plenty of other possibilities.

Humans date back bo the last glaciation, and large changes in water 
levels definitely happened at that time all over the world.  There 
were at least two catastrophic floods about that time:  the forming of
the bad lands in Montana (or is is Wyoming?) and the flooding of the 
Mediteranean Sea.  I'm sure there have been plenty of tidal waves, 
mud slides, and just plain heavy rains in the history of humans, 
especially where humans have deforested highlands.

Creationists may make whatever they wish of these facts.  Since
many of these floods occurred more than 10K years ago, they don't
seem to offer much direct support for the more simple-minded
"young earth" theories.

-- 
  Robert E. McGrath
  Urbana Illinois
  mcgrath@cs.uiuc.edu
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:22020 alt.messianic:3854 alt.atheism:25012
From: mathew <mathew@mantis.co.uk>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.messianic,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas 
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 93 15:11:43 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK.

livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
> How can any of us have any confidence that episodes like cooperation
> with the Nazis won't be repeated, when the church and its followers
> spend their time trying to rationalise away what happened, instead
> of saying frankly "Yes, we screwed up, and we're going to find out
> why".
> 
> And that's another good question.   Forgetting all this crap about
> "lesser of two evils", exactly why *did* it happen? 

See "Obedience to Authority" by Stanley Milgram.

But of course, it's not in the church's interests to teach its followers to
question authority.


mathew

Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:22037 alt.messianic:3863 alt.atheism:25047
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: "Satanic Ritual Abuse" in the media
Date: 10 Jan 93 02:32:00 GMT
 <1993Jan9.204153.2754@icaen.uiowa.edu> <C0LwJ6.4K7@cs.uiuc.edu> <C0M0r8.5I8@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <C0M0r8.5I8@ccu.umanitoba.ca>, ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca writes...
>There are mountains of physical evidence for rape and abuse...
> 
>>Having seen
>>that quantity and intensity of pain, I no longer am capable of
>>disbelieving in ritual abuse and the like. 
> 
>.... but no evidence for ritual abuse. See a difference?

No evidence?  None?  I suppose that depends on how you define "ritual
abuse."  There is no question that there are children who have been
physically and sexually abused in the course of cultic rituals, both
in the history of the world and in the last several years.  There is
an investigator for the Tucson Police Department, and another for
the Pima County Sheriff's Office, who have encountered such cases in
this city in which arrests were made and convictions were obtained,
though the religious aspect was *not* made an issue in court or in
the press.
   There are a lot of bogus "survivor" stories--probably most of them
you see on TV are phonies.  But there are genuine cases of child abuse
in a religious context.  (Most of them involve Christianity, some involve
cult groups.)

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
From: bill@bessel.as.utexas.edu (William H. Jefferys)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up?
Date: 5 Jan 93 15:29:27 GMT
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <1993Jan4.194127.16374@walter.bellcore.com> kenl@origami.cc.bellcore.com (Ken Lehner) writes:
#
#|>    And looking back now with comfortable 20/20 hindsight and high moral
#|> indignation, who did behave correctly during that awful time?  
#
#Raul Wallenberg, for one.  Let me know if you don't know his story (which may
#or may not be finished).  The minority of Poles who harbored Jews.  The Dutch
#who did the same.

And let's not forget Andre and Magda Trocme, and their
parishioners in the town of Le Chambon in Vichy France,
who collectively hid and eventually spirited into 
Switzerland some 2000 Jewish children. 

Bill
From: paj@uk.co.gec-mrc (Paul Johnson)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: The FAQ: faulty logic used?
Date: 11 Jan 93 12:00:54 GMT
Reply-To: paj@uk.co.gec-mrc (Paul Johnson)
Organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow, UK

In article <C0Jsw2.59I.1@cs.cmu.edu> rhuss+@EDRC.CMU.EDU (Robert Huss) writes:
>From the FAQ:
>>than on the wound, in order to cure the wound).  The fact that this
>>technique was tried at all casts serious doubts on the "researchers"
>>involved.
>
>	Isn't the argument at the end of this paragraph a fallacy?  I don't
>remember the name of the fallacy,...

I edit the FAQ.

I think its an argumentum ad hominem (argument from the man), and yes
it is strictly a fallacy.  But the fact that these researchers would
use such a crackpot idea does suggest that they may lack judgement in
other areas.  There is a difference between being wrong and being
totally off the map.  By a map analogy, Einstein was occasionally
wrong about his exact location, but was never more than a few miles
out.  These researchers seem to be using a map of the USA to navigate
in England.  "Lost" is not the right word.


Paul.

-- 
Paul Johnson (paj@gec-mrc.co.uk).	    | Tel: +44 245 73331 ext 3245
--------------------------------------------+----------------------------------
These ideas and others like them can be had | GEC-Marconi Research is not
for $0.02 each from any reputable idealist. | responsible for my opinions
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.messianic,alt.atheism
From: ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO)
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Reply-To: ata@hfsi.UUCP (John Ata - FSO)
Organization: HFSI, McLean VA.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 13:54:42 GMT

In article <C0D6u8.7D6@ecf.toronto.edu> vanweer@ecf.toronto.edu (VANWEERDENBURG NICHOLAS JOHN) writes:
>>
>My impression was that he meant that they are just buildings.  They can be
>be easily rebuilt, their religion could exist without them.  Sure people
>like their churches, etc., but they are of no "particular" worth.  Let me
>put it this way- would you let the Nazis kill people as opposed to the 
>Bolsheviks destroying churches.  Of course not. 
>

Of course, the Bolsheviks did more than destroy buildings.  They
were trying to stamp out the religion itself in other ways
including torture and imprisonment, and the erradication of all
religious teachings to the young.  Therefore, I would say that the
larger definition of Church would be more appropriate here. 

-- 
John G. Ata - Technical Consultant | Internet:  ata@hfsi.com
HFS, Inc.		  VA20     |     UUCP:  uunet!hfsi!ata
7900 Westpark Drive	 MS:601	   |    Voice:	(703) 827-6810
McLean, VA  22102	           |      FAX:	(703) 827-3729
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic