HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: trumpins@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Barbara Trumpinski)
Subject: Re: Isaac Asimov has left us.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 18:13:47 GMT

In <122420041@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom) writes:

>In alt.callahans, aralph@cix.compulink.co.uk (Alan Ralph) writes:

>> He died yesterday. No doubt the obits will be flying in by the ton.
>> 
>> "The man who laid down the Laws of Robotics."
>> *CRASH!*
>> 
>> Alan Ralph <-> Kimberley MonTemplar

>The first law of Robotics is:

>Never let them see you sweat.

>doug

kitten throws a peanut at doug and buys him a drink....

groan

--
***************************************************************************
conan the librarian a.k.a. kitten           /\ /\  barbara ann 
"my life's a soap opera, isn't yours?"      {=.=}
                                              ~   trumpins@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu 

"kittens today are not properly trained--the way that they were when
victoria reigned." asparagus (gus: the theatre cat)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: DM Re: Potstickers
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 05:36:31 GMT

In article <9204081918.AA07441@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM>, dgil@ipsaint.ipsa.reuter.com (Gillett, David) writes:
>  Shao-mai is not a term I've seen used in restaurants here.  I did see a neat
>  documentary bit about the making of stuffed dumplings in China on one of our
>  local stations (really!), but I don't know if shao-mai is a generic name for
>  "stuffed dumpling", or a specific name for "dumpling stuffed with sausage,
>  which has been fried" -- and the latter specific variety is what we mean by
>  "potstickers".

No, no, no.  The TRULY generic term is Chop Suey (a little of everything)!
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: braley@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca (The Didi-Sprite)
Subject: Re: Dance Didi?
Originator: braley@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 21:29:51 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.153556.28216@cs.rose-hulman.edu> lindercs@HYDRA.ROSE-HULMAN.EDU writes:
>	Galadin is sitting in the meadow accompanying Nicki on his keyboard and

[lots of good stuff deleted ... sigh.]

>Didi-sprite is standing in front of Galadin and listing the people she wants to
>dance with.  

[more dreamy stuff deleted ... ]

>	The music then changes into a soft waltz that fills the clearing with
>feelings of peace and happiness.  Galadin walks over to Didi and looking down
>at her begins to speak in his most gentlemanly voice, "Would this fine sprite
>be so kind as to accompany me out onto the dance floor for this waltz?"
>	Galadin then looks at Didi waiting patiently but with trepidation for
>the answer.
>
The Didi-Sprite smiles shyly up at this handsome gentleman so
exquisitely attired for a waltz, then curtsies low and replies:
"You honour me, Sir."  then rises and steps into his arms.  The two
float away on the lilting melody as Nicki's fingers unerringly pluck
the strings of her guitar, creating new magic for this couple and all 
those who join in the dance.

----<--<@

The Didi-Sprite
Montreal * Canada

braley@binkley.cs.mcgill.ca

Thank you Galadin!
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Friday, 17 Apr 1992 14:59:06 EDT
From: Abner Mintz <AXM113@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Survey

Oh, by the way ... another legalism.

"Question 4 does not in any way imply that I would like to cause the Brumby to
choke, or anyone else choke him, or for him to choke of natural cause; nor
would I allow him by inaction to be choked."
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: Rhetoric: The End of Morality in Society (?)
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 06:12:22 GMT

In article <92098.173118TAG2@psuvm.psu.edu>, Thomas A. Gryn <TAG2@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>Deepvoice says, "Ah, this is why I brought up the concept of "natural rights"
>in my original piece. I would say that the right to life is inalienable
>based on the fact that every civilization has had some
>form of law or edict against murder of members of one's own group; this is
>backed up by translations of the laws and codes recorded in some of the
>earliest writings of humanity. If someone can come up with a civilization
>which said "it's ok to indiscriminately kill other members of your group", I'd
>love to hear it. A conclusion one can draw from this is that there is perhaps
>more than just the social contract at work here.

How about the Norse?  Basically, if I understand it correctly, what they said
was simply, "If you violate our social contract against indiscriminate killing,
you give up the right to have us enforce that contract for you (i.e., kill
someone and don't pay weregild, and the family of the person you killed can
kill you with impunity).  Much the same idea as the English concept of
`outlaw':  If you violate the law and refuse to submit to the legal penalty,
you're no longer entitled to the protection of the law."
From: lindercs@HYDRA.ROSE-HULMAN.EDU (Galadin (Craig Linderoth))
Subject: Re: They're coulomb to take me away, ha ha, hee hee, ho ho
Reply-To: lindercs@HYDRA.ROSE-HULMAN.EDU
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 16:11:08 GMT

In article <1992Apr13.013241.17265@cs.tulane.edu>, pierce@navo.navy.mil (Jim M. Pierce) writes:
>In article <1992Apr09.193530.1629@demon.co.uk>, aralph@cix.compulink.co.uk (Alan Ralph) writes:
>|> SEA sez:
>|> >SEA has been listening to the pun fest from her usual spot in the hot tub. 
>|> >After getting another drink from Mike, she turns to face the punsters and
>|> >proceeds with: "IC that my delicate ears don't have the capcitance to
>|> >resist this current flow.  I'm out of phase and amp sure to need grounding
>|> >before this circuit is complete.  I'm wafering on the edge of reluctance
>|> >and this situation needs to be rectified by admittance to the home for
>|> >transient punsters."  Turning to toe the line, SEA throws her glass into
>|> >the fireplace and says, "May we all reach a steady state soon."
>|> [...]
>|> >We now  return you to the regularly scheduled frequency.  Tune in tomorrow
>|> >same Bat Time, same Bat Channel!
>|> 
>|> "Holy Circuit Breakers, Batman! Looks like we got here in the nick of
>|> time!"
>|> 
>|> "Yes, Robin. And now to neutralise this menace with the aid of my trusty
>|> Batarang!"
>|> 
>|> *woosh!* *KLUNK!* "I surrender! It's a fair cop!"
>|> 
>|> "And now to hand you over to Commissioner Gordon. And this time you'll
>|> stay earthed for a good long time!"
>|> 
>|> 
>|> Altogether now.... "NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA.... BAT-MAN!!!!"
>|> 
>|> Alan Ralph <-> Kimberley MonTemplar
>
>   "Oh well, if you can't beat them, join them together by solder.
>
>    Eh Wattson. Coulomb along this copper buss. Methinks the vacuum
>  
>    doth follow the path of least resistance. The plate gets its currant
>
>    berries from the grid on the moor," says Shearlock Ohms.
>
>   { Vacuum tubes. yuck ! }
>-- 
>     pierce@navo.navy.mil  Jim Pierce aka Nick D.
>
>    "I want a new duck...." Weird Al Yankovic
	"Ahh, where is a snowball when one needs it?  Oh well, have to make do
with what is at hand."  With that, Galadin reaches and gathers a handful of
peanuts.  He then aims carefully, and a volley of unshelled peanuts fly towards
the punsters.  "Watch out NikcD.  Oh and you to Alan and Kimberley, here they
come."  With that, Galadin then ducks back out of the way.


******************************************************************************
*Craig Linderoth                * Reality is for People who Lack Imagination.*
*Lindercs@Rosevc.rose-hulman.edu*   The Callahanian Protector of People from *
*ChemEng, Rose-Hulman           *    Outrageous Pun Throwers    SPLAT :)     *
******************************************************************************
From: Adrian.Waterworth@newcastle.ac.uk (Adrian Waterworth)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Epistemological Question
Date: 10 Apr 92 11:07:37 GMT
Organization: University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, NE1 7RU

Martyr ponders StM's criteria for "historical accuracy" (for want of a
better term) for a little while.  He is obviously weighing up the pros
and cons of each item in the list. Finally, after much thought, he 
decides to throw in his two penn'orth to the conversation...

"Speaker, I broadly agree with your criteria. That is to say, I think
that conformance to natural law, availability of physical evidence and
the availability of independent accounts which agree upon the major
details of an incident tend to provide a reasonable filter through
which the curd of historical fact may be separated from the whey of
fiction. However, these criteria are not sufficient. Conformance to
natural law is easily faked in any account of events so long as the
person presenting the account is familiar with the appropriate natural
laws. Physical evidence is only a very rough guide insofar as it is
possible to create fake physical evidence and it is equally possible
that, even for 'real' events, substantial physical evidence may not
exist. Finally, independent accounts can be faked _without_ risk of
detection, so long as the falsifier has sufficient control over the
material which is available to, or accessible by, the reader and so
long as efforts are made to ensure the overall consistency of the
fabrication. Admittedly, this latter bit of fakery would be extremely
difficult to achieve in practice, but such an 'Orwellian' (if I may use
the term lightly) scenario cannot be overlooked."

"Hmmmm. It's all a very interesting problem, is it not?"

"Now, if I have any _useful_ ideas, I'll be sure to throw them in as
well!!" ;-)
				Martyr.

		\----------------------------------------/
		 |  Adrian.Waterworth@newcastle.ac.uk	|
		/ ---------------------------------------\

P.S. Apologies for the somewhat 'cheese'y metaphor in the above
discussion. I was going to re-word it, but I thought about it very
caerphilly and decided that there would be leicester worry about if I
just let it stand.
			M.
From: rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: More Rhetoric
Date: 9 Apr 92 01:00:04 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <92099.073613AXM113@psuvm.psu.edu>, AXM113@psuvm.psu.edu 
(Abner Mintz) writes:

> To me, the best solution is that everyone who wants to have an equal right to
> learn to make bricks, and whoever learns well and is good at it gets an access
> claim on the river clay ...
> 
  But what happens when evryone knows how to make bricks and there isn't
enough clay for everyone to make all the bricks they want? Everyone has an
equal right to use the clay, right? So if you want to use more than your
share of bricks, then you will have to negotiate a way of buying or leasing
the clay from others. What the system I'm advocating does is give a
mechanism for that that works on a global scale.

> Also, free education up to the limit of a person's ability is a must.  That
> goes a good way towards eliminating the underclass.  Of course, there's always
> the problem of getting the money, but if welfare gets any closer to the cost
> of sending someone yearround to a cheap college .....
> 
  Why not give everyone the rent for their share of resources and let the
user pay? That way those whose level of need for education get to spend
their money on something else if they value it more highly than education.

>>>  "Ah, yes. That brings me to the point I was going to make. If everyone
>>>has their share of resources, or compensation for it, each culture can take
>>>its share and make things the way they prefer using their share. Nobody
>>>else has the right to interfere so long as they use their own resources, or
>>>pay the just, market adjusted rent for the excess."
> 
> Who decides?  Majority rule?  Then the minority may get stiffed anyway ...

  Everyone decides - market forces with everyone having the same amount of
market force - that's the beauty of it.
-- 
Robert 'Stumpy' Marsh | Brought to you from the bottom of the world
rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz  | both topographically and socio-politically.
+64 7 855 4406        | Whatever happened to Godzone?
    SnailMail: 95 Fairfield Rd, Hamilton, Aotearoa (New Zealand)
From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Becoming a murderer
Date: 16 Apr 92 07:36:25 GMT
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera

In article <tjlee.703396951@pv742a.vincent.iastate.edu>, tjlee@iastate.edu (The Lamplighter) writes:
>Bob English writes:
>
>>...
>
>>He raises his glass above his head.  "To those who feel their right to
>>kill outweighs the right of others to live without killing, and whose
>>thirst for blood makes murderers of us all, may your thirst be quickly
>>sated.  It is not only criminals who suffer when you kill, but all those
>>in whose name you act."
>
>>He drains his glass in one draught, then fires it into the flames and
>>walks slowly to his seat.
>
>	The Lamplighter claps at this, too, saying, "Yes!  Since when
>has killing the murderer helped anybody?  More senseless death."
>
>	"Did you vote against the people who are doing this in any way,
>Bob?  If so, you can feel a bit less responsible for it ..."
>
>	He steps off the soapbox and puts it back in the pile.

Speaker-to-Minerals asks Bob and Lamplighter, "Are the two of you willing to
contribute $25,000 each for the rest of Harris' life to support him?"
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: Mail from Bob English
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 20:32:51 GMT

In article <1992Apr15.224503.7442@waikato.ac.nz>, hgm@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>You asked:
>How is this different than a property tax?
>
>It does not tax the improved value of resources only the natural value. The
>improved value is the result of someone's labour and they are entitled to it.
>The natural value was not created by anyone's labour and no-one has more right
>to it than anyone else therefore we have equal rights to it if we have any
>right at all. To tax property is to create disincentives to work to increase
>the value of your resource. To tax only the resource itself is to create
>incentives to use the resource efficiently.

OK, you've got a theoretical distinction between improved value and natural
value.  How do you implement such a distinction in practice?  Suppose someone
controls a parcel of land with substantial mineral resources.  But that land is
incredibly inaccessible.  He invests his other resources (including labor) into
making the property more accessible.  At this point, the market value for the
property will include the value of the improvements he's made.  And there will
be no way for the market to separate the value of the improvements from the
natural value of the land.  So how do you figure out what the taxable part of
the value might be?
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: steel bars
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 06:54:30 GMT

In article <1992Apr9.230123.16765@NCoast.ORG>, allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH) writes:
>As quoted from <1992Apr7.072229.13451@ucc.su.OZ.AU> by mar@physics.su.OZ.AU (David Mar):
>+---------------
>| > [Michael the dark elf:]
>| >		And at the edge of hearing comes a pun:
>| >			"Steel bars do not a prism make."
>| >	
>| >		Not bad, but not the sort of pun the elf would Bragg
>| >	about.
>| 
>| "Please. You're grating on my nerves."

Speaker-to-Minerals adds, "If this keeps up, I'll have to de-Fresnel-strate one
of you (not much of a threat in a one-story building)."
From: JMPIERCE@USMCP6.BITNET (JIM PIERCE)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: re: Poststickers
Date: 8 Apr 92 14:22:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: USM.920408.08223700.071199


Hmm. Well that clears that up. I thought poststickers were some
sort of Bar-B-Que and wood skewers. I do know what wan-ton is.
Well DM, I eat Chinese food. Well, an Amercanized dish called
'shrimp fried rice.' My sisters like pu-pu trays which have
 Bar-B-Que on wooden skewers, egg rolls, ribs, and fried wan-ton
on the tray. { And yes, it is pronounced 'poo-poo.' }
  Later, JimP.

* <JMPIERCE@USMCP6.BITNET> Jim Pierce; Bach. Sci. in Applied Computer Science
* USM Academic Computing on the Gulf Park Campus. Disclaimer: Standard.
* "Women are People, *not* property." me
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Speaker-to-Minerals)
Subject: Re: More Rhetoric
Reply-To: lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU
Organization: HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 04:38:48 GMT

In article <1992Apr6.052107.7256@waikato.ac.nz>, rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>  "Lawyers are a scarce resource themselves (though not a natural resource 
>that we have a right to a share of), the more scarce they are, the more 
>they will be able to charge for their services. If people think lawyers 
>get paid too much they will force the prices down. Admittedly that's harder 
>in law than in ditch-digging, but then if you have a scarce but needed 
>skill, you should be able to charge what you want for it, otherwise you are 
>doing something against your will without being properly compensated.
>  "We hope that people will stop thinking of jobs as ways to make a living
>and begin to think of them as ways to help themselves and others. That way
>one person's work would be worth about the same as any other's. However if
>lawyers want to be greedy and we still need them, they can charge what they
>like, and we have to pay up or do without. Of course we also hope that
>lawyers will be less important in the new society.

There's a problem here.  The "scarcity" of lawyers, like the "scarcity" of
doctors, is an artificial scarcity.  In both cases, we have the practitioners
of a field determining who gets licensed to practice in that field.  Not
surprisingly, the number of licensed practitioners is limited to a small enough
number that each of them can extract exhorbitant rents.  You need to consider
that the license to practice in a field is a resource, and tax those who
control the licenses.

>With everyone controlling (in one way or another) an equal share, there should
>be less property and poverty crime. With those two out of the way we should
>have a much nicer society to live in, don't you think?"

And suppose someone squanders the resources he starts with?  What happens then?
We already have a situation in which enormous numbers of people squander their
opportunity for education, and then blame the rest of society for the fact
that, having spent their time in school disrupting the efforts of others to
learn, they don't have an education.  Somehow I doubt that your scheme will
change this sort of behavior.  Now, if your scheme says that those who squander
the resources they control don't continue getting more, I don't think you'll
get rid of property and poverty crime.  And if your scheme DOES require that we
continue diverting more resources to them, you've eliminated property and
poverty crime only in the sense that their continued theft is now legal. 
Either way, you've not dealt with the problem.
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: jpalmer@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (John D Palmer)
Subject: Re: All mind and no heart?
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 07:42:45 GMT

In article <bruce.702957124@grate> bruce@grate.ugcs.caltech.edu (Bruce J Bell) writes:
>"Yeah, that sounds familiar.  Well, it's not that I can't see beauty,
>it's just too intense, it makes me want to cry.  Glorious red sunsets
>through LA smog, moving poetry, clear skies after a month of rain, a
>couple holding hands... they all produce a cringing feeling in the
>back of my head.  It's just a little too much.
>
>"I recently came to the conclusion that feeling pain is better than
>feeling nothing at all.  Unfortunately, it seems my way of dealing with
>pain is to avoid the cause..."
>Skeeve

      Nothing wrong with being overwhelmed with beauty and crying. . . 
I cry sometimes as I plan out critical scenes in Angel War, the novel that 
I'm going to write when I'm not working 750 hours a week. . . Or a song make
me cry. . . or, as you said, a couple holidng hands and looking truly IN LOVE.
 
     Usually, for me, it's the sign that there's tooo much stress and not 
enough happiness. . . I'm finding somethign lost. . . if I only
had somethign to DO to recharge. . . but there's no time.  Sigh.
 
    Well, (grin) in about a week I'll be working only 1 job again, and
I'll be wishing for the income from the second.
 
                                    John

-- 
"Love is cool; I mean, like, really cool.  Like, the coolest thing in
the universe, where, like, people open up inside and show the world how
they feel, and they ain't afraid someone's gonna laugh because they, like,
love themselves already!"  --Personality 42, a generic 60's philosopher 
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
From: seawasp+@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: the best books to rebuild modern technology
Date: 12 Apr 92 13:39:10 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

In article <1992Apr12.120030.25439@cco.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Apr12.052509.22903@cs.tulane.edu>, pierce@navo.navy.mil (Jim M. Pierce) writes:

	[someone mentions books other than the CRC to rebuild civilization,
or at least give it a running jump start]

>>    "Also a book on masonry. Many of the early cathedrals collapsed
>>  because those stone masons didn't understand all of the forces
>>  they were dealing with." NickD. 

>I'd recommend, instead, a good first-year calculus textbook (assuming we
>couldn't have both, and that we want to teach our children rather than letting
>our knowledge die with us).  You can figure out masonry with the calculus and
>(admittedly a LOT) of experimentation with minerals.  Calculus is also more
>generally applicable.

	The Wasp glances up. "Well, I picked the CRC for many reasons. It
fulfils the calculus requirement (I've HAD calc through diffy Q, and the
mathematics primer in the CRC is more than sufficient to refresh and even
continue my mathematical education). There are pieces of information there
on engineering, etc., physics, etc... If you're willing to say that 
experimentation is practical enough to justify the calculus over the
masonry book, then believe me: the CRC will enable you to do just about
ANYTHING.
	"Another good book for practical stuff might be _How Things Work_,
and there is another, much older, book whose title I can't remember but
which had in it just about everything from poultice recipes to the formula
for cordite.
	"If I knew I was going to be in heavy danger, like, fighting, while
trying to build a civilization, I might take _The CIA Book of Dirty Tricks_
or _The Anarchist's Cookbook_. I know ONE book I'd DEFINITELY want, which
is NOT covered in any way by the CRC, would be a good general medical
text, including stuff for basic drugs like aspirin, penicillin, and simple
surgical procedures..."


					Sea Wasp


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
.        ..               .             .        *           .      .
 .     .      :      .        _*_    .        .          .             ..
.   .     .   .      @---====OOOOO====---@~/^\    .     .       .       .
   .   *     .     ..         ^*^  .    .  ;;;      .      .      .   *
 :    .     .    .        .      .            .*         .     .        .
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interphase Accomplished. 
Sea Wasp docked, Outring Sector 5.