HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Waste containment (was: Re: NEWS: Radioactive Sand Proves ...)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<1992Sep23.164319.20493@nsisrv.gsfc.nasa.gov>
	<1992Sep24.042642.16949@ringer.cs.utsa.edu>
	<1992Oct1.014931.1321@sugra.uucp> <92275.101855KASV-EM@finou.oulu.fi>
Date: 1 Oct 92 14:09:47

Here's what I remember about the natural reactor in the Congo.  The
French noticed that some natural uranium they bought didn't have as
much U-235 as is normal and investigated.  What they discovered was
that a high grade uranium deposited had acted as a reactor moderated
by water about 1.8 billion years ago.  They think the reactor had
operated for about 100,000 years and used up a lot of the U-235.  1.8
billion years ago natural uranium had a higher fraction of U-235 than
it does today, because U-235 decays faster than U-238.  Today such a
natural reactor would not be possible, because there is not enough
U-235 in natural uranium.  However, I suppose one could imagine that
coal or graphite, somehow deficient in the impurities that have to be
removed to get a graphite moderated reactors, had somehow got mixed
with uranium, so we could have a natural Chernobyl type reactors.

The only relevance of this to arguments about nuclear power is for
dealing with the kind of ideologists who believe that nuclear
power is bad for the simple reason that nuclear chain reactions
are unnatural.  

Perhaps there is yet another relevance.  This natural reactor produced
fission products that were significantly radioactive for quite a long
time.  We could make up a scenario about mutant dinosaurs until we
remembered that 1.8 billion years ago is before there is known to have
been any life on land.  There may have been some bacteria around that
were susceptible to yet another source of mutation.


--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: bd580@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Coral Jean Warren)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: FAQ
Date: 2 Oct 1992 21:03:02 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


Are there any environmental FAQs available by anon ftp??
Any info would be greatly appreciated...
From: SCHLOERER@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de (Jan Schloerer)
Subject: Re: Missing CO2 sink found?
Organization: University of Ulm, Germany
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 12:02:34 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

In   <1992Oct01.013822.41964@watson.ibm.com>
     Andrew Taylor   (andrewt@watson.ibm.com)   wrote :


> The New Scientist piece was by John Gribbin.

If this happens to be the editor of  "Climatic Change"  (Cambridge Univ.
Press 1978), then he should know more about the topic than we do.
Anyway, conclusions from the Keeling & Shertz paper seem just
premature to me, see below.


> Would uptake of carbon by phytoplankton be reflected in atmospheric
> oxygen levels?

It depends not only on photosynthesis (by the autotrophs), but also on
respiration (by the autothrophs and heterotrophs).  Net O2 production
of the upper layer of the ocean is one of the quantities which Ralph
Keeling and Stephen Shertz hope to determine more precisely in the
future.  They call it 'net euphotic zone production'.

But, and this holds for all their figures, including those mentioned
by the New Scientist, their present calculations are illustrations of
the new technique rather than reliable results.  They need more data.
Broecker and Severinghaus, for instance, estimate that the O2 record
should cover a decade in order to find out whether the terrestrial
biosphere is a net source or sink of CO2.


Jan Schloerer          schloerer@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de
Klinische Dokumentation           Uni Ulm
Postfach 3880     DW-7900 Ulm     Germany
From: David.Charlap@mailbox.bison.mb.ca (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Fugative emissions and toxic substances list
Date: 25 Sep 92 03:13:59 GMT

Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

Could anyone here help me locate a certain EPA publication?

I am doing a research project that will be used by phameceutical
corporations.  It involves the control and tracking of fugative
emissions.  I know that in 1991, the EPA published a list of 200 or so
chemicals that are supposed to be monitored (for fugative emissions)
in chemical plants.

I need this list.  Does anyone have the list?  Can someone e-mail it
to me?  If not that, can someone give me the government publication
number or (at least) the exact title of this document?

Please send replies to me at:
    dic5340@hertz.njit.edu

Thanks in advance.

-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"

 * Origin: The Electronic Mailbox (1:348/7.0)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Wind assistance for shipping
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 30 Sep 92 08:12:00

What are the crew requirement for, say, a 32,000 ton container ship?
The Japanese have built conventional ships of that size that have
a total crew of 12, six officers and six seamen.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil (Josh Rovero)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Re: Anti-Gore article
Date: 26 Sep 92 23:17:47 GMT
Organization: Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA

In article <lc5vuvINNl18@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu> de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:
>In article <1992Sep24.223149.18878@hsv3.lsil.com>, mvp@hsv3.lsil.com (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
>
>You apparently confuse opposition to war with cowardice.  In reality, it's
>people who inwardly oppose the war but are too weak to resist it outwardly
>that are the true cowards.
>
No, the TRUE cowards are the ones that LIE to their draft boards and college
ROTC units.



-- 
Josh Rovero   (rovero@oc.nps.navy.mil) | or Internet 5346p@cc.nps.navy.mil 
Department of Oceanography, Code OC/Rv |      Bitnet 5346p@NAVPGS 
Naval Postgraduate School              |              
Monterey, CA  93943   (408) 646-2084   |
From: oppedahl@panix.com (Carl Oppedahl)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Upcoming environmental education conference
Date: 6 Oct 92 02:50:09 GMT
Distribution: wi, mn
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

My sister, who does not have Usenet access, asked that I post this.
If I did it right, it is being received only by those in Wisconsin
and Minnesota.  Posting follows:

 
Upcoming Environmental Education Conference
 
hosted by the Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education
 
October 29-31
 
Near Merrimac, Wisconsin
 
Choose from over 32 sessions, 16 field trips, or five workshops designed
for classroom teachers, nature center professionals, and others.
 
To encourage increased awareness and responsibility by understanding the
environment.
 
Keynote address by Ben Logan.
 
Music by Ken Lonnquist.
 
For more information call Mata Riegel 715-824-2428.
From: bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano)
Newsgroups: sci.aquaria
Subject: Smog and Air Pumps
Date: 4 Oct 1992 09:03:25 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


   I have just recently started an aquarium and I live in an
 area where there is a lot of car traffic.

 I understand that air pumps can eventually deterioriate from
 smog exposure.
 But I am also curious:  do the smog particulates dissolve
 into the water as bubbles pass through it?
 And if so, does the degree of dissolving depend of the
 =relative= temperature of the air bubble to the
 aquarium water?
 Any info would be appreciated.
 Mike Romano    U of Cal   Berkeley

-- 
Capt. Kirk: let's head for that planet, third from the sun, it
            looks promising.... |-)
From: shazam@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.aquaria
Subject: Newbie, to the list and to aqariums
Date: 25 Sep 92 20:51:42 GMT
Article-I.D.: drycas.1992Sep26.015142.2152
Organization: Carnegie Mellon Computer Club

Gosh, I feel kinda silly being here, even though I am learning a lot
for my future purchase of a larger aquarium, probably salt water.
I have a 20gal long, my first large aquarium and it is a Tropical
Community tank.  I had a small problem with ph dropping too much,
but i finally got it stablized and the fish seem to be fine now.
Of course I lost the ones I had at the beginning, and have started
over now, but at least I think the problem has been solved. *smile*

I do have three Red Velvet Swordtails I am a little concerned about.
They have only been in the tank a couple of days, so their
behavior may be typical considering their circumstances.  Most of the
time the two females are flitting here and there and seem pretty lively. 
The male will do the same sometimes, but most of the time he appears to be 
hiding at the back of the tank (He is really gorgeous, wiht a single,
thin black line along the swordtail).  The females do this occasionally.
The other fish see to be very lively and having a ball.
I am going ot wait about 5 days before adding anymore.

If you have any ideas or advice for a newbie, let me know *laugh*

Have a nice day...I hope my questions don;t seem to juvenille
to those of you who have graduated to larger tanks!!! *laugh*

M. Suzanne Sims
From: steve@celia.UUCP (Steve Tyree)
Newsgroups: sci.aquaria
Subject: [M][R] Coral Spawning Article Info Request
Date: 29 Sep 92 01:25:21 GMT
Reply-To: celia!steve@usc.edu (Steve Tyree)
Organization: Rhythm & Hues, Inc., Hollywood


 I am putting together a new article which will attempt to detail
environmental parameters and how they influence captive reef spawning. This
article is being written for the computer nets and should be finished in a
week or two. It contains 4 sections. 1 - Descriptions of environmental para-
meters and how they might influence spawning. 2 - Descriptions of coral spawn-
ing methods. 3 - Actual accounts of spawning reports that have appeared on
this net with special emphasis on parameter influences. 4 - A long reference
list and a glossary of terms.
 This article will be close to a scientific level. Its meant to bridge the
gap between reef breeders and marine biologist or scientist. Its primary
purpose will be as a reference for reef breeders. Section 1 and 4 are near
completion. I could use some help with section 3. If anyone has posted an
article on coral invertebrate spawning (coral, anenomes, crustaceans), if 
you could send me copies of your original message via email it would make
the task easier. You might want to arrange your data in a presentable format
and I could insert it as is into the article. Also, if anyone who has posted
spawning info before and does not want their name mentioned in the article,
send me email. Spawn reports from other computer nets are welcome to.

 Steve Tyree - Reef Breeder


Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria
From: daveo@omews18.intel.com (David O'Brien)
Subject: Re: (M) flat worms in my reef tank.
Keywords: flat worms reef
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro, Oregon
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 00:58:55 GMT

In article <1992Sep23.141319.20503@leland.Stanford.EDU> jamescho@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Cho) writes:
>at darryl's pet store in redland's california i noticed that there were
>a lot of small purple spots on his soft corals: mushrooms and leathers.
>i asked the owner, darryl, if he knew what they were.  he said that he
>didn't know but that it didn't seem to hurt any of his corals.  i bought
>a few loose mushrooms that day.  i didn't notice any spots on the mush-
>rooms i bought but i didn't check all that carefully either.

I personally have not seen what you've talking about, but it was a
topic at MACNA4 a couple of weeks ago.  Take a look at the Wilkens
books.  There's a page or so on them in the paracite section.  

You want to try and get rid of these guys if you can.

*** You can find these guys advertised in FAMA, they're worth the money ***
"Invertebrates: Tube-, Soft-, and Branching Corals"
by Peter Wilkens / Johannes Birkholz
1986, Engelbert Pfriem Verlag, Wuppertal
ISBN 3-921677-14-9

"Invertebrates: Stone and False Corals, Colonial Anemones"
by Peter Wilkens
1990, Engelbert Pfriem Verlag, Wuppertal
ISBN 3-921677-15-7



-- 
Dave O'Brien  (daveo@ichips.intel.com)

Xref: sparky sci.aquaria:1390 alt.aquaria:5116 rec.aquaria:7622
Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria
Subject: PLECO.NET.CURSE
From: cpbuehrer@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
Date: 28 Sep 92 01:53:34 -0500
Organization: Miami University Academic Computer Service"

FOR SALE:  PLECO CURSE PROTECTION CHARMS

BUY YOURS NOW!!!  DON'T LET YOUR PLECO SUCCUMB TO THE PLECO.NET.CURSE!!!!

For only 5 monthly installments of $19.95, we'll send you an authentic replica
charm originally used by the ancient Aztecs to protect the emperor's pet
plecos.  Simply drop the ceramic charm in the tank and your pleco is guaranteed
to be protected from the net.curse for a full year!!!

Don't let your pleco be the next victim!!!


--Dennis

(Master Card and Visas welcome...sorry, no COD)
                                           ^^^talk about a *LAME* fish joke!
Newsgroups: sci.aquaria
From: fernando@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (Fernando Pineda)
Subject: home made pH meter
Reply-To: fernando@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu (Fernando Pineda)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Labs
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 17:14:23 GMT

Sorry I lost the post from the person that requested information about pH 
meters. Here's my contribution.

I'm also interested in building a pH measuring circuit  (eventually).  I'd like 
to interface it into a microprocessor. Recently I found two circuits in:
 
Rudolf F. Graf, "The encyclopedia of electronic circuits", vol. 1, p. 399, 
(1985), ISBN 0-8306-1938-0, library of congress catalog no. TK7867.G66. Your 
public or academic library probably has the book. 

The low cost circuit looks particularly simple (+/- 15v supply, a probe, two op 
amps and a handfull of resistors), The output is 0.1 volts per pH increment. 
The more complicated circuit is temperature compensated. 

I can't image that the electronic parts cost more than $10. The costly items 
will be the probe, the power supply and the voltmeter (for reading the output 
voltage). From FAMA I see that the retail cost of probes is < $70. You can 
probably get them for less from other manufacturers (see below). Depending on 
how much of all this stuff you already have around the house you can  probably 
make a meter for not much more than the cost of the probe!

Graf suggest an "Ingold Electrodes" probe #465-35. I don't know anything about 
Ingold Electrodes, however, A good place to get information about any 
manufacturer in the United States is to look in the Thomas Register of Products 
and Services. Its a mammoth (>20 volumes) yellow-pages like index where 
manufacturers of everything are listed. Again this can probably be found in the 
reference section of your public library. Let me know what you turn up.

Good luck. If anyone tries this, let me know how it turns out. -- Fernando



Fernando Pineda (fernando@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: phonological constraints
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 23:04:29 GMT

In article <1992Sep25.115915.3388@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
}...  Moreover, I don't think _hatten_ even *occurs* in
}Munich German: Southern German dialects lack a past tense. ...

I heard mostly educated speech.  Anyhow, I didn't mean I recalled
that specific word.  It was 22 years ago.

}Perhaps you're (mis)analyzing
}the noticeable acoustic change when the velum moves to start the
}nasal of the auxiliary as a glottal stop? ...

I don't think I could make that mistake, though it could have been
glottalized t (without the delay of the alveolar closure which would give
rise to the glottal stop).

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
From: goer@quads.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: deep structure features
Date: 27 Sep 92 16:58:32 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Sep27.165832.6010
Reply-To: goer@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

Question for natural phonologists:

   To what extent has it been shown that features of the sort Jacob-
   son and Halle first developed as part of a phonemic discovery pro-
   cess are valid for deep structure?  Ever since Chomsky and Halle
   got together, people have talked about feature matrices at the sys-
   tematic phonemic level, and have talked about rules as assuming
   them.  But natural phonologists (and others, too) tend to talk about
   phonemes at the systematic level as morphophonemes, and seem to talk
   about them in Sapirian (and also Chomskian) terms as perceptual
   units and not feature bundles.  Does this mean that it's never valid
   to talk about, say, "nasals" as participating in a rule (in the NP
   sense = lexical phonological rule)?  Or (alternatively) do such clas-
   ses exist, but only exist in, say, the sense that any group of pho-
   nemes could be grouped arbitrarily into a class?

Sorry if this seems a silly question.  I'm not fishing for any par-
ticular answer.  I really want to know what anyone in particular thinks.
Please, anyone who wants to jump in and correct any misconceptions or
mis-questions, and if possible toss in an answer or two!

-- 

   -Richard L. Goerwitz              goer%midway@uchicago.bitnet
   goer@midway.uchicago.edu          rutgers!oddjob!ellis!goer
From: rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: The sound of a distinction
Date: 28 Sep 92 13:26:02 GMT
Article-I.D.: alice.23739
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ


What forces are at work when somebody writes:

 mpadmin(1)
 
 WARNINGS
 	It is not possible to restrict or isolate all processors, nor can all
 	processors be restricted or isolated.
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 10:58:12 GMT

In article <peeters.717657429@tasman> peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters) writes:
>pesetsk@athena.mit.edu (David M Pesetsky) writes:
>
>>... it wasn't until
>>the fairly recent work of people like Steven Harlow, Richard Sproat, Jim
>>McCloskey and Sandra Chung ("Chomskyans" all) that VSO languages had any
>>special interest for the syntactician beyond the fact that they were
>>VSO.  What these researchers discovered was evidence that VSO languages
>>are essentially SVO in structure, with the subject asymmetrically
>>commanding the object, and verb movement or its equivalent accounting
>>for the surface order.  To the best of my knowledge, this had never been
>>shown before, and couldn't be shown before certain other discoveries
>>were in hand (e.g. the command conditions on anaphora).
>
>Does this not show how anglocentric the entire generative enterprise really
>is? Would Chomsky, had he been a native speaker of a VSO language, not
>have concluded that SVO languages are essentially VSO in structure, with
>etc. etc. 

Look, we might be phrasing it differently: "Wow! English is just like
Welsh except the verb doesn't move", but the discovery would be just the
same, if the same tools were being applied.  Remember that verb movement
was one of the earliest discoveries of generative grammar, used by Emmon
Bach and Manfred Bierwisch in the early 1960s to explain German word
order, but the tools weren't there to drive the same point home for
VSO languages.

Actually, in my view, it's pretty damn fortunate that the founders of
generative grammar worked mainly on a language with an intact VP.

-David Pesetsky
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: richwing@leland.Stanford.EDU (Rich Wingerter)
Subject: Re: needs washed
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 92 04:10:16 GMT

In article <1992Sep22.030809.549@williams.edu>, 93gtb@williams.edu (Gregory T Bowne) writes:
|> My mother is from St. Mary's, PA, in the north western part of
|> Pennsylvania and uses the same thing.  I remember hearing something
|> about it on "Thirty Something"  where one character was pegged as
|> being from Pittsburgh for such an utterance.  Other than "needs
|> washed", "needs ironed" tops my list of favorites.  "Needs fixed"
|> however has been said so many times that I have started to use it
|> myself...Arrrgh!

I'm from Ohio (I grew up in Canton) and "needs washed" sounds quite normal to
me.  However, I doubt if it is that localized to one area, any more than "on
line" is confined to New York.  Many people here (in SF Bay Area) say "on line"
as well.  Of course, its probably just that people move around the country a
lot these days.


--Rich Wingerter
Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: lee@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Greg Lee)
Subject: Re: SVO / VSO
Organization: University of Hawaii
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 14:24:11 GMT

In article <1992Sep29.090038.3435@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
}...
}Actually, some of us think that the whole notion of VP is a lot of
}(expletive deleted).  ...

Syntactic (expletive deleted), but not semantic/pragmatic (expletive
deleted).  There seem to be VPs because there are subjects.

}It might be interesting to take a poll of the
}denizens of this group on that point.  What do the rest of you think?

There is lots of purported evidence for VPs to be explained away.
In the case of C-command constraints on anaphora, I think it can
be.  The arguments from subcategorization (verbs are supposed not
to subcategorize with respect to subjects) I think are factually wrong.
That leaves the conjoinability of VPs and transformationalist
arguments based on VP-deletion and the like.  But you can put me
down as being agin'.

--
Greg Lee <lee@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>
Newsgroups: sci.lang