HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Subject: Re: interminable ad hominem argument
Reply-To: danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock)
Organization: Iowa State University
Distribution: world,local
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 19:59:25 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.145057.21027@b30.ingr.com>, craig@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig
Presson) writes:

[Jim Lippard notes correctly that many published results are never referenced]

> I have to question how important some of those results are if nothing
> follows from them. Let's say you're trying to answer the question "Why
> does a skin form on the surface of milk when it's heated?", and you
> find out that the only formal paper on that topic is in the Proc.
> Royal Phil. Soc. of 1749[1]. Do you read that paper and accept its
> conclusion as the Last Word on the topic? I hope not.
> 
> -- Craig Presson
> [1] There is such a paper; I'm pretty sure I have the century
> right but the year wrong. I was looking for a research topic in the
> basement of the science library at MIT in 1973 when I ran across it.

   A lot of scientific papers are published so that the author can get tenure
or a promotion.  Many academic departments insist you have (oh say) 10 papers
during your six year tenure track.  If the papers were an investgation of
something that might have led somewhere or which was mildly interesting but
turned out not to have any important consequences you still publish it as a
full blown scientific paper (instead of just sending a half page note to a
journal about what not to bother trying).  My paper "The Costas Invarient on
Graphs" which will appear in Congress Numeratorum fits in this category.  I
absolutely must have my "body count" of papers up to snuff before tenure time or
I'm dead.  Only some of the papers have to be good.  The result is a whole
raft of pro-forma papers that take up space in Journals.

   There is a reform movement under way but it's going to take a long time to
have much effect.  I sure wish I could do three really good papers instead of
eight mediocre ones and two really good ones.  For the record I've either
caught or helped catch serious errors in published work three times since I
started doing reserach about six years ago.  In two instances it was work over
twenty years old that no-one else had refered to before me except in indecies
of published work (like Math Reviews or the Science Citation Index).  Math ages
more slowly than the other technical fields, but still...

Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
Dan
Danwell@IASTATE.EDU
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Satans E-mail.
Reply-To: grante@aquarius.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Organization: Rosemount, Inc.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 20:33:18 GMT

sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer) writes:
: > tonyz@hpwrce.mayfield.hp.com (Tony Zugates) writes:
: >John...I'm your friend too..  
: >
: >Please send my letter:
: >
: >Dear Satan:
: >
: >	 I need money.  Please send me lots.
: >
: >			       Thank-you.
: 
: You forgot to seal your Soul in an envelope, and send it along.
: 

Is my soul small enough to fit in the data field of an ethernet
packet?  (I'm out of stamps.)

--
Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  He is the
Rosemount Inc.                                |MELBA-BEING...  the ANGEL
                                              |CAKE...  XEROX him...  XEROX
grante@aquarius.rosemount.com                 |him --
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.messianic,alt.atheism
From: gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston)
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Reply-To: gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston)
Organization: Field Robotics Center, CMU
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:49:47 GMT

Personal anecdotes are worthless, and any one who has read this bboard
knows that I am no friend of religion, but...

My step grandmother was aided by a young Polish priest when she
escaped from the Warsaw ghetto.  [Needless to say, he presented each
of the escaping Jews with a rosary.]  Anyway, now-a-days, we know this
priest as pope John Paul II.

--
Gerry Roston (gerry@cmu.edu)    | There never did, there never will, and
Field Robotics Center,          | there never can exist a parliment, or any
Carnegie Mellon University      | description of men, or any generation of
Pittsburgh, PA, 15213           | men, in any country, possessed of the right
(412) 268-3856                  | or the power of binding and controlling
                                | posterity to the `end of time,' or of
The opinions expressed are mine | commanding for ever how the world shall be
and do not reflect the official | governed, or who shall govern it...
position of CMU, FRC, RedZone,  | -Every age and generation must be as free
or any other organization.      | to act for itself, in all cases, as the
                                | ages and generations which preceeded it.
                                | Thomas Paine
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: sheaffer@netcom.com (Robert Sheaffer)
Subject: Re: Psychics' Predictions Fizzle For 1992
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 20:12:15 GMT

In article <1993Jan2.231655.12160@cs.unca.edu> kepley@cs.unca.edu (Brad Kepley) writes:
>>do you really think people actually believe this obvious entertainment?
>
>I'd say they do.  Aren't "psychics" sometimes used by the police or
>is that bull*** dished out by the cons who call themselves psychics?

Unfortunately, *plenty* of people DO believe this B.S. Many well-known 
"psychics" charge $300 on up for "private readings," in which they give you
all kinds of advice about your job, health, family, etc. Nobody would
pay that kind of money unless they really BELIEVED the stuff they were
hearing.


-- 
  
        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - sheaffer@netcom.com
  
 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!


     "Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that
      they are not even superficial."

                   - Friedrich Nietzsche    (The Gay Science: 126)
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:22317 alt.messianic:3963 alt.atheism:25673
From: dvp@oasis.icl.co.uk (Dave Parry)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.messianic,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Date: 7 Jan 93 13:28:47 GMT
Followup-To: sci.skeptic
Organization: The Mountains of Madness
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

kepley@cs.unca.edu (Brad Kepley) writes:
> 
> So all these people "wanted the Jews and Atheists killed" as you put
> it?
>   The Catholic Church is led by fallible men who make foreign policy
> mistakes and have many skeletons in their closets, and they can be 
> sanctimonious, just like others (I won't mentionany names). But who 

Oh-oh, what happened to Papal Infallibility?

> hasn't made terrible mistakes, given a thousand years of history and rapidly
> changing moral values?

See above

>    And looking back now with comfortable 20/20 hindsight and high moral
> indignation, who did behave correctly during that awful time?  
> Your accusation that the Catholic Church "wanted" the Jews and Atheists
> is revolting.

Dave
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.messianic,alt.atheism
From: jim@specialix.com (Jim Maurer)
Subject: Re: Why does Eire get so much press?
Organization: Specialix Inc.
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 02:50:03 GMT

creilly@maths.tcd.ie (Colman Reilly) writes:

>p00168@psilink.com (James F. Tims) writes:

>c) There ain't no violence in Dublin.

Maybe not now, but there has been in the not too distant past.
Someone I know was almost blown up at a bus stop right next to TCD a few
years ago! It was right by Dawson Street, I can't remember the name of the
street right off hand.  Anyway, he left the office and walked to
the bus stop and then realized he left his umbrella in the office.
He went back and got it and was almost at the bus stop when a bomb went
off.  Several people were killed.  When I was there in '87 there was
a bombing at a Laura Ashley shop in Grafton Street (though that was
done by the animal rights people, not the IRA).  Oh, and one of the
North Dublin gangs also firebombed another building right by TCD,
I think it was an American Express office or the building next to
AMEX.  And there was a bomb threat at Connolly station, someone
was going to blow up a Dublin to Belfast train.  (Dublin is the
only place where I've seen train passengers have to go through
metal detectors.)  When I visited the Irish Rail Inchicore works
they had just finished rebuilding a locomotive that had been blown
up a few years previous to that.  Lets see, the animal rights people
also threatened to blow up a McDonalds and some butcher shops right
around the time of the big hurley championships.  And how many of
the bank robberies in the republic are done by the IRA?

Though all in all I felt a lot safer in Dublin than I have in
New York City!

Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:21987 alt.atheism:24917
From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Date: 4 Jan 93 09:58:29 GMT
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1993Jan3.151154.18933@cs.unca.edu> kepley@cs.unca.edu (Brad Kepley) writes:
>What the Vatican did had nothing to do with 
>the Vatican wanting to kill Jews and Atheists, but if you insist that it is,
>why don't you balance this with how many Christians were killed by the
>Jewish Atheists of the Soviet Union Bolshevic leadership?

Okay, let's do some biting.

(1) How many Christians were killed by Jewish atheists?  Where, when
and under what circumstances?  (Reference.)

(2) How many Christians were killed by the Bolshevik leadership of the
Soviet Union?  Where, when and under what circumstances?  (Reference.)

(3) Do you make a distinction between "Atheists" and "the Soviet Union
Bolshevic [_sic_] leadership"?  Why or why not?

-- 
 `D'ye mind tellin me whit the two o ye are gaun oan aboot?' (The Glasgow
Ivan A Derzhanski  (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk; iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)    Gospel)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,  Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Park Road, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
From: userDHAL@mts.ucs.UAlberta.CA (David Halliwell)
Subject: Re: Characterization of quack theories
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 21:49:20 GMT

"amy lynn young-leith" <alyoung@kiwi.ucs.indiana.edu> writes:

>Look at how people are taught in our educational system:  "This *is*
>the right answer.  Remember it and place it on the test.  Those other
>things that people are trying are just crap.  I don't want to hear
>about them, because *this* is right."  

   I hope that you just were exposed to a rather poor subset of all
the possible teachers. In my own courses, I definitely try to avoid
a situation where students are just expected to "remember facts".
However, a good number of students have been so strongly affected by
the regurgitation approach that it can be a real struggle to actually
get them to think. The number of times I have had students say "just
give me the answer - don't bug me with that 'why' stuff..." often
leaves me rather depressed. Critical thinking is such a hard thing
to teach...
 
   Now, if we could only figure out a reliable way to get the good
students back with the good teachers...


Dave Halliwell
Department of Geography
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:22177 alt.atheism:25347
From: livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Date: 8 Jan 93 07:15:57 GMT
Organization: sgi
NNTP-Posting-Host: solntze.wpd.sgi.com

In article <1993Jan8.060050.9321@hfsi.uucp>, ata@hfsi.uucp (John Ata - FSO) writes:
|> In article <1iatk6INNij4@fido.asd.sgi.com> livesey@solntze.wpd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey) writes:
|> >In article <1993Jan5.014645.6329@cs.unca.edu>, kepley@cs.unca.edu (Brad Kepley) writes:
|> >|> Dear jon:
|> >|>    You have a real hard time with  "lesser of two evils". How do you 
|> >|> feel about Churchill given his "make a deal with the devil himself" to
|> >|> get rid of Stalin?  
|> >
|> >
|> >I think that the trouble you have here is the same confusion that
|> >you have exhibited before, for example when you talked about
|> >Chamberlain and Roosevelt.   You want to put everyone who had any
|> >dealings with Hitler - and now Stalin - on the same level.
|> >
|> >But they are not on the same level.   Chamberlain and Roosevelt
|> >kept a distance between themselves and Hitler, and dealt with him
|> >only when they had to.   Meanwhile the German Catholic Youth
|> >Organization was describing Naziism as a "spritual breakthrough".
|> >The point is that you *do* have to deal with a Hitler from time
|> >to time, but you don't have to express that kind of enthusiasm.
|> 
|> Err, what does the German Catholic Youth Organization have to do with
|> the Vatican?

Is this a quiz, or do you have a point to make?

jon.
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: chohan@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Harpal Chohan)
Subject: Re: More post-doc spots in our future?
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 01:15:54 GMT

In article <C0K8rx.2rL@news.cso.uiuc.edu> frenkel@stcst1.mrl.uiuc.edu (David Frenkel) writes:
>
>   At least in physics, postdocs are paid at least twice
>   as much as graduate students, and are much more

Err, they're full time employees too, whereas graduate students typically
have 50% appointments. So, basically they're still getting paid at 
the same rate as a graduate student, aren't they?

-h

Newsgroups: sci.research.careers,sci.research,misc.jobs.offered,soc.college,soc.college.grad
From: mirsip@risky.ecs.umass.edu (Ivan Popstefanija)
Subject: Research Assistantships in Microwave Remote Sensing
Organization: University of Massachusets, Amherst
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 21:07:00 GMT





	The Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory (MIRSL) of the University
	of  Massachusetts  is seeking candidates interested in pursuing a
	Ph.D. degree in  a  variety  of  exciting  experimental  research
	areas.

	Our lab specializes in  active and passive remote  sensing  of  a
	wide   range   of   geophysical  phenomena  using  microwave  and
	millimeter-wave sensors developed by our  graduate  students  and
	research  staff.  Research areas include airborne measurements of
	ocean wind velocity and ocean salinity, cloud microphysics,  soil
	moisture, and ice-cap topology;  ground-based measurements of at-
	mospheric water vapor, wind velocity and turbulence, cloud dynam-
	ics  and  precipitation, and ocean currents; and ship-based meas-
	urements of arctic ice cover.  We currently have  a  team  of  25
	full-time  graduate  students,  five research staff, two faculty,
	and six support staff.  Graduate students are expected to  become
	involved  in all aspects of our research, including problem iden-
	tification, instrument specification and development, field meas-
	urement campaigns and data analysis.  Required qualifications in-
	clude a BS or MS in electrical engineering/physics  or a  related
	field. Research Assistantships begin at  $13,000/year;  a limited
	number of NASA and DoD fellowships are available at approximately
	$16,500/year.

	For more information applicants may contact:
	 Dr. Ivan  Popstefanija,  
	 Knowles  Engineering  Building, 
	 University of Massachusetts,
	 Amherst, MA  01003; 
	 phone: (413) 545-4699; FAX:  (413)  545-4652;
	 e-mail: mirsip@ecs.umass.edu

	The    University    of     Massachusetts     is     an     Equal
	Opportunity/Affirmative  Action Employer and encourages women and
	minorities to apply.
From: merolajs@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu (JOSEPH S. MEROLA DEPT OF CHEMISTRY VPI&SU)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Vita or Vitae?
Summary: Should one write vita or vitae?
Keywords: vita
Date: 9 Jan 93 01:11:00 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41





In article <1ikrqrINNnff@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu>, hougen@focus.csl.uiuc.edu (Darrell Roy Hougen) writes...
>Should one write "vita" or "vitae"?  The reason I ask is that usage
>seems to be very inconsistent.  I was flipping through a recent issue
>of "Communications of the ACM" and found phrases such as:
> 
>	(1) submit curriculum vitae
>	(2) submit a curriculum vitae
>	(3) submit a curriculum vita
>	(4) submit curricula vitae
> 
>Previous posts on this list contained the same inconsistencies.  What
>is a poor job applicant to think when prospective employers can't even
>agree on usage?  And, most of the ads were by universities!!!  Perhaps
>no one knows Latin any more.  I don't.  But my brief encounters with
>the language tell me that (3) is probably correct and that (4) might
>be where (3) means submit one and (4) means submit several.  As I
>understand it, "vita" is singular and "vitae" is plural.  That's what
>my dictionary says.  The question is whether one list of work, etc.,
>is a vita because it is *one* list or vitae because it is a list
>containing multiple entries.  I opt for the former but I would like to
>hear from someone that knows.
> 
>Darrell R. Hougen






You could always use "resume"!  8-)  

Back to the latin, though, the correct form should really be
"Curriculum vitae".  You are correct to state that "vitae" is
the plural form of "vita", but it is also the singular 
genitive form.  So, the phrase actually means
"Course of (one's) life".  

I also see people skirt this one by asking for a CV.  







Joseph Merola
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Tech (aka VPI&SU)










Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: ian@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Ian Parberry)
Subject: Re: Vita or Vitae?
Summary: you pays your money and you takes your choice
Keywords: vita, vitae, vitum
Organization: University of North Texas, Denton
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 16:24:22 GMT

In article <1ikrqrINNnff@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu> hougen@focus.csl.uiuc.edu (Darrell Roy Hougen) writes:
>Should one write "vita" or "vitae"?  The reason I ask is that usage
>seems to be very inconsistent.

The OED lists "curriculum vitae" (Latin: curriculum="course",
vitae="of life").  "Curriculum vita" is just plain wrong.
Mary-Claire van Leunen in "A Handbook for Scholars" (Knopf, New York, 1978)
has this to say about it:

  The idea of a vita is straightforward --- it presents your qualifications
  for a post.  There are three names current for this document, "vita,"
  "curriculum vitae," and "r\'esum\'e."  (It requires no acute psychological
  insight to observe that we set job-hunting off in its nomenclature as
  something foreign.)  Of the three bames, "vita" is the less common, but
  it has the most to recommend it; it's short, it forms an acceptable
  Englished plural, and it needs to accents.  So vita us what we'll call it.

> I was flipping through a recent issue
> of "Communications of the ACM" and found phrases such as:
> 
>        (1) submit curriculum vitae
>        (2) submit a curriculum vitae
>        (3) submit a curriculum vita
>        (4) submit curricula vitae

Technically, (2) is right and the others are wrong.

> Previous posts on this list contained the same inconsistencies.  What
> is a poor job applicant to think when prospective employers can't even
> agree on usage?  And, most of the ads were by universities!!!

Don't be silly.  A university is an abstraction.  Abstractions don't place
job ads.  The ad was placed by a university employee, usually the department
chair or a member of the hiring committee.  These people are usually
overworked and underpaid, so trivial mistakes like this are common and
acceptable.  After all, you understand what they meant, didn't you?
____
Ian Parberry (ian@ponder.csci.unt.edu)
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Univ. of North Texas
"Bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy"
From: loftis@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Kirk Loftis)
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 22:05:42 GMT
Subject: Re: Undergrad vs Masters GPA
Organization: the HP Corporate notes server
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers

/ hpcc01:sci.research.careers / ljhr@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu /  8:52 am  Jan 10, 1993 /
My undergrad GPA was lower than my Master's GPA by almost a full point.  What
seemed to be important to the admissions committees was the fact that my grades
as an undergrad greatly improved in my last 2 years as opposed to the first 2
years.  I'd say that it depends on what university to apply to.  That's the
wisdom of applying to several schools.
----------

I have consistently seen that people have a full point higher GPA in
during their Masters Degree over their Undergraduated.
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: wayne@csri.toronto.edu (Wayne Hayes)
Subject: Why GPAs?  (was Re: GPA/grades)
Date: 8 Jan 93 20:56:48 GMT

hougen@focus.csl.uiuc.edu (Darrell Roy Hougen) writes:
>Most universities in the USA opperate on a 4 point schedule so that no
>one can get 4.5.  Some, such as the University of Illinois, opperate
>on a 5 point scale.  Others opperate on the 3 point scale (I've
>heard).  So, you'll have to take this into account when making
>comparisons.

This brings up a question I've always had: why do we use this
asinine(*) system of grading when there is no global consensus on how
it's normalized, and every institution I've ever heard of just takes
the marks out of 100 (or letter grades) and converts them to grade
points?  Why not just skip the step and have everyone use grades out of
100?

(*): reasons it's asinine (all specifics correspond to my institution):

1) It's very inaccurate, since generally many numerical grades (eg,
70,71,72) all map to the same GP (at my school, I think this is 2.3, or
maybe it's 2.5, I can never remember), ie the quantum is ridiculously
large.

2) When you convert it back to a percentage (which I suspect is done
since, as stated above, different institutions use different maximums),
it's a pessimistic estimate of your numerically-calculated average,
because
 a) anything over 90 is just 4.3, whether it's 89.6 or 97, or 100.
 b) the A-,A,A+ range and it's corresponding single grade point interval
    covers 20 percentage points, rather than only 10 like all the other
    letter grades.

-- 
It is a testament to the insanity of our society that it is considered normal
and sane to use a 2000kg device to move a 60kg body and a 3kg brain to and
from it's place of work every day.

Wayne Hayes     INTERNET: wayne@csri.utoronto.ca        CompuServe: 72401,3525
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: frenkel@stcst1.mrl.uiuc.edu (David Frenkel)
Subject: Re: More post-doc spots in our future?
Organization: Dept of Physics, Univ of Illinois, Urbana
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 00:16:43 GMT

In article <josh.726531467@pogo> josh@pogo.cqs.washington.edu (Josh Hayes) writes:
>"... Postdocs,
>who are paid little more and carry no tuition overhead, would
>be likely to take their place in the lab (_Science_, 28 August
>1992, p. 1201)."

   At least in physics, postdocs are paid at least twice
   as much as graduate students, and are much more
   expensive to a faculty member.
   I heard it is not true in chemistry. I do not know much
   about other fields.

-- 
David Frenkel                        | e-mail:   frenkel@stcst1.mrl.uiuc.edu 
Department of Physics,               | 
University of Illinois at            |
Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA    |
From: stevep@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca (Steve Portigal)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Sigma Xi in Guelph Ontario?
Date: 12 Jan 1993 14:04:08 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

 I'm trying to contact someone from the Sigma Xi Scientific Resarch Society
here in Guelph. I understand they have a chapter here. If anyone has any
info as to how I might locate them (phone book is of no use) I"d
appreciate it...

Steve
-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Steve Portigal  University of Guelph  Guelph, Ontario      |
|  stevep@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca (519) 824-4120 x 3580      |
|  Vicki Lawrence must DIE! Vicki Lawrence must DIE!          |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers