HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: grenade@ozrout.uucp (Kate McDonnell)
Subject: Re: Douglas Adams in St.Paul, Minn.
Organization: Andre P. Ozrout
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 14:22:17 GMT

rachel@phsbbs.princeton.nj.us (Rachel M. Kadel) writes:
>rao@moose.cccs.umn.edu (Rao Akella) writes:

>> Minnesota: Where men are real men, women are real women, and small furry
>> creatures from Alpha Centauri are...you know...
>
>Lake Woebegone: Where all the women are strong, all the men are 
>good-looking, and all the children are above average.

Welcome to Palomar, where men are men and women need a sense of
humor...





-- 

Kate McDonnell    grenade@ozrout.uucp    C_MCDON@pavo.concordia.ca
..................................................................
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Accuracy in autobiography (was: GENIUS: Richard Feynman)
Date: 16 Nov 1992 16:57:01 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Jim Kasprzak writes:

	I'd guess that some of Feynman's stories are straight truth,
	while some contain greater or lesser degrees of embellishment 
	or fabrication. But is it really necessary to dissect them? 
	Not if you just want to read a Good Story, which is what SYJ 
	is full of.

You'd have to be very naif to suppose that Feynman meant the title
"Surely you're joking, Mr. Feyman" to refer exclusively to the Milk
or Lemon episode.

							Fido
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: lew@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (lewis.h.mammel..jr)
Subject: Re: Nothing to do with: Accuracy in autobiography (was: GENIUS: Richard Feynman)
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 03:10:36 GMT
Summary: giant shadows

In article <1992Nov16.051806.24442@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>, callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan) writes:
> 
> On this topic, can the following variation (or something similar) be attributed
> to any person, real or fictional?
> 
>  "If I have seen farther than others, it's because I'm surrounded by midgets." 
> 
> It's something I would love to have made up, but I feel it's more likely that I
> read it somewhere.

I doubt this is what you were thinking of, but there is a certain
similarity. I couldn't find it, and in fact I may have seen it
on usenet some time ago, but I think Erwin Chargaff said this
in reference to Crick and Watson:

	That midgets ( dwarves ? ) cast such giant shadows
	only shows how late in the day it has become.

Lew Mammel, Jr.
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Ate in Arcadia. Eggo.
Date: 18 Nov 1992 18:37:16 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Heather Henderson writes:

	William Sburgfort Smith writes:
	
		Ted B Samsel writes: 

        		Then there's the old "revolutionary" maxim 
			attributed to several, (Mao, Lenin, etc.)

          			"To make an omelet, one must break eggs"

		Attributed to Hermann Goering in 1933 in "The Cynic's 
		Lexicon" by Jonathon Green, but he doesn't say that 
		Goering originated it.

	Actually, what Goering said was, "When I hear the word 'omelet', 
	I take out my egg beater."

Which, if true, would show just how much Goering knew about Cuisine 
Francaise. Egg-beater indeed.  My own theory is that the phrase 
originated in France. I like to think it came from the mouth of
Charlotte Corday who, you will remember, cracked Marat's egg as he
was taking his bath. 

							Fido
							Girondists for ever!



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: pnh@panix.com (Patrick Nielsen-Hayden)
Subject: Re: Surreal Novels About WWII
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 03:47:17 GMT
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix, NYC

If by "surreal" you mean intense, visionary and (in the most precise sense)
fantastic, you might try Lisa Goldstein's THE RED MAGICIAN.  Originally a
1981 paperback original from Pocket, it won the National Book Award and was
reissued under the Washington Square Press imprint.  It is finally getting a
hardcover edition next year.


-- 
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
pnh@panix.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
From: gall@nexus.yorku.ca (Norm Gall)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
Organization: York University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 16:04:06 GMT

torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:

|In article <1992Nov21.180903.3894@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
| writes:

|   >No. I'm attributing to W that line about "philosophical problems."

|  So where did the "problems in the use of language" come from?

Check out PI section 109.  Amongst other things w writes " Philosophy
is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of
language"


|   >But in any case you seem now to have granted
|   >that I did *not* say that W was unconcerned with metaphysics. Clearly,
|   >he was deeply concerned with metaphysics; had he not been, he would not
|   >have labored so hard against metaphysics.

|  Wittgenstein didn't labor against metaphysics, hard or otherwise. I think
|you're really talking about Carnap...

Ummm... I think you've missed the point of PI.  Check out PI sect 116:
"What _we_ do is to bring words back fom their metaphysical to their
everyday use."

Carnap wanted to rid us of metaphysics too... but not give us
compellign reasons why.

norm gall
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: The prick of noon (was Re: not verbose (was Re: Balls etc.)
Date: 19 Nov 92 18:41:45 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Heather Henderson writes:

	Michael Zeleny, waving his mighty
	Eurodick again, writes:

		Eloquence being the quintessential tertiary sexual 
		characteristic of the male, I conclude that scantiness 
		of tropes is a sign of smallness of genitals.  

	Mikhail: It ain't the meat, it's the motion.

I got the meat, baby, you got the motion, and together we could do the 
locomotion.  Come hither, Heather, my naked weapon is out!



			THE PRICK OF NOON
		      A Comedy in One Scene


     Enter ZELENY and AMNELL.

A.  My most dear lord!

Z.  My excellent good friend!  How dost thou, Amnell?  Good lad, how do thee?

A.  As the indifferent child of the earth.  Happy in that I am not over happy;
    On Fortune's cap I am not the very button.

Z.  Nor the soles of her shoe?

A.  Neither, my lord.

Z.  Then thou livest about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

A.  Faith, her privates I.

Z.  In the secret place of Fortune?  O! most true; she is a strumpet.
    What's new in this newsgroup?

A.  None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.

Z.  Then is doomsday near; but your news is not true.  Let me question more
    in particular:  what have thee, my good friend, deserved at the hands
    of Heather, that she sends you to prison hither?

A.  Prison, my lord!

Z.  Rec.arts.books is a prison.

A.  Then Usenet is one.

Z.  A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons,
    r.a.b. being one o' the worst.

A.  I think so, my lord.

Z.  O God!  I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of
    infinite numbers, were it not that I have bad manners.

A.  Ay, there's the rub, thou prick of noon.
								    [Exeunt.


-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 21:39:13 EST
From: <MMB3@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: re:Catholic LIfestyle Book Recommendation

Anything by Father Andrew Greeley...if you like semisleazey potboilers.
He's a Jesuit who has an academic career as I believe an anthropologist
and he writes somewhere between Danielle Steele and Judith Krantz fat
beach novels about parish highjinks and the good priest confessor who is
of course privvy to all the sin and temptation.    Melissa Brown
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: feeney@tigger.jvnc.net (Mike Feeney)
Subject: Looking for _THE_ART_OF_THE_SALE_
Originator: feeney@r2d2.jvnc.net
Organization: JvNCnet, Princeton University, NJ
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 16:20:13 GMT


Greetings,

After searching through many used-book stores (as well as new ones),
I turn to Usenet as my one last hope to find a book.  It is called
_The_Art_of_the_Sale_, and was written by one of the top-selling car
salesmen in the United States about the art of salesmanship.  However, 
I cannot recall the author.

Since all of my seraching has not produced any evidence as to where this
book might be found, I am afraid that it is no longer in print.  If any
one out there knows where I could pruchase a copy, or has a copy of this
book that they would be willing to part with, please contact me.  I ask
that you reply via e-mail so that my request doesn't clog the newsgroup
with responses.  

Thanks in advance for your time and trouble!

-Mike


-- 

- Mike Feeney
  Account Representative
  JvNCnet
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 15:11:35 GMT

In article <TORKEL.92Nov21084521@bast.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
>In article <1992Nov21.012248.23322@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) 
>writes:
>
>   >On the works of Mr. Wittgenstein, who, inter alia, once argued to 
>   >Karl Popper that there are no "philosophical problems"--only problems in
>   >the use of language.
>
>  Have another look! You will find that Wittgenstein is intensely concerned
>with the problems of metaphysics.

Where did I say he was not? The passage of mine you quote here simply
states what his general conclusion about philosophical problems was.

You omitted my original comment, however. What I said was that
"Wittgenstein, p.i." did not include metaphysics as part of his modus
operandi. It is illogical to take this as a statement of his concerns;
it is merely a statement of his methods.


--Mike





-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I can solve this Orient Express thing without
mnemonic@eff.org| breaking a sweat. It's that simple."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Hercule Perot
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: callahan@biffvm.cs.jhu.edu (Paul Callahan)
Subject: Re: Accuracy in autobiography (was: GENIUS: Richard Feynman)
Organization: Johns Hopkins Computer Science Department, Baltimore, MD
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 04:38:20 GMT

lew@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (lewis.h.mammel..jr) writes:

>  When I read SYJ it never crossed my mind that any of the stories
>  was anything other than his straight recollection. .............

On the other hand, I think he would have admitted that his straight
recollection did not necessarily correspond to reality.  For example, in
the second book, he recounts an incident with some feminist protestors holding 
banners that said "Feynman Sexist Pig!"  He recalls making a short speech that
convinced everyone he wasn't a sexist, and shamed the protestors into silence.
At the end of this story, he says that in his recollection, the speech 
seemed far more dramatic than what was recorded in the transcript.

Even if he did not deliberately embellish details, he made no explicit claim 
that all of his stories are perfectly faithful to real events.  His main point,
I believe, was not to paint a picture of external events, but to reveal his 
personal approach to life.  As he says, he was always asking questions, always 
trying to understand things.  This obviously aided his development as a 
scientist, but it also gave him insight into human nature.

Many of his stories, especially about his youth, illustrate this journey towards
understanding.  But sometimes it's far too pat.  For example, at the end of 
the "String Beans" chapter, he writes "I learned there that innovation is a 
very difficult thing in the real world."  Interpreted literally, it sounds as 
if this insight came to him on the spot in a single discrete step.  He gives
this sort of impression in several places.  Taken at face value, such 
statements are rather implausible.  Neverthelesss, he makes the point that he 
learned various lessons in life, and he was helped along by incidents 
such as the ones he recounts (which are much funnier than you might think
reading my pompous commentary).

The Feynman books are supposed to be subjective.  This issue is not exactly 
what happened to Feynman, but how he interpreted it.  Perhaps it would be  
better to call it a self-portrait than an autobiography (I realize that
others participated in the actual writing).  His portrait is refreshing in 
many ways.  Primarily, it shows how a person can be brilliant without being 
morose, alienated, or insane.  Quibbling about facts misses the point entirely.

--
Paul Callahan
callahan@cs.jhu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: buckmr@marcus.its.rpi.edu (Ron Buckmire)
Subject: Re: PUTTING ON THE RITZ by Joe Keenan
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 06:26:16 GMT

ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:


>     I had claimed that BLUE HEAVEN was the funniest book I had read in
>years, and PUTTING ON THE RITZ is every bit as funny as its predecessor.  I
>wholeheartedly recommend both of them.

Well, I dunno, I still think _Blue Heaven_ is funnier. But the followup is
pretty darn close!

Definitely recommend them both.

-- 
RON BUCKMIRE, 11 Colvin Circle, Troy, NY 12180-3735. `D.C. in 93!''
vox:(518)-276-8910 fax:(518)-276-6920 buckmr@rpi.edu buckmr@rpitsmts.bitnet
"I might be President by now if it weren't for this 'queer' thing" -Gore Vidal
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 23:32:10 GMT

In article <TORKEL.92Nov21235600@bast.sics.se> torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:
> Mike Godwin writes:
>
>   >If you can
>   >demonstrate that Wittgenstein was not deeply critical of metaphysics, I
>   >will happily admit my error here.
>
>  Sure thing! Wittgenstein was of course critical of metaphysics with which
>he disagreed, but at the same time he had strong metaphysical convictions of
>his own, which he put forward in his philosophizing.

I agree, although I believe that W himself would have disputed any claim
that he was an adherent of metaphysics.

> Here I mean by
>"metaphysical convictions" strongly held ideas about what exists, what is
>real, what it makes sense to invoke in explanations, what is or is not a
>question of fact.

He was a metaphysician in the unusual sense in which you use the term
"metaphysical convictions" here ... perhaps in the same way that an
atheist can be said to have "religious convictions."

> In this sense Wittgenstein was as much an adherent of
>metaphysics as Bradley or Leibniz, although his style of philosophizing was
>rather different.

And, of course, it is his style of philosophizing that I refer to when I
refer to his "modus operandi."

>Wittgenstein stated his metaphysical preferences most
>plainly, perhaps, in his voluminous writings on the philosophy of mathematics.

Could you provide representative quotations, with dates? I would not dream
of disputing that the early Wittgenstein, student of Russell and Moore,
had some fairly traditional "metaphysical convictions."


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I can solve this Orient Express thing without
mnemonic@eff.org| breaking a sweat. It's that simple."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Hercule Perot
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Subject: Re: Neuromancer
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 22:20:02 GMT

In article <18NOV199211035966@rigel.tamu.edu> spb0457@rigel.tamu.edu (SubGenius) writes:
>Interestingly, the term has found its way into some REAL programmer's lexicons,
>although Mr. Gibson created virtually [cough.  hack.  arg] all his lingo out
>of whole cloth as (from his own admission) he had little actual knowledge of
>computers when he wrote _Neuromancer_.

	He made up most of his lexicon, true, but not ICE.  That he got
from an unpublished manuscript of mine.  Oh yes, and he asked quite
nicely if he could steal it and credited me for it at the end of the book.


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		"The Reptoids eat humans like we eat chickens."
				Alex Alexander
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 23:19:10 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.233138.17227@black.ox.ac.uk> microsoc@black.ox.ac.uk (Marc B.A. Read) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.125404.4312@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>>
>>For Wittgenstein, P.I., the world is all that is the case.
>>
>Surey some mistake... Wittgenstein, P.I., had decided that the world was
>_more_ than just the case... he was a changed man from the days when, as
>old "Tractarian Ludwig", he'd lived only for his work...

The mistake seems to be on your end. While our Private Investigator may
have changed his m.o., his latter-day modus operandi never included
metaphysics.


--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I can solve this Orient Express thing without
mnemonic@eff.org| breaking a sweat. It's that simple."
(617) 864-0665  | 
EFF, Cambridge  |                           --Hercule Perot
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: echristo@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Elena A Christofides)
Subject: Re: Surreal Novels About WWII
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 23:32:05 GMT

If you like Durrell, read Bitter Lemons. It's very good. Surreal?!?!
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Accuracy in autobiography (was: GENIUS: Richard Feynman)
Date: 16 Nov 1992 16:28:30 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Charles Blair writes:

	Matthew P Wiener writes:

		Isaac Newton's "shoulder of giants" comment was
		not just some clever act of credit sharing, but 
		a genuine humility.

	In HUYGENS & BARROW, NEWTON & HOOKE, V. Arnold gives a 
	different and surprising interpretation of this comment.  
	Newton had a bitter rivalry with a scientist Robert Hooke, 
	who was very small, and that this was a sarcastic reference 
	to Hooke.

In his later years Newton became one of the gurus (guroi?) we have
been discussing. Physics and Mathematics -- mere toys -- were given
up in favor of Alchemy and Theology. Sound familiar?

Newton and Hooke come together in the Linear Theory of Elasticity
which depends both on Newton's Law

		Force is Mass times Acceleration

and Hooke's Law

		Stress is proportional to Strain.

20th century sophistry insists, nowadays, that Hooke wins the battle
of complication with a 4th order tensor relating Stress and Strain. 
Newton can offer no more than a frequency-dependent, anisotropic 2nd
order Mass Density tensor as the limit of complication in a non-
relativistic (that is, my) world. Hooke was a 1st class Mechanic and
maybe it was this that pissed Newton off.

						Fido
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Madonna's new book
Date: 16 Nov 1992 13:47:09 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Fiooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooona Webster writes:

	Fido rants:

		Flame's Passion writes:

			I like Madonna's music and I think she has 
			a lot of balls to do what she does, ...

		In fact, she has indicated that not having balls is 
		a particular difficulty to her.

	Gosh, what did she say about the disadvantages of balllessness 
	(a word with three l's in a row??)?

	As for the "has a lot of balls" expression in general, I'm 
	pleased as punch to report that not only have I gotten 
	completely comfortable with using the expression "has a lot 
	of ovaries" when referring to women, last week I used it in 
	reference to a man.  Ha ha!  Most of the feminist newspeak has 
	no music, but "has a lot of ovaries"--with all those lovely 
	feminine o's--is fun to say.  

Concur. but rather than "a lot of ovaries" I'd prefer something like
"a plenitude of ovaries". For a nice, compact adjectival form could
we not borrow an author's name? Ovid? 

							Fidovid? NOT!
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad)
Subject: Re: Clerihewing 
Reply-To: sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad)
Organization: European Computer-Industry Research Centre, Munich
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:17:16 GMT

In article <1992Nov14.182029.25691@galileo.physics.arizona.edu> lnh@physics.arizona.edu writes:
>sanjiva@ecrc.de (Sanjiva Prasad) writes a clerihew:
>> 	Vikram Seth
>> 	Wrote "The Golden Gate"
>> 	A novel in sonnet verse
>> 	On West Coast Boomers.
>> 
>> (aabb, first line a name. Yes, Virginia, that's how Seth should be 
>> pronounced.)
>
>The second couplet isn't, and they aren't sonnets.
>
>	the everyone's critic Mr. E-----


Right in your review
Of my limp Clerihew are you.
Prosaic Licence, I plead, still,
And beg you to comp, not cavil.  

Okay, TGG isn't in iambic pentameter but the rhyme patterns are close to those
in real sonnets. And yes, the second couplet isn't (but it is in most
Indian English); for that matter neither is the first for the "th" is Seth
is different from the "t" in Gate (but not really discernable to the English/
American ear).


--
Sanjiva Prasad,  Guest Magus				E-mail: sanjiva@ecrc.de
European Computer Industry Research Centre		Off: +49 89 92 69 91 58
Arabellastrasse 17					Fax: +49 89 92 69 91 70
8000 Muenchen 81, Germany				Res: +49 89 16 33 59
From: crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Madonna's new book
Date: 17 Nov 92 16:50:53 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Nov16.132150.14680@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:

>As for the "has a lot of balls" expression in general, I'm pleased
>as punch to report that not only have I gotten completely comfortable
>with using the expression "has a lot of ovaries" when referring to
>women, last week I used it in reference to a man.  Ha ha!  Most of
>the feminist newspeak has no music, but "has a lot of ovaries"--with
>all those lovely feminine o's--is fun to say.  


How about, "Yo, that chick's got eggs!"



-- 
The trick of reason is to get the imagination to seize the actual world --
if only from time to time.     -- Annie Dillard, "An American Childhood"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lauren Crawford  //  crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books