HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Property Rights (was re: Progress: The New Great Divide? (was Re: Cult)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Nov14094633@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<1992Nov17.143210.2511@spider.co.uk>
Date: 17 Nov 92 13:17:59

Why doesn't Ian Heavens include the Israeli kibbutzim?  Is there some
reason why they don't count?
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Maddona's new book
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 03:08:11 GMT

In article <By5BzK.79s@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> mechalas@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (John Mechalas) writes:

>  The original question was whether or not suce people could *get away* with
>a book of Madonna's type.

No, it wasn't. Since I posed the question, I feel comfortable saying this.
The question was whether they could publish such a book without damage to
their careers.  I strongly doubt that Clay (already a has-been, by the
way) or 2 Live Crew could survive the kind of "exposure" Madonna
has--they aren't in good enough shape.

And, of course, Howard Stern is in terrible shape, as evidenced by
his recent appearance as Fartman on the MTV music awards show.


--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: gall@nexus.yorku.ca (Norm Gall)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
Organization: York University
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:37:12 GMT

torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen) writes:

|In article <gall.722534646@yorku.ca> gall@nexus.yorku.ca (Norm Gall) writes:

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

|  So? Which "problems in the use of language" do you have in mind?

How about the illusion that all nouns refer to objects in the world?
How about the illusion that there are 'mental objects' like physical
objects and can be disussed as such?

|   >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."

|  So? Where is the battle against metaphysics?

Well, metaphysics is clearly intimated to be in some way an illict
discourse and the battle is to bring words (and concepts, as the case
may be) back to the everyday use where they get their meaning.



ng
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:20479 news.answers:4131
From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: Crystal Palaces
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, NH.
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 12:37:51 GMT

zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>Crystal palaces appear as an unselfconscious emblem of bourgeois
>aesthetic ideals in the poems of B\'eranger.  Several decades later,
>Dostoyevsky is seen militating against the project of constructing
>such a palace, clearly meant as a derisive metaphor for utopian social
>progress.  As I recall, somewhere in-between (when?), a crystal palace
>made an appearance at a Universal Exposition in London.
>
>Would someone kindly fill in the blanks?

I can't fill them in, but I have a friend . . .  who has an
encyclopedia called The Crystal Palace.  I *think* it's from around
1850s, and was produced to accompany (sum up?) the Exposition.  It is
an amazing book, having facts I haven't been able to find anywhere else
(such as the fact that women in the Welsh mines carried 170 lbs. on
their backs each load!).

The book is largely concerned with technological advances of the times,
not the arts, which leads me to believe the Exposition was
technologically oriented.

You may be able to find it at Harvard's library, or ILL it.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: lew@cbnewsd.cb.att.com (lewis.h.mammel..jr)
Subject: Re: Giant shoulders ( was: ( was: ... ))
Organization: AT&T
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 19:37:02 GMT
Summary: Holy chickenfights, Batman !!

In article <9211141824.AA27371@cfdev1.shearson.com>, mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
> 
> One need only read about the arguments with Leibniz over the invention
> of The Calculus to know that Newton was not humble.  Indeed, I've
> read that his "shoulders of giants" speech could be thought of in
> political terms, and that he consiously tried to give the appearance
> of being humble.  
>  
> Incidently, while Newton is generally given the attribution for the
> phrase, it had been around for centuries.

I wonder if you read the same thing I did. I think it must have
been S.J. Gould ( in Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle ?? ) I remember it
being stated that there was a church window depicting the Apostles
riding on the shoulders of the Prophets, so that by this allusion
Newton may be construed to have been exalting himself.


Lew Mammel, Jr.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: Modern Trivia, was Re: Why I am thrilled with the QPBC
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 07:56:00 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Nov21.230426.21922@u.washington.edu> jespah@carson.u.washington.edu (Kathleen Hunt) writes:
>
>Finally, your dad might also get a kick out of William Poundstone's "Big
>Secrets" and "Bigger Secrets", books full of fascinating inside stories
>about things someone or other is trying to keep secret ...
>... you get really
>sucked into these fascinating corporate battles,

	Well, perhaps not quite as exciting, but a very good read
	nonetheless is _Memories That Shaped An Industry_, by
	SomeBody, and _The Soul of a New Machine_ by Kidder.
	The latter is well known, of course, but _Memories_
	tells the story of magnetic core memory and how its
	development revolutionized the early computer industry.

>...  Let me put in a plug here 
>for Poundstone -- he writes books on a wide variety of topics and they're 
>always magnetically interesting.  There's one called "Labyrinths of 
>Reason", about favorite philosophers' puzzles, that still amazes me. 
>

	Some time ago I was programming the game of Life for my
	computer, and read _The Recursive Universe_ by Poundstone,
	which is about Life and its creator Conway (with Von Neumann
	thrown in for good measure), and also some hand-waving 
	about information theory.  The first half was quite 
	fascinating, and you will emerge with more information
	on Life than you ever imagined was possible, such as
	wierd 2-d mobile life-forms known as "floaters," and "spaceships,"
	and an answer to the question whether self-replicating
	0-1 electronic beings are possible.

>
>Kathleen
>

	P.S. A good post, as is your Transitional Fossils FAQ :)

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk (Jeremy Henderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sunday Times BOOKS
Date: 20 Nov 92 12:03:29 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <1eh0g9INNej2@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
~
~The OBSERVER and SUNDAY TIMES are particularly pleasant adjuncts to the
~trad Brit Brekker, but because it is Sunday eaten in bed courtesy the
~Little Woman.

I'm afraid that you are sadly behind the times, Fido. Under the stewardship
of the absurd Andrew Neil, the Sunday Times has become an over-sized
tabloid, purveyor of mindless tittle-tattle concerning the royal family,
and other nonentities. The Sunday morning dilemma now concerns the Observer
and the Independent On Sunday.





-- 
===Jeremy Henderson===jeremy@castle.ed.ac.uk=          

Seen on rec.arts.books "Characters and plot are the exemplar components
of mundane fiction. I do not care to see them at all"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<1992Nov17.233138.17227@black.ox.ac.uk>
	<1992Nov20.231910.21480@eff.org>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 23:50:13 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.231910.21480@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
 writes:

   >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.

  On what do you base this astonishing assertion?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: leroy@socs.uts.edu.au (Leroy)
Subject: Re: good novels about gay lifestyle
Organization: Computing Sciences, Uni of Technology, Sydney.
Date: 23 Nov 92 00:47:53 GMT

>Alison Chaiken writes:
>>I'd like to read one or two good books about the gay lifestyle in
>>order to try to understand it.

I'd try "The Swimming Pool Library," by Hollinghurst. He's "a writer," 
rather than a "gay writer" -- I tend to find most "gay writing" to be
the postmodern equivalent of the airport novel: trashy *and* 
pretentious. I'm sure it's the same for most genres.

Also, you could try "Ready to catch him should he fall" (authors
name forgotten. I think it's Neil Bartlett): but this is for style
rather than content.

But don't assume that any book about the gay lifestyle is representative 
of all gays, or even a major proportion -- as I'm sure other people will 
have pointed out. My own life couldn't be further from that of the characters
in the swimming pool library. The closest I've come to seeing myself in 
any gay writing was an Australian play called Furious, by Michael
Gow. I'd recommend that, but the text hasn't been released.

If you're really interested, post something to soc.motss. 

--- G M Heinrich  ( leroy@socs.uts.edu.au )
And what of culture? What about progress in literature and the arts?
What do we have to show for this last fifteen minutes?
From: ian@spider.co.uk (Ian Heavens)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Property Rights (was re: Progress: The New Great Divide? (was Re: Cult)
Date: 19 Nov 92 10:33:41 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK.

In article <13222@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>In article <JMC.92Nov14094633@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
>> In article <13174@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>#    Communism requires that "all encompassing centripetal State" in
>#    order to eliminate private property.  Marx expected the State to
>#    wither away.  Why didn't it?  Because people are scum.  If you
>#    give someone power over others, most of the time, that power will
>#    be abused.
># 
>#    Communism without state power isn't communism.  In fact, it isn't
>#    anything at all, because communism MUST use a lot of force to get
>#    people to turn over their property and lives to the commune.
>#    The mystical "True Socialist Man" has never existed, and never
>#    will.
>#    -- 
>#    Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
>#    "Foxes prefer rabbits with short claws." -- Nadja Adolf
># 
># Not quite so.  Communism in the Israeli kibbutzim persists without
># coercion.  Anyone is free to leave.  The problem for the kibbutz as
># an institution is that too many do leave, especially the grown-up
># children.
># --
># John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
>
>Communism as a political philosophy does require state power.
>Communalism (as in the kibbutzim) does not, because it is not
>a political philosophy, but a social philosophy.

In this case, is anarchist communism a 'political' or a 'social' philosophy?  The
examples I gave in the Ukraine (arguably) and Spain (most definitely) were realisations
of anarchist communism, the antithesis of state power.  You appear to be attempting
to redefine communism to suit your argument, from where I stand.

ian

---
	 Ian Heavens			ian@spider.co.uk                 
 	 Spider Software
 	 Spider Park, Stanwell Street		
	 Edinburgh, EH6 5NG, Scotland	+44 31 555 5166 (Ext 4347)
--
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,sci.philosophy.meta
From: torkel@sics.se (Torkel Franzen)
Subject: Re: Wittgenstein, P.I.
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista
	<TORKEL.92Nov21194533@bast.sics.se> <1992Nov21.205719.5509@eff.org>
	<TORKEL.92Nov21235600@bast.sics.se> <gall.722534917@yorku.ca>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 16:45:34 GMT

In article <gall.722534917@yorku.ca> gall@nexus.yorku.ca (Norm Gall) writes:

   >W was not a metaphysician, nor can his writings be standardly
   >construed to be metaphysical.

  This of course is a question of terminology. To repeat, in my terminology

    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.

  Now naturally I put forward this terminology as a reasonable one. In opposing
it you say
  
  >Only in a soft minded way can his
  >positions be considered to contain a metaphysical position, i.e. if
  >_any_ statement about existence counts a a metaphysical claim.

but this is quite inadequate. In so far as I understand the phrase "a
statement about existence", the statement "there is a cow in the barn" is
a statement about existence, but not one that I would call metaphysical.
So just what is it you are claiming in denying that Wittgenstein's
positions are metaphysical?
From: mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Madonna's new book
Date: 17 Nov 1992 21:45:31 -0500
Organization: Emory University, Dept of Math and CS
NNTP-Posting-Host: emory.mathcs.emory.edu

In article <1992Nov17.195611.19201@spider.co.uk>, ian@spider.co.uk (Ian Heavens) writes:
> In article <1e9a82INNg3u@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> mworley@mathcs.emory.edu (Meg Worley) writes:
> >In article <1e8kelINNpfc@morrow.stanford.edu>, francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
> >
> >> Really? Since young women carry about 400 of the little rascals around
> >> with them in one stage or another (my ObGyn knowledge is pretty rusty),
> >> it would seem that "eggs" would not be appropriate. To confuse things
> >> a bit, in slang Spanish "balls" are called "uovos", eggs.
> >
> >"Huevos", Fido, "huevos."  Not yet recovered from that last evening
> >spent with La Lollabrigida?  Or was it La Cicciolina?
> 
> Is this not a feature of Mexican as opposed to Castilian Spanish?

Judging by the number of caustic mail messages I have gotten today
regarding "huevos," two of them uglier than I like to think rabbers
capable of, I would like to clarify my correction of our dear Fido.

1.  "Uovo" is Italian, "o^vo" is Portugese, for 'egg.'
2.  I was merely giving the Spanish, the Castilian, the 
    *castellano* for 'egg.'  While "huevo" is not the 
    Catalan, Gallego, or Basque for 'egg,' it is the
    word used in Spanish-speaking Mexico & the rest of
    *Latin* (not Brazil) America.
3.  I was making no comment about the various other words
    for balls used anywhere, in any language.  I can think
    of lots in Spanish, Japanese, et al., but I was not
    correcting Francis on that point.

Get it?  Got it?  Good. :-)

Rage away,

meg




-- 

 Meg Worley 				Internet:  mworley@mathcs.emory.edu
From: pml3@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Paul Michael Lewis)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: How do I acquire signed first editions?
Date: 18 Nov 92 03:10:32 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

How does one go about acquiring signed first edition books?  Speaking mainly
of books printed in the last thirty to forty years.

Any ideas?

-- 

+-| Paul Lewis |--| Jonestown: WLVR 91.3fm  Monday 11pm-1am |-+-------------+
|  'I'd love to turn you on.'                  -The Beatles   |             |
|  'You should be with us, feeling like we do  -Perry Farrell |     1       |
|   like you love to, but never will again.'                  |    2 3      |
|  'The struggle between God and man breaks    -Kazantzakis   |             |
|   out in everyone.'                                         | Renaissance |
From: kassover@rumsey.crd.ge.com (David Kassover)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: not verbose (was Re: Balls etc.)
Date: 22 Nov 92 04:21:55 GMT
Organization: nope

In article <20NOV92.01175732@vax.clarku.edu> hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu writes:
>Uh-Oh, I've been sucked into Mikhail's ever-unfolding drama.  How'd that
>happen?

Nature abhors a vacuum.  She's not particularly fussy about what
she stuffs in it.

>Less of some things is better than more.  Talk, for example.  Less talk, more
>action.  Women don't want to castrate men, they just want them to shut up.

This would seem to corroborate the old saw as to why women seem
to like the strong, silent type of man; they think he's listening.




-- 
David Kassover             "Proper technique helps protect you against
uupsi!khazad!kassover	          sharp weapons and dull judges."
kassover@aule-tek.com                   F. Collins
kassover@ra.crd.ge.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca (Stephanie Moskal Fysh)
Subject: Re: Surreal Novels About WWII
Organization: University of Toronto - EPAS
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 13:40:56 GMT

And add also D. M. Thomas's _The White Hotel_.


-- 
Stephanie Moskal Fysh    |   "Things are only impossible until they're not"  
Dept. of English         |                             - Jean-Luc Picard
Univ. of Toronto         |   "Lager: the only thing that can kill a vindaloo"
(sfysh@epas.utoronto.ca) |                             - Dave Lister
From: mj1078@taurus.cse.kyutech.ac.jp (mmanuel pece)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Rising Sun
Date: 19 Nov 92 06:47:50 GMT
Organization: Kyushu Institute of Tech., Iizuka, JAPAN.
NNTP-Posting-Host: sol.taurus.cse.kyutech.ac.jp
In-reply-to: 


Is the book =Rising Sun= (by Michael Crichton (sp?) avaiable in soft cover ?
Here, in Japan, they only have the hardcover edition, and is pretty
expensive.
Is it easy to get in US ?

Thank you

Manuel Pece
--
  pece@taurus.cse.kyutech.ac.jp       
mj1078@taurus.cse.kyutech.ac.jp
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sunday Times BOOKS
Date: 20 Nov 92 11:50:36 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Francis Muir writes:

	Fiona Webster writes:

		[Tragicomic anecdote recounting needless death from 
		overexposure to Yankee literary criticism deleted]		


	[Helpful and timely clarification of distinction between various
	London papers, and one pathetic and overrated American rival deleted]

The Sunday Times is a fine paper, superior, I think, to the Guardian Weekly,
that crumply, unpleasant-looking Labour rag.  The New York Times is 
unavailable in Helsinki, which I find very odd, since I'm aware of several
people who receive it regularly in Moscow.  Have these Americans managed to 
bribe the customs officials, so great is their desire to read all the news
that's fit to print?  I do get to read NYT and Washington Post articles
in the International Herald Tribune, overpriced for its twenty odd pages,
of course, but who really needs more in a newspaper?  Amongst French papers,
I read Liberation, Sartre's brainchild, which says something about the
consistency of my `political affiliation'.

Locally, the market is controlled almost exclusively by Helsingin Sanomat,
a deathly boring daily that promotes the views and interests of the ruling
elite; one sign something is terribly wrong is that HS is the only paper
in the world whose front page is nothing but ad space.  Its last competitor,
Uusi Suomi, was finally eliminated a few months ago, making the monopoly
official -- most sectors of the Finnish economy are either monopolized 
(some even officially, such as Alko, which runs everything to do with that
all-important opiate of crowd-control) or controlled by cartels that set 
prices at insanely high levels with impunity.  The Finns have yet to take
this free market thing seriously.  Finlandization is alive and well, I'm
sorry to say, only now there is no Red Threat, only the status quo.

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
From: kasprj@operators.its.rpi.edu (Jim Kasprzak)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Accuracy in autobiography (was: GENIUS: Richard Feynman)
Date: 16 Nov 92 16:40:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: rpi.28v1w0=
Reply-To: kasprj@rpi.edu
Organization: The Big Wedge

In article <1992Nov14.185953.5550@sophia.smith.edu>, orourke@sophia.smith.edu (Joseph O'Rourke) writes:
|> In article <Bxn517.MqB@wsrcc.com> alison@wsrcc.com (Alison Chaiken) writes:
|> >Having said all this, I feel the same way about
|> >Feynman's two autobiographical works that I felt about Hellman's: that
|> >the strict veracity of these books is irrelevant to their enjoyment.
|> 
|> It is not irrelevant to me.  I will feel somewhat swindled if I 
|> learn that the stories in "Surely You're Joking" are more fiction
|> than fact.  Gleick says on p.46 that, "Later he [R.F.] made a story out
|> of it -- 'He Fixes Radios by Thinking!'"  It sounds like Gleick is doubting 
|> the strict veracity of at least that one story (which opens "SYJ").
 
 I think the whole heart of the problem here lies with the question of 
whether SYJ is to be considered a "straight" autobiography (which I 
don't think even Feynman himself intended it to be) or a collection of
stories Feynman told about himself. There's a difference there. A 
seasoned storyteller knows that in the battle between Truth and Good 
Story, it is almost always Truth that gets sacrificed. 
 
 It's a common experience: something interesting happens to you, but it's
not _quite_ good enough to make a Good Story. Usually you think, "If it
had only happened such-and-such a way instead of the way it really did,
that'd be a great story!" The people who are after Truth just tell the 
incident the way it really happened. Those who prefer to pursue Good Story
will embellish it in whatever way is necessary, and tell it that way. 
 
 A good storyteller, like a good magician, doesn't reveal the tricks of
his trade. 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.
------------------------------------------------------------------
     __  Live from Capitaland, heart of the Empire State...
 ___/  | Jim Kasprzak, computer operator @ RPI, Troy, NY, USA
/____ *| Sam Adams,Spaten# Life is too short #Hudson Lager,Beck's 
     \_| Pilsener Urquell#to drink cheap beer#Pete's Wicked Ale
      ====  e-mail: kasprj@rpi.edu or kasprzak@mts.rpi.edu
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sunday Times BOOKS
Date: 19 Nov 1992 21:21:13 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

Fiona Webster writes:

	I can understand Marko's amazement.  I had a friend in college who
	was nineteen years old and just beginning to have jaundiced views
	of the world, when he walked into his living room one Sunday morning,
	to find his father, stone-cold dead in an armchair, clutching the
	_NYT_Book_Review_ in his rigid hands.  No shit.  My friend used to
	quip that he'd always *thought* the _Book_Review_ was deadly dull,
	but had never had it so dramatically confirmed.

Is it clear to everyone that while Marko was talking about the SUNDAY TIMES,
a London paper (and not connected with THE TIMES, also a London paper), that
Fi-oh-oh-oh-na was talking about THE NEW YORK TIMES, a New York paper and
very, very, very boring in all respects.

The OBSERVER and SUNDAY TIMES are particularly pleasant adjuncts to the
trad Brit Brekker, but because it is Sunday eaten in bed courtesy the
Little Woman.

							Fido