HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: panero@cheshire.oxy.edu (Jan Panero)
Subject: Re: Silly Mnemonic Tricks
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 23:01:10 GMT

In article <BxHypA.9L5@cs.bham.ac.uk> ard@cs.bham.ac.uk (Antoni Diller) writes:
>There's always the rime to remember facts about the calender:
>
>       Thirty days has Sepetember, April, June and November,
>       All the rest I can't remember.

After February's done, all the rest have 31!
-- 
_________________________________________________________________________
Jan Panero                            "Brains are more like
Occidental College                     pomegranites than sheets of paper."
Los Angeles                            -John Haugeland
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive,sci.philosophy.tech,sci.lang
From: arild@milan.ims.uni-stuttgart.de (Arild Hestvik)
Subject: Re: Theories of meaning without formal logic
Reply-To: arild@ims.uni-stuttgart.de
Organization: IMS, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 12:45:13 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.005957.7189@midway.uchicago.edu> gal2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Jacob Galley) writes:

   Can anyone direct me toward any viable theories of meaning that do not
   postulate that some kind of truth functional logic is at the
   foundation of meaning?

Yes, Ray Jackendoff's "conceptual semantics" is explicitly non-truth
functional. See in particular the two books below:

Jackendoff, R. (1983) Semantics and Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Jackendoff, R. (1991?) Semantic Structures, MIT Press.

-Arild Hestvik

Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
From: johng@socrates.umd.edu (John Gustafson)
Subject: Re: Silly Mnemonic Tricks
Organization: University of Maryland University College
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 14:28:48 GMT

Trying to remember whether cranial nerves were (S)ensory, (M)otor, or
(B)oth, medical students used to use the mnemonic

  Some Say Marry Money, But My Brother Says Bad Boys Marry Money.

Maybe this can be the beginning of a new thread:  Offensively Victorian
Mnemonics.  :-)

                                                ---John Gustafson


johng@socrates.umd.edu?
Newsgroups: sci.cognitive
From: pautler@ils.nwu.edu (David Pautler)
Subject: Re: the function of qualia
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 21:50:42 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.073728.17827@nevada.edu>, snit@nevada.edu (S. Nev. Institute of Tech.) writes:
> 
> If one believes that functionality doesn't fully define qualia, then I
> believe that a model that fulfills the functions (even though it lacks
> "true" qualia) would do what cognitive AI is designed to do (IMHO - to
> predict, explain, describe, and manipulate human thought and
> behavior).

Perhaps I'm just being thick-headed, but by "functional" do you mean
1) "fulfilling a defined purpose" or 2) "intensional, not extensional"?

If you mean (1), then whose purpose is being fulfilled?  A Creator?
I don't think explanations of cognitive activity in terms of purposes
have any validity except as pedagogical aids.  Do you mean a statistical
or causal account?

If you mean (2), then isn't an intensional description equivalent to
interpreting the phenomenon (which would mean you weren't really
addressing qualia, i.e. uninterpreted experience).

Note: I know hardly anything of the debate over qualia, but what I do
know makes describing it "functionally" sound silly.

	-dp-

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: rkolker@nuchat.sccsi.com (Rich Kolker)
Subject: Re: oxygen atmospheres
Organization: South Coast Computing Services, Inc.
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 00:00:26 GMT

In article <BxJ3FF.DH9.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts) writes:
>
>-From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>-Subject: oxygen atmospheres
>-Date: 10 Nov 92 21:29:43 GMT
>
>-Neither.  In space, the Apollo spacecraft used the atmosphere it was
>-designed for:  low-pressure pure oxygen.  It wasn't feasible to run that
>-way on the pad, though, because the spacecraft wasn't built to stand an
>-external pressure exceeding internal pressure.  After some attempts to
>-fireproof the interior for 1atm of oxygen -- abandoned as impossibly
>-difficult -- they switched to using a mixed-gas atmosphere before and
>-during launch, with switchover to low-pressure pure oxygen on the way up.
>
>Did the astronauts continue to breathe pure oxygen on the pad to avoid the
>bends?
>
>John Roberts
>roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
>

The astronauts were in their suits and sealed up during launch.  They were breathing 
O2.  The cabin was pressurized with air.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
   rich kolker       rkolker@sccsi.com
                          It's been a long, long time
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky sci.space:15700 sci.astro:11862
From: wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
Subject: Lunar astronaut covers earth with thumb
Date: 10 Nov 92 20:21:35 GMT
Followup-To: sci.astro
Organization: Alpha Science Computer Network, Denver, Co.

On the last installment of "Space Age" Jim Lovell said while he
was in the vicinity of the moon, he could cover the earth with his
thumb while his arm was outstretched. (It was also attributed to
Rusty Schweikart).

I heard this a few years ago on a radio talk show with one of 
the lunar astronauts as guest--was it Jim Lovell? 

A caller, who had a German accent, had trouble with this reasoned:

(1) This distance to the moon from the earth is the same as the
    as the distance to the earth from the moon,  

(2) The earth is larger than the moon, and

(3) We ordinary mortals here on earth can't cover the moon with 
    a thumb with arm outstretched.

His unstated conclusion was that the astronaut could not have done
it and you could sense his reluctance to call the astronaut a liar.

What is the error the caller made? Give up? It's number (3).
There's a full moon out tonight. Go out and try it.

-- 
Bruce Watson (wats@scicom)  Tumbra, Zorkovick; Sparkula zoom krackadomando.  
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: cecil@physics.unc.edu (Gerald Cecil)
Subject: Re: Where are Pioneer and Voyager Headed?
Reply-To: cecil@physics.unc.edu
Organization: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 22:01:54 GMT

In article 7ws@zoo.toronto.edu, henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <BxM3pC.ADF.1@cs.cmu.edu> nickh@CS.CMU.EDU (Nick Haines) writes:
>>... AC +79 3888 must be sqrt (1.5^2 + 1.65^2) = 2.23 ly from
>>the sun, according to the Pioneer figures, and sqrt (2.2^2 + 1.64^2) =
>>2.74 ly from the sun according the the Voyager figures. Not only are
>>these numbers very different from each other, they're also much less
>>than the correct distance to AC +79 3888.
>>
>>Doing the same calculation for Ross 248 gets us a distance of 3.5 ly
>>(correct figure is 10.3), and for Sirius 26.8 ly (correct figure is
>>8.7 ly).
>
>Bear in mind that the stars are moving, in many cases at rather higher
>velocities than the spacecraft.
>-- 
>MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry

Yes.  Typical velocity dispersions for K- and M-dwarfs in the solar neighbourhood
are 20 km/s or so, which translates into >0.6 ly drift per 10,000 yrs.
---
Gerald Cecil cecil@wrath.physics.unc.edu  919-962-7169 
Physics & Astronomy, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255 USA

Newsgroups: sci.space
From: dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones)
Subject: Re: Mars over the Moon???
Organization: Vonnegut Tent Rentals, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 19:33:01 GMT

Dr.Savory (sav@nanette.sni.de) wrote:
> Any body to be terraformed should have sufficient gravity to retain
> an atmosphere (obvious?), so exclude the moon, OK ;)

In the long term, maybe.  But in the short term, say 100,000 years or so,
it might retain quite a decent atmosphere.  That ought to be long enough
for a few weekend visits.

Of course the slow rotation would make for interesting weather patterns....

--
||Halloween Candy: the office snack    |
||from Nov. 1st onwards............... |Puff the Magic Dragon
||-------------------------------------|Lived by the sea
||Dave Jones (dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com)|Who knows what's in the autumn mists
||Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY      |In the mind of Yadallee?
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Low-Pressure O2 Atmosphere
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 21:05:09 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <BxI4o7.2Mq.1@cs.cmu.edu> flb@flb.optiplan.fi ("F.Baube x554") writes:
>But in pure O2 lots of things burn that "shouldn't", like 
>asbestos fibers.  This actually happened long before that 
>Apollo capsule burned up, and should have alerted NASA.

Low-pressure pure O2 is not much worse for flammability than ordinary air.
NASA did extensive flammability tests under those conditions, and concluded,
more or less correctly, that there was no serious problem.

What they missed -- despite some hints of trouble -- was that the capsules
were operated at circa 1atm of pure O2 before launch, and under *those*
conditions the situation is indeed much worse.

It *is* thought that an inert diluent gas helps reduce fire hazards, but
the effect isn't huge.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Is NASA doing what Feynman deplored again? -- Was: NASA Town Meeting
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 20:03:50 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <ZFV6TB1w165w@mona.Gwinnett.COM> jmowen@mona.Gwinnett.COM (John M. Owen) writes:
>the old insidious attitudes. Urgh. in AW&ST Oct 26 '92... 
>(pardon me if Mr. Spencer has already covered this) 

Nope; I've only just read it, in fact.  First the Canadian post orifice has
to deliver it to my PO box (takes a while), then I have to pick it up (I only
clean out the box about once a week), then I have to read it (usually fairly
quick), and then I have to post it.  My rule of thumb is that I'm doing fine
if posting date is one month behind cover date.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NASA Coverup
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 05:57:06 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <Bx5wzL.Auv.1@cs.cmu.edu> amon@elegabalus.cs.qub.ac.uk writes:
>...things that weren't publicized. The trip back to Earth inside of Apollo 13
>was pure hell for one...

Actually, some of the recent books on Apollo give a reasonably good picture
of just how close to the edge that crew came...  It definitely didn't get
a lot of play at the time, though.
-- 
MS-DOS is the OS/360 of the 1980s.      | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
              -Hal W. Hardenbergh (1985)|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
Xref: sparky sci.space:15646 sci.astro:11841
Organization: Georgia Tech Research Institute
Date: Tuesday, 10 Nov 1992 16:22:08 EST
From: <LABBEY@GTRI01.GATECH.EDU>
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
Subject: Re: imdisp
 <1992Nov10.160637.9871@pixel.kodak.com>

The primary distribution point for VICAR images is:

            ames.arc.nasa.gov


Retrieve them by anonymous ftp.  Look in /pub/SPACE/VICAR.  Lots of good
stuff there.

Leonard Abbey, F.R.A.S.
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
labbey@gtri01.gatech.edu
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson)
Subject: Ten embarrassed questions about the moon (very long) 
Distribution: world
Organization: Haveland-Robinson Associates
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 03:34:44 +0000


In article <BxD5Hz.Ewt.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov writes:

>
>
>-From: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
>-Subject: NASA Coverup
>-Keywords: Ten Embarrassing Questions about the Moon
>-Date: 6 Nov 92 23:37:31 GMT
>
>-   As promised ,here come the ...
>
>-                    TEN EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MOON
>
>I expect you'll get a tremendous number of replies - I'll try to answer some
>of the easier questions.

An excellent article!  I have a couple of questions...

What is the ratio of density of the mascons to the "masdeps" (depletions)?

Are the mascons responsible for the locked orbit? If so, then that would
explain why the Marias are dense and are only found facing the Earth.

References I've seen indicate that Earth's tides are responsible for
locking the moon's rotation to the orbit.

Andy.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Haveland-Robinson Associates   | Email: andy@osea.demon.co.uk         |
| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        ahaveland@cix.compulink.co.uk |
| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<<<
> Some dream of doing great things, while others stay awake and do them <
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com (Dave Jones)
Subject: Re: Water and Moon Rocks?
Organization: Vonnegut Tent Rentals, Inc.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 14:44:33 GMT

Bruce Hendler (bruceh@mothra.rose.hp.com) wrote:
> 
> The other evening I was watching a PBS special about the moon.  I briefly
> caught a portion of the program about some scientists creating water
> from moon rocks brought back by one of the Apollo missions. It was being
> done by introducing hydrogen into the rock.  They showed this working...      
> you could see water dripping from the moon rock.  Could someone please
> explain this in more detail.  Like I said, I only caught a glimpse of it and it
> totally amazed me.
> 
> Thanks in advance...
> 
This is not a particularly big deal.  Water, being hydrogen oxide, can
be formed from hydrogen and any source of oxygen.  There was a recent
posting to the effect that some elements in moonrock are in a relatively
high oxidation state, so it's no surprise that you get some kind of reaction
with hydrogen under mild conditions.  If you really up the temperature you can
extract almost all the oxygen from minerals using hydrogen, except for 
the part locked up in silicates.  The result is metal (useful), water
(if you don't throw it away as steam) and slag.

Since water is a valuable commodity on the moon, but hydrogen is scarce, 
there's interest in taking hydrogen there and using it to make the 
water for bases.  Since hydrogen represents only 11% of the mass of
the equivalent of water, it makes sense to ship that instead.  The only
question was, how easy is the trick?  The answer seems to be: pretty easy.


--
||Dave Jones (dj@ekcolor.ssd.kodak.com)|Eastman Kodak Co. Rochester, NY  |
From: roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Man in space...
Date: 10 Nov 92 06:06:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BxHL1F.Dvs.1
Distribution: sci
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology formerly National Bureau of Standards
X-Added: Forwarded by Space Digest
Original-Sender: isu@VACATION.VENARI.CS.CMU.EDU


-From: jenkins@fritz (Steve Jenkins)
-Subject: Re: Man in space ...
-Date: 9 Nov 92 18:20:37 GMT
-Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA)

-In article <BxDHG0.6Eu@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
->As Clarke has pointed
->out, if you *expect* the decompression, you can boost your internal oxygen
->supply considerably by hyperventilating first.

-But not by much.  At normal arterial O2 partial pressure (about 100 mmHg),
-the blood is almost completely saturated with oxygen.  You can raise
-the partial pressure by hyperventilating, but not the oxygen content.
-Hemoglobin is remarkable stuff.

The world record for voluntarily remaining underwater (and conscious) is
something like 13 minutes. The fellow hyperventilated pure (1 Atm) oxygen
(don't try this at home!) ahead of time. Does this fit in with your model?
(I realize his lungs weren't exposed to vacuum, but he didn't have any way
of getting more oxygen except perhaps very slow diffusion from the water.)

-The best you could do in anticipation is to prepare to hold your
-breath (carefully!) so as to maintain some O2 pressure in the lungs, and
-hence in the arterial blood.  If the lung pressure goes to zero, so
-immediately does the arterial PO2.  The transport delay from lungs to
-brain is on the order of 20 seconds, so you can't expect to maintain
-consciousness much longer than that.  The oxygen demand of the brain
-is high, and there are no signifcant stores of oxygen anywhere in
-the body outside of the lungs and arterial blood.

What's the mechanism by which the hemoglobin gives up its oxygen where
it's needed? And is there a 100% oxygen turnover on each pass of the
blood through the lungs?

-Note that it's the partial pressure, not the concentration that
-matters.  Even breathing pure O2 from a tank doesn't help much at low
-ambient pressure.  That's why climbers on Everest are at the limits
-even with supplemental oxygen.

People seem to do "reasonably" well breathing air at around half normal
pressure, which would imply an oxygen partial pressure of 80mm Hg or not
much over. What's the lowest pressure of pure oxygen that people can
manage on? And what is the air pressure on the top of Mt. Everest? (It
has been climbed (strenuous physical activity) without supplementary
oxygen. It's very dangerous, but it has been done.)

There's an article in a recent Scientific American on altitude sickness -
I haven't had time to more than scan it. Apparently it's not really healthful
to breathe air at any pressure noticeably less than sea level pressure, and
some people are much more susceptible than others to altitude-related
health problems.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov
Newsgroups: sci.space
From: andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson)
Subject: Ice hardness 
Distribution: world
Organization: Haveland-Robinson Associates
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 02:15:43 +0000


In article <Bx4D99.4Jy.1@cs.cmu.edu> roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov writes:

>-From: jfw@ksr.com (John F. Woods)
>-Subject: Re: Swift-Tuttle Comet a threat to earth?
>-Date: 2 Nov 92 17:28:43 GMT
>
>-sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
>->I should think that, given that a comet consists largely of ice and
>->other volatiles, even one good-sized H-bomb placed directly into the
>->nucleus would pretty much eliminate any "threat to earth". Seems it
>->would be mostly vaporized and scattered.
>
>-The thermal mass of a several-km-diameter comet is quite a bit larger than
>-you think.  Furthermore, most of it is "ice" at just a few Kelvin (depending
>-on how far out its orbit takes it, and how long it spends there), which means
>-that "ice" is going to be every bit as hard as the formerly-molten silicate
>-you're standing on...
>
>A number of science fiction writers seem to assume that water ice at
>cryogenic temperatures would be many times stronger than ice at slightly
>below freezing. Is there any indication that this is true?
>
>John Roberts
>roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov

"Air temperatures down to -50'C make the near surface ice a thousand times
stiffer than the basal ice, which geothermal heat from the underlying rock
can bring to near melting point"

                                    Richard Frolick, Brit Antarctic Survey
                                            Physics World Vol5/11 p21, IOP

I would assume that this is an indication that cryogenic ice is pretty
hard stuff...

Andy.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Haveland-Robinson Associates   | Email: andy@osea.demon.co.uk         |
| 54 Greenfield Road, London     |        ahaveland@cix.compulink.co.uk |
| N15 5EP England. 081-800 1708  | Also:  0621-88756 081-802 4502       |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>>>> Those that can, use applications. Those that can't, write them! <<<<
Xref: sparky sci.space:15529 alt.conspiracy:12025
From: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.conspiracy
Subject: NASA Coverup
Keywords: snarfy concedes
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 92 12:04:00 PST
Reply-To: snarfy@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us



    I  rented  a  videotape  called "Man to the Moon" ,produced by CBS news.
   Timing Buzz Aldrin's leap from the 3 foot bottom rung of the Lunar Module
   ladder , I come up with about 1 second ,which would be consistent with  a
   lunar  gravity  of  1/6. Although he still to be holding on to the ladder
   throughout the leap , it seems that it is just to steady himself , not to
   slow the fall.


    On this basis then, I concede that the lunar gravity is 1/6 .
   ______________________________________________________________


    I  apologize  ,publicly  ,  over the net, to the general class of people
   known as "NASA Scientists" who I accused of concealing  the  truth  about
   the lunar gravity.

    I  thank  all  of  those  who  posted private responses via E-mail in an
   effort to explain / debate the conclusion that the Neutral  point  figure
   revealed a higher gravity.

    I  will  continue , however to point out alternative theories to account
   for various facts  of  nature.  Theories  are  not  science,  but  merely
   suggestions  of  possible  explanations  for  observed  phenomena  .   An
   alternate theory need only be logically and mathematically consistent  to
   be as viable as relativity , or any other theory.

    I  am  , at least,gratified to learn that Velikovsky's idea of planetary
   collisions , long scorned and ridiculed by the scientific community ,  is
   now the prevailing theory explaining the origin of the moon.

   More on this later.

   snarfy
Newsgroups: sci.space