HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: Taranto-Zeleny on Clayton Cramer
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 14:08:12 GMT


I know that I stated that I would let Professor McCarthy have the last
word.  But he has ascribed a belief to me which I do not nold, and I
feel compelled to respond.

jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

> Indeed I find him a more cogent reasoner than Taranto.  Taranto's
> inference that Cramer ought to believe that computers don't work in Asia
> seems to be a blunder.

I never said that Cramer believes that computers don't work in Asia.  I
wrote that Cramer's statement implies that he believes:

        That if Asian countries use anything other than two-state
        logic then the computers in third world countries will
        stop working.

His implication is that since computers obviously don't stop working,
then the assertion about boolean logic must be incorrect.

Perhaps it is best to look at Clayton's own words.  Here is what he
originally said on the subject:

        Odd.  I used a text a couple of semesters back in
        an ethnic studies class that asserted that even
        boolean logic was a characteristic of the West's
        dualistic philosophical tradition, and is hardly
        universal.

        Makes you wonder how computers work in the Third World,
        doesn't it?

I certainly believe that this passage can be interpreted to say
"If non-western countries use non-boolean logic then computers
in the Third World shouldn't work."

If Professor McCarthy thinks that this infers that I believe that
Clayton Cramer ought to believe that computers don't work in Asia,
then I'm not surprised that he finds Clayton Cramer a more cogent
reasoner, and offer this as proof of my claim that neither of them
understand the rules of logical inference.


Mark

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,talk.politics.misc
From: kamorgan@athena.mit.edu (Keith Morgan)
Subject: Re: Dismiss the Liberal!
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Keywords: shame
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 16:22:48 GMT

In article <1992Aug15.120109.14759@husc3.harvard.edu>
zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) asks Clayton Cramer:

>And how do you feel about the support for North American Man-Girl Love
>Association in the heterosexual community?  Five members already...


Six actually, Woody Allen joined yesterday.

Keith
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keith Morgan		      | Criticism is prejudice made plausible.
kamorgan@athena.mit.edu       |                          H.L. Mencken
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: maureenw@sco.COM (Maureen Wilkes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon & Women
Date: 17 Aug 92 18:37:15 GMT
Organization: SCO Canada, Inc.

In article <BsxLpE.H7E@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca> msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris) writes:
> But the thing I think is unfair
>overwhelmingly is past societal discrimination between men and women, past
>discouragement that women should even think of trying to be writers---
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  
>not any present desire to exclude women from canonization because
>they are women.
>
>

This triggered a memory of THE YELLOW WALLPAPER (author??!?), a pre-feminist 
indictment of the 19th-century psychological practice of denying women
access to books and stimulating conversation in order to give
their poor little brains a rest -- when in fact all they needed was
to be taken seriously.  The story traces the mental disintegration of
a creative young woman ("high strung", according to the doctors her
husband hired), who goes mad after being condemned to a life without
reading or writing.  Her daydreams become nightmarish
hallucinations under the tyrrany of the men who control her life.
Is anyone else familiar with this work?  My memories of it are rather
sketchy.  Anyone know the author?  
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: Anybody Else Read History?
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 16:57:11 GMT

Mike Lopke writes:
	
	I've read most of Mitchner's works.  Do you have any
	recommendations or favorites?



I too have enjoyed Michner's fiction.  You might enjoy the Flashman
series by George MacDonald Frazer.  Flashman is a British military
man during the Victorian Era.  The stories describe historical
events from Flashman's self centered point of view.  Flahsy is a
womanizer and tries to escape any duty that would put him in harm's
way.  These books are funny, accurate (Francis Muir said so, so it
must be true), and educational.

I've read two, one about the Great Mutiny in India and one about
the Crimean War and the Charge of the Light Brigade.  Both excellent.
I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD
From: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Life's too short. Was: 1930s Science Fiction
Date: 19 Aug 92 12:33:11
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Theoretical Physics Group)
Reply-To: matt@physics.berkeley.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: physics2.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: fehr@ms.uky.edu's message of 19 Aug 92 13:00:21 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.90021.3801@ms.uky.edu> fehr@ms.uky.edu (Jeff Davis) writes:

> My interest in science fiction is minimal because as a genre its target --
> the relation of man to science -- seems to me to be too narrow for fiction
> and to have been summed up neatly by _Frankenstein_:

The problem is, of course: who ever said that this was the "target" of
science fiction?  It is not a very good characterization of most of
the science fiction that I read.

Personally, most of the science fiction that I admire has an entirely
different focus: the exploration of a society which is different from
any which currently exists.  From this standpoint, the most important
"science" in science fiction isn't physics, but anthropology.

(On a completely different tangent, I don't understand the importance
of Frankenstein; it's a decent book, but it isn't really all that
different in spirit from the Faust legend.)
--
Matthew Austern              I dreamt I was being followed by a roving band 
(510) 644-2618               of young Republicans, all wearing the same suit,
matt@physics.berkeley.edu    taunting me and shouting, "Politically correct
austern@theorm.lbl.gov       multiculturist scum!"... They were going to make
austern@lbl.bitnet	     me kiss Jesse Helms's picture when I woke up.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rauchway@leland.Stanford.EDU (Eric Andrew Rauchway)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 23:02:56 GMT

In article <14287@mindlink.bc.ca> Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
>
>I also worry about any attitude that says your race and sex are the most
>important aspects of your personality--the very things you can't control

I could not agree more -- I think it is a tragedy to see men and women 
limit their identities to these variables, and in an ideal universe there
would be no such practice.

However, I think Crawford and the rest of us should try to think constructively
rather than destructively -- if we think this intellectual ghettoizing is
bad, let's try to do better.  If it's broke, let's fix it.  Let's light a 
candle rather than curse the darkness.  And so on.

If something's broke -- to stretch the metaphor -- we oughta understand
what's broke and why.  That's how you fix things.  The reason people
are constructing identities this way is that for so long, so many groups
have been the objects of prejudice by other groups.  (And the groups doing 
the prejudging aren't always Dead White Heterosexual Men (DWHM) but that's
another thread.) If someone attacks you for being a Jew, and you are in fact
a Jew, your best recourse is to emphasize the positive aspects of your
Judaism.  That way, the next time someone calls you a kike, you say to 
yourself, why yes, I am a kike -- only I'm a Jew, and I'm proud of it.

You know what I'm saying here?  For every reaction there hadda be an 
equal and opposed action.  Or, more colorfully, if you see a turtle on a
fencepost, you know he didn't get up there by hisself. . . .


P.S.  In another Crawford posting, he paraphrased my previous comments
on the canon, saying I shouldn't view the process of canon construction
as so cabalistic and conspiratorial.  I recall further that awhile back, 
in connection with a dispute with Barclay Blanchard, he noted that he 
hated the post-riposte format that so many postings have, and said
he preferred to paraphrase.  I submit that the danger in this is what I think
happened with Crawford's paraphrase -- he missed what I meant.  I wasn't 
implying anything cabalistic at all; I merely said that if anyone 
was constructing anything approaching a canon, the Norton folks were it. Then
I went on to note that this canon was far more inclusive than the one 
we had been criticizing in these pages.  [ha, ha.]  

While I agree with you, Crawford, that those who quote entire letters
and interpolate their own comments are being unduly periphrastic, I also
believe that direct quotation can better convey the correct connotation.

Eric Rauchway                    /      My opinions are mine, and not those
rauchway@leland.stanford.edu     /      of the department or university.

Department of History                  Stanford University

*****Those who do not remember history are doomed to flunk my class.*****



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: lalibr@jec305.its.rpi.edu (Ron Scott Laliberte)
Subject: Re: The Dream of Unknown Kadesh
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 16:29:33 GMT

According to Derleth, in his intro to At The Mountains of Madness, it is likely
that Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath was a piece which HPL wrote in stages...
it was begun shortly after The Statement of Randolph Carter, in '19, and was 
finished before '26 when he worked on The Silver Key...
  Hope that helps
Vivs
In Leadership, Friendship, & Service

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025))
Subject: Re: MFK Fisher (Re: Bang, BANG, B-A-N-G!)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. - Rye Canyon
Distribution: world,local
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 15:01:35 GMT

In article <1307@ceylon.gte.com>, vks0@bunny.gte.com (Vijay Samalam) writes...

> 
>I agree ! I never did like "A Passage to India" 

>The problem with the book is that Forster never really understood
>India or Indians though he was extremely sympathetic and tried 
>very hard to understand I might hasten to add. The book tries to 
>explore the problems in the thorny relations between the British
>and the Indians and does not do a very good job. 

> 
>Regards,
>-Vijay


I don't agree. I always thought that the main thrust of the novel
was one women's reaction to her sexual awakening.  That was the
_real_ passage of the novel.  And her sense of guilt was able
to take advantage of the poor race relations to find a target
for blame outside herself.

>what you mean by being "written not out of experience". 

I didn't understand that comment either.  Unless this was meant
to mean that Forrster was writing about something he himself
knew nothing of.  This was Hemingway's feeling too, that a
writer can only write well what he knows about from direct
experience.  I don't agree.

Ron
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 06:31:02 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In article <1992Aug16.022102.11300@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>The fact is that not Tom nor Mike nor even nor especially John -- for
>reasons of lack of desire -- will ever escape from Western Civ because they 
>do not know where the fence is.

	This is not a fact but an extremely silly conjecture.  Perhaps your
inability to distinguish these two classes of statements explains certain
recurrent elements of your postings.


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: I need a word
Date: 14 Aug 92 17:44:10 GMT
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

Re synechdoche, a mnemonic: like using Schenectady for New York (State).

-- jd
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: I need a word
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 13:07:03 GMT
Reply-To: munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac
FollowUp-To: rec.arts.books
 <1992Aug11.152333.14632@husc3.harvard.edu> <5f4mxxp.tmaddox@netcom.com>
Keywords: 
Organization: More like Dis~, really.

In article <5f4mxxp.tmaddox@netcom.com>, Tom Maddox writes:

> In article <1992Aug11.152333.14632@husc3.harvard.edu> zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
> >  Now, if I were to refer to the redoubtable Mr Maddox
> >as "that scrofulous, garrulous hack", that would be a metonym, except on

etc.

> 	As Zeleny's prose makes clear, his cricitizing my writing style
> is like Dan Quayle's criticizing my spelling.

Ah, but Zelany proves himself adept at re-processing the
-essence- of 'Articles by Tom Maddox', and reposting it as his
own work [complete with errors]

Your tired allusion to the infamous Quayle did little to wrest
control from Zelany; and his damning regurgitation of your own
infected pus-choked messages.

Your book, Halo, wasn't that good either.  Have you read anything
by Iain M. Banks?  I'm sure his 'Culture' books would tickle
your mis-shapen sense of humour.

> 				Tom Maddox
>                            DOD ``omm'' tax. 

Dac
--
munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac      David Andrew Clayton.           // _| _  _
  prolix!dac%eyrie@labtam.oz.au      Canberra, Australia           \X/ (_](_](_
        dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au      I post .
prolix!dac@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au            . . I am.             +61 6 290 2215
From: S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Processing & Lucia
Date: 13 Aug 92 12:54:09 GMT

danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR]) writes:
> S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk writes:
> >	   If a train station is a place where trains stop,
> >	       then what does that make a workstation?

Whoops! I must have let my .localsig remain attached. That's what
comes of posting via mail and using aliases at the same time. Please
see below for the proper .sig.

>	   If a food processor is something that chops up food,
> 	       then what does that make a word processor?

Now *that* I like! Since the train/work station quote was stolen
shamelessly from somebody on the net, may I shamelessly steal your
variation as a replacement?

To justify posting on r.a.b, here's something about books:

Meg Worley asked if she should try (E.F. Benson's) Lucia. I agree with
whoever it was who suggested she should try a page or two first. It's
not to everybody's taste, though it is to mine so I'd encourage Meg or
anybody else to have a go. I first became aware of Lucia through a TV
series called "Mapp & Lucia" which ran for two seasons on Channel 4 in
the UK starring Geraldine McEwan as Lucia and Prunella (Sybil Fawlty)
Scales as Mapp. Was this ever shown in the States? What do people
think of Benson's other books, are they worth reading?

What do those of you who love Lucia think of the two Tom Holt
pastiches "Lucia in Wartime" and "Lucia Triumphant"? Personally I
thought he did a remarkably good job of maintaining the correct
atmosphere and of reproducing the original characters. I've been
looking for his (Holt's) "Expecting Someone Taller" for some time but
so far without success.

--
Regards

Steve Fagg      ( S.L.Fagg@bnr.co.uk +44-279-402437 )
BNR Europe Ltd., London Road, Harlow, Essex, CM17 9NA, UK

*** "Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers, won't drown". ***
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 05:07:36 GMT

                                       Friday, the 14th of August, 1992
Mark Taranto writes:
        It is easy for a white man to tell a black man that color
        is unimportant.

        It is easy for a straight man to tell a gay man that sexual
        preference is unimportant.

        It is easy for a rich man to tell a poor man that money
        in unimportant.

I think there's a qualitative difference between what would be
commonly understood for the first two statements and the last. It is
not necessarily injustice that a poor man can't buy what a rich man
can. It is injustice if the Rights of a gay man or a black man are
taken away for the ``reason'' that he is black or gay.

Mark also writes:
  Crawford is right that race and sex should not be the most important aspects
  of one's personality.  Perhaps when minority groups are no longer judged
  by those aspects, they will become less important.

Yes, but I think you've got to be very careful with discerning who is
doing the judging. ``Societies'' are not capable of moral responsibility.
Individual human beings are.

                Mike Morris
         (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)
From: hlynka@server.uwindsor.ca (Myron Hlynka)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Reading books in a foreign language
Date: 13 Aug 1992 19:41:11 GMT
Organization: University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada

In article <Bsu6Es.8I0@news.cso.uiuc.edu> mbvg9741@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (plain) writes:
>
>Hmm, this leads to the interesting question (at least interesting
>to me) are there any Russian language comic books?  This is not
>something mentioned in any of my classes so far.

I cannot answer your question. But I have in my collection a recent
bilingual Ukrainian/English comic book printed in Ukraine when it
was still part of the Soviet Union. 

                                           Myron Hlynka
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: trb@cbnews.cb.att.com (tom.balent)
Subject: Re: author and theme of MacBird?
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 11:28:41 GMT

In article <r=8mpf.tmaddox@netcom.com> tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>
>	Barbara Garson; LBJ as Macbeth.
>
>	She has a more recent book in which she claims that the computerized
>office is the new sweatshop--I don't recall its title, nor have I read it, but
>I heard her talk about it on NPR when it came out a few years ago.
>
>

It is called The Electronic Sweatshop. I just bought it last week from
the closeout bin, but have not had a chance to read it yet.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 05:22:22 GMT

                                   Friday, the 14th of August, 1992

Christopher Lee Lott asks:
  Mark Taranto-- I want to know why you would avoid Alice Walker regardless of
  what she had to say in an interview. 

Since I was the one who complained about Ms. Walker's interview, I
hope Mark won't mind if I answer for him. It was a sound-bite I wrote.
Really the interview was not enough to dissuade me from wanting to read
Alice Walker. Its falsity did however contribute some measure of
disrecommendation to the many positive recommendations I have received.

              Mike Morris
          (msmorris@watsci.uwaterloo.ca)


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 15:13:21 GMT


barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard) writes of Crawford Kilian:

> On reflection, I think that a large part of what I find offensive
> is that you're referring to me in third person.

Oh, dear.

I do not write this to offend Barclay, but we must all realize exactly
who our audience is.

When I post, I almost always refer to others in the third person, because
I write for r.a.b -- not for that individual.  I have, occasionally, addressed
an individual in a posted article, but only for effect.  If I want to write for
one person, I will send e-mail.

Several of the r.a.b.id address another in the second person.  Mike Morris
does this frequently, for example.  I've always found this a little odd,
as if I am reading something private.

Of course, private conversations made public can add to the excitement,
too.  Don't you agree, Barclay?


Mark


        Private faces in public places
        Are wiser and nicer
        Than public faces in private places.

        -- W. H. Auden (dedicating THE ORATORS to Stephen Spender)


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Global vs. Local Kill files
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 23:44:39 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Sorry about this message, it really doesn't belong in this newsgroup,
but there was a thread awhile back concerning whether to use kill files
vs creating new newsgroups to hold silly discussions.

This is currently still a problem in rec.arts.books.

Anyway, the original poster had complained that his kill file took
many minutes to update.  It occurred to me that this delay may be
due to his inadvertant use of a 'global' instead of a 'local'
kill file, which use would certainly result in a much longer update time.
If this gentleman has any other questions he can email me.

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: George Lucas's reading list
Date: 13 Aug 92 23:12:13 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Lurkers Anonymous
NNTP-Posting-Host: earlybird

(Crawford Kilian) writes:

 independently. We might also object that some literary images are so common as
 to be "in the air" and attributable to no one in particular: is Obi-Wan Kenobi
 an *hommage* to Tolkien's Gandalf, or just an off-the-shelf Wise Old Man
 archetype, provenance unknown? Here criticism yields to scholarship; we need to
 know what George Lucas was reading before he wrote Star Wars.

Why? What difference does it make what the author's intent was vis-a-vis
a "hommage"? If he intended one, then he can judge its success or failure,
if he did not, big deal. The work should stand on its own. In any event,
it probably wouldn't help knowing what Mr. Lucas read before he wrote 
Star Wars: you would need to know his whole history and that's his 
business.

Dano
From: dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au (Andrew Clayton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Books on MJ Cultivation?
Date: 19 Aug 92 14:04:31 GMT
Reply-To: munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: More like Dis~, really.

In article <Bt6Byn.IM0@cck.coventry.ac.uk>, Adam Bentley writes:

> Can anyone give me some details of good books on MJ cultivation which are

If it's anything like OJ cultivation, first you need a grove of
trees ... Mandarin? Mango? 

Should be a thin book, really.

Dac
--
munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac      David Andrew Clayton.           // _| _  _
  prolix!dac%eyrie@labtam.oz.au      Canberra, Australia           \X/ (_](_](_
        dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au      I post .
prolix!dac@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au            . . I am.             +61 6 290 2215
munnari!labtam!eyrie!prolix!dac      David Andrew Clayton.           // _| _  _
  prolix!dac%eyrie@labtam.oz.au      Canberra, Australia           \X/ (_](_](_
        dac@prolix.pub.uu.oz.au      I post .
prolix!dac@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au            . . I am.             +61 6 290 2215
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.religion.kibology