HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: georgen@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (G. Ng)
Subject: Re: Returning a CD for exchange or credit?
Organization: UTCS Public Access
Distribution: ont
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 19:09:09 GMT

In article <C0JHE1.KE1@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> nordgraf@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (John Dorn) writes:
>I bought my wife a CD collector's set titled "Elvis Presley's Gold 
>Collection" for $50 from A&A Records.
> ...
>I tried to return it for credit at A & A on the basis that the songs
>are not what one could consider gold tunes (those that sold over a
>million copies) and because of the poor quality of the recordings.
> 
>A & A turned me down because: 
...

From what my experience, most CD stores won't take back CDs unless they're
damaged.

The one exception to this is HMV.  Whether or not the CD you bought (and
opened) from HMV is damaged, if you feel it isn't to your liking you can
return it and get a full refund.  (They do ask you why you're returning it)
Newsgroups: ont.general
From: nordgraf@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (John Dorn)
Subject: Returning a CD for exchange or credit?
Organization: UTCS Public Access
Distribution: ont
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 14:25:11 GMT

I bought my wife a CD collector's set titled "Elvis Presley's Gold 
Collection" for $50 from A&A Records.
 
She tells me it is a really bad CD because it has every obscure 
song he recorded and not what you would call "Gold" songs.  Most songs 
are of poor quality because they are taken from poor quality masters
and some of his films.
 
I tried to return it for credit at A & A on the basis that the songs
are not what one could consider gold tunes (those that sold over a
million copies) and because of the poor quality of the recordings.
 
A & A turned me down because: 
1.  That she should have looked at the titles of the songs 
    before making the decision to open the package. 
2.  They could not accept it back because it violated the copy-
    right laws.   
    
Reason 1 makes some sense. Reason 2 does not. 
 
I beleive that I am justified in returning the CD's and feel that I
got "hosed" for $50.
 
Has anybody had a similar experience or would like to make any comments?
 
P.S. No we did not make a tape copy of the CD.




Newsgroups: ont.general
From: jjchew@math.toronto.edu (John J. Chew III)
Subject: Re: Returning a CD for exchange or credit?
Organization: The Poslfit Committee
Distribution: ont
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 02:12:35 GMT

In article <C0JHE1.KE1@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> nordgraf@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca 
  (John Dorn) writes:
> I bought my wife a CD collector's set titled "Elvis Presley's Gold 
> Collection" for $50 from A&A Records.
...
> I beleive that I am justified in returning the CD's and feel that I
> got "hosed" for $50.
>  
> Has anybody had a similar experience or would like to make any comments?

If you don't want to risk getting hosed, don't spend $50 on CDs
without listening to them first.  Don't patronise stores that won't
let you listen to discs before buying them.  Don't buy things from
stores that won't let you return CDs.  There are stores that let you
do both - go to them, stopping by at places like A+A if you like to
tell the store manager why you will not be shopping at his store.

John
-- 
john j. chew, iii / department of mathematics / university of toronto
poslfit@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca / poslfit@utorgpu.bitnet / jjchew@math.toronto.edu
"My Canada includes... a Lebesgue non-measurable subset."
Newsgroups: ont.general
From: jwaustin@bcars182.UUCP (John Austin)
Subject: Re: Consumer advice needed
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Distribution: ont
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:50:20 GMT

In article <C0Ezxx.2CJ@math.uwaterloo.ca>, mskucher@math.uwaterloo.ca (Murray S. 
|> 3) there is no "CSA approved" sticker anyplace on it
...
|> 
|> I guess my question is: What can I do to get warranty service, given that I
|> bought the unit in good faith?  Is the retailer responsible for providing
|> the full warranty service?  Is he guilty of any crime?  Am I entitled to
|> anything like a full refund?  What are my options?

I think it's illegal to sell electrically operated equipment that has not been
approved for use in Canada. (This may have fallen by the wayside as a result of
Muldoon and Company tricking the Americans into Free Trade.) I hope you kept all
of the packaging and receipts. I think you can check with your local Hydro.

You may not get any satisfaction but you may put the clowns out of business.
From: Conrad_Geiger@NeXT.com (Conrad Geiger - Manager, International NeXT User Groups)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Announcing the 1993 NeXTWORLD EXPO and First Call For Exhibitors
Date: 11 Jan 93 23:05:28 GMT
Reply-To: user_groups@next.com

Announcing the 1993 NeXTWORLD EXPO

What it is....

The 2nd annual gathering of the world-wide NeXT community!
	An international Developers Conference!
		An educational Users Conference!
			A NeXTSTEP product exposition!
				A global User Group Meeting!

Call 1-800-767-2336 -or- from outside North America call
(508)470-3880 or fax to (508)470-0526 for registration information.

When it is...      
   
   MAY 25-27, 1993,
       

Where it is...

   THE MOSCONE CENTER,
   SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, USA
            

What to do....

Pass the word.  Tell your colleagues, fellow user group members,
other computer industry user group members, fellow NeXTSTEP
developers, potential developers, and friends, to schedule this date,
and stay tuned for more information!!  Please post this message to
local and community electronic bulletin boards and feel free to
publish in your user group or company newsletters.

Once again, call to get on the mailing list for advanced registration
and more information about the 1993 NeXTWORLD Expo....

1-800-767-2336 -or- from outside North America call 508-470-3880 -or-
fax (508)470-0526.

_____________________________________________________________________
CALL FOR EXHIBITORS AT 1993 NeXTWORLD EXPO

Join us from May 25-27 at Moscone Center in San Francisco for the
second annual gathering of the worldwide NeXT community, and
International Developers conference, an educational Users conference,
a NeXTSTEP product exposition, and a global User Group meeting!

NeXTWORLD Expo is being co-sponsored by NeXTWORLD Magazine and
Digital Consulting, Inc. (DCI).  DCI is handling all show management
and logistics for this year's Expo.

Exhibitors please contact Matthew Schmuck or Charlie Hurth at DCI
West--
        408 280 6778 voice
        408 280 6779 fax

Exhibitor kits will be available December 28.  Space will be assigned
on a first-come, first-serve basis. (Past NeXTWORLD Expo exhibitors
will be given priority consideration for space selection through
January 10).

Calls are pouring in, and choice space is moving quickly, so don't
delay!

Expo and Conference Attendees:

To participate in the User Conference, Developer Conference, or to  
attend the Expo, call 1-800-767-2336.  International callers can fax  
inquiries to DCI at 508-470-0526. Please label all correspondence:

        Attention: NeXTWORLD Expo

and include your name, address, business name, FAX and phone numbers.



Conrad Geiger
Manager, International NeXT User Groups

Newsgroups: ont.general
From: dolittle@math.toronto.edu (Edward Doolittle)
Subject: Re: Consumer advice needed
Organization: Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto
Distribution: ont
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 15:38:19 GMT

In article <C0Ezxx.2CJ@math.uwaterloo.ca> mskucher@math.uwaterloo.ca
(Murray S. Kucherawy [MFCF]) writes:
>I bought myself a VCR on Boxing Day in Toronto, which I now find may need
>some service 

>1) there was no warranty card in the box; there was a description of
>   the warranty bearing an American address, but no card to fill in or
>   send anyplace
>2) the serial number sticker is not in the usual place, nor is it the
>   usual form (6 digits preceeded by "A", white-on-black; this one has
>   a 5-digit number only, black-on-white)
>3) there is no "CSA approved" sticker anyplace on it
>
>This all suggests that the place I bought it sent someone across the border
>who bought it, and brought it back here to sell it to someone cheap.

This reminds me of a Globe & Mail article I read about a year ago --
or was it the Toronto Star about 2 years ago -- about ``Grey Market''
merchandise.  You should perhaps try to find that article if you can,
since I can't remember any of the details clearly.  I think you can gain
computer access to the Globe & Mail with a service called Info-Globe, but
I think it's fairly expensive and I'm not sure that it does what you want.

>I guess my question is: What can I do to get warranty service, given that I

There was a story about someone who bought an HP Laserjet.  When it
needed repair, all he was able to do was take it to a local HP
representative, who agreed to provide warranty service if the serial
number could be found.  They eventually found an untouched serial
number *inside* the printer.

>bought the unit in good faith?  Is the retailer responsible for providing
>the full warranty service?  Is he guilty of any crime?  Am I entitled to
>anything like a full refund?  What are my options?

My guesses are: no, no (although things may have changed since I read
that article, or the article may not apply in this situation), and no.
You can try, though.  Good luck!  Please let me know if you ever find
that article.

Ed

-- 
"There are no differences but          | dolittle@math.toronto.edu
 differences of degree between degrees | dolittle@math.utoronto.ca
 of difference and no difference."     |
 --William James                       | Ed Doolittle
Newsgroups: ont.singles
From: Kaizhong Zhang <kzhang@csd.uwo.ca>
Subject: Collq. Tuesday, January 26, 1992 at 2:00pm
Organization: Relayed-by-Sendmail
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 21:38:28 GMT
To: 42131_3665@uwovax.uwo.ca, KIRBY@VAXR.SSCL.UWO.CA, allcs@csd.uwo.ca,
        brenda@engrg.uwo.ca, creider@csd.uwo.ca, dawes@uwovax.uwo.ca,
        eagleson@uwovax.uwo.ca, elmarag@uwovax.uwo.ca, grads@csd.uwo.ca,
        hugh@engrg.uwo.ca, jjiang@uwovax.uwo.ca, m.kinnucan@uwo.ca,
        marcu@csd.uwo.ca, ont.events@newshost.uwo.ca, tague@uwo.ca,
        undergrads@gaul.csd.uwo.ca, uwo.general@newshost.uwo.ca,
        wy@apmaths.uwo.ca, zakaria@csd.uwo.ca

          Notice the unusual day of the talk
        --------------------------------------

          The University of Western Ontario
            Department of Computer Science

                    COLLOQUIUM

Presenters:  Joseph Potworka
              AIX Technical Workstation Specialist
              IBM Canada Ltd.
             Jim Davey
              AIX Technical Support Specialist
              IBM Canada Ltd.
Title:       AIX and the IBM RISC System/6000 Update
Time:        Tuesday, January 26, 1992, at 2:00pm
Place:       Middlesex College, Room 320
Abstract:

 IBM's RISC System/6000 family of technical workstations continuously
 leads in reliability and price/performance. Recently IBM announced
 new models, more upgrade paths, more supported devices and a strong
 leadership in the 'Open Systems' marketplace. New software products
 announcements lead the way for research and system management areas with
 new enhancements to the IBM AIX XL C ++ compiler, selected Fortran 90
 functions for the XL Fortran Compiler and new products such as UNITREE
 for file server enhancements. This latest set of announcements also
 include the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) Base services
 and the Encina Product family as the first vendor with products in
 the distributed computing environment.

 IBM Canada will be providing a presentation/discussion on the latest
 enhancements to the RISC System/6000 product family. The agenda will
 include a brief summary on the latest announcements and an in-depth
 presentation on the OSF DCE strategy. The DCE presentation will include
 base services, the Encina product family and a Transaction Processing
 strategy.
Newsgroups: ont.events,ut.dcs.seminars,ut.dcs.ai
From: veronica@cs.toronto.edu (Veronica Archibald)
Subject: Lynn Andrea Stein, Thursday 21 January 1993: AI
Date: 8 Jan 93 16:24:31 GMT


           Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
              (GB = Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street)

       -------------------------------------------------------------

                                    AI
              GB221, at 11:00 a.m., Thursday 21 January 1993

                             Lynn Andrea Stein
    Artificial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

           " Representation and Reasoning in Reactive Systems "

Reactive architectures have proved themselves capable of sustaining robust
robotic systems.  As their capabilities have increased, designers have
begun incorporating state and using this state to modulate the primary
stimulus-response loop.  While both reactive and higher-level cognitive
architectures have been well-studied, the problem of integrating these two
functions is still poorly understood.

In this talk, I will discuss a novel architecture based on the idea that
cognition is imagined interaction: cognitive tasks are performed by
interacting with an imaginary world.  We have implemented this architecture
on Toto, a subsumption-based mobile robot capable of goal-directed
navigation based on prior experience.  Using the imagination architecture,
we have extended Toto's abilities into a qualitatively distinct domain.
Through embodied imagination, MetaToto achieves the cognition-intensive
task of reading, understanding, and acting on the knowledge contained in a
floor plan; and MetaToto does this using entirely Toto's existing
architecture, with the sole addition of the virtual sensors and actuators
required for navigation of the floor plan.  Although MetaToto is only a
simple example of imagination, we are hopeful that experiences with
MetaToto will lead to more sophisticated use of imagination and virtual
sensing, and to the development of truly embodied forms of cognition.
Newsgroups: ont.events,ut.dcs.seminars
From: mendel@db.toronto.edu (Alberto Mendelzon)
Subject: Toronto Computer Science colloquia Jan-April
Date: 4 Jan 93 20:34:02 GMT


University of Toronto
Department of Computer Science Colloquium
A Series of Distinguished Lectures in Computer Science

All lectures take place on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. to noon in Sandford 
Fleming 1105, 10 King's College Road. Refreshments will be served in 
the area outside SF1105 from 12 to 12:30.

January 12
Resource Sharing in Large-Scale Heterogeneous Distributed Systems
Songnian Zhou, University of Toronto

February 2
Terabytes >> Teraflops
(Or Why Work on Processors When I/O Is Where the Action Is?)
David Patterson, University of California at Berkeley

March 2
The Computational Complexity of Data Structures
J. Ian Munro, University of Waterloo

March 16
Transparent (Holographic) Proofs
Laszlo Babai, University of Chicago and Eotvos University

March 30
Building Highly Available Systems
Jim Gray, DEC San Francisco Systems Center

April 6
Applying the Power of Graphical Interfaces to Software Design and 
Development
Philip Cox, Technical University of Nova Scotia/TGS Systems

April 13
Ubiquitous Computing
Mark Weiser, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center


This lecture series is co-sponsored by the Department of Computer 
Science of the University of Toronto and by the Information 
Technology Research Centre of the Province of Ontario.

Newsgroups: ont.events
From: sekuler@psych.toronto.edu (Allison Sekuler)
Subject: PERCEPTION/AI
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
Distribution: ont
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 21:08:01 GMT

             * Research Group in Perception *
                  ** HAPPY NEW YEAR! **

        
                      MICHAEL BLACK
                Dept of Computer Science
                 University of Toronto


           "ROBUST INCREMENTAL OPTICAL FLOW."


              3:10 pm, Friday, January 8, 1993  
  Room 313, 1 Spadina Crescent, St. George Campus, U of T




Donut holes at 3, talk at 3:10. All are welcome.
For more information, contact Allison Sekuler at:
978-1537 or sekuler@psych.toronto.edu
Newsgroups: ont.events,ut.dcs.seminars,ut.dcs.ai
From: veronica@cs.toronto.edu (Veronica Archibald)
Subject: Adam J. Grove, Thursday 14 January 1993: AI
Date: 7 Jan 93 20:00:56 GMT


           Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
              (GB = Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street)

       -------------------------------------------------------------

                                    AI
              GB221, at 11:00 a.m., Thursday 14 January 1993

                               Adam J. Grove
                          NEC Research Institute

                       " From Statistics to Beliefs"

  An intelligent agent must make decisions even if it lacks complete
knowledge about the world. One general approach to this problem is to use
the facts that are known, and assign degrees of belief to other assertions
whose truth is uncertain.

  I will talk about three techniques for assigning degrees of belief.  All
three can be viewed as applications of (subjective) probability theory,
where the probability distribution is determined by the principle of
indifference. That is, they assign equal degree of belief to all basic
``situations'' consistent with the knowledge base. The methods differ
because there are competing intuitions about what the basic situations are.

  Various natural patterns of reasoning, such as the preference for the
most specific statistical data available, turn out to follow from some or
all of the techniques. This is an improvement over earlier theories, such
as work on direct inference and reference classes, which arbitrarily
postulate these patterns with no deeper explanation nor a guarantee of
consistency.

  The three methods we investigate have surprising characterizations: there
are connections to the principle of maximum entropy, a principle of maximal
independence, and a `center of mass' principle. These connections hold only
if the language uses unary predicates exclusively. This is particularly
interesting in first case, because although our methods makes sense for
more general languages, there seems to be no parallel extension to the
widely-used maximum entropy principle.

  Finally, I will briefly discuss some connections between the three
methods.  These connections give insight into how and why the specific
language chosen (for the knowledge base) is much more critical in inductive
reasoning than it is for traditional deductive logic.

(This is joint work with Fahiem Bacchus (University of Waterloo), Joseph Y.
Halpern (IBM Almaden Research Center), and Daphne Koller (Stanford
University).)

Newsgroups: ont.events
From: johncw@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (John Chee Wah)
Subject: Marie D'Iorio, Thursday 14 January, 1993 : Physics
Originator: root@helios.physics
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 20:43:24 GMT


                                PHYSICS
                              COLLOQUIUM
                         UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

		      Thursday, January 14, 1993
			 4:10 p.m.  Room 102
		    McLennan Physical Laboratories
                        60 St. George Street

Speaker                    DR. MARIE D'IORIO
                   National Research Council Canada
                Institute for Microstructural Sciences

Topic              "TWO-DIMENSIONAL ELECTRON SOLID:
           FROM WIGNER'S PREDICTIONS TO CURRENT EXPERIMENTS"

      Fifty years ago Wigner predicted that conduction electrons, if
sufficiently dilute, should condense from their normal extended states
to an electron solid now known as the "Wigner crystal".  It was
realized much later that the correlation energy makes Wigner
crystallization in two dimensions (2D) more favorable, e.g. at a
semiconductor interface or on the surface of liquid helium.  The helium
system was the first to show 2D electron crystallization but forms a
classical electron crystal rather than Wigner's quantum one.
Semiconductor interfaces prepared by molecular epitaxy can have a
dilute concentration of electrons confined in 2D with remarkably few
defects that might localize the electrons.  Using the best Si/SiO2
samples (from Russia), we have probed the transport of electrons and
found spectacular transitions from the metallic to the insulating
state.  The experimental evidence gathered at NRC points to the
formation of a quantum zero-field electron solid- the "true" Wigner
crystal.  A review of the basic concepts and definitive experiments
will be given.
Newsgroups: ont.events,ut.dcs.seminars,ut.dcs.graphics,ut.dcs.theory
From: veronica@cs.toronto.edu (Veronica Archibald)
Subject: Jack Snoeyink, Tuesday 19 January 1993: GRAPHICS/THEORY
Date: 7 Jan 93 20:17:31 GMT


           Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
         (SF = Sandford Fleming Building, 10 King's College Road)

       -------------------------------------------------------------

                              GRAPHICS/THEORY
               SF1101, at 3:00 p.m., Tuesday 19 January 1993

                               Jack Snoeyink
      Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia

                            " Maps & Puzzles "

In this talk we'll investigate how a simple geometric fact---that convex
objects in the plane can be sorted by "aboveness"---affects the computation
and display of maps and puzzles.

Many geographic information systems organize maps into different layers and
create new maps by solving the "polygon overlay problem."  We can abstract
this as a simple geometric intersection problem---given sets of n disjoint
red segments and n disjoint blue segments, compute the red/blue
intersections.  We use aboveness to derive a simple data structure and
storage organization that solves the abstract problem optimally (reporting
all K intersections in O(n log n + K) time or counting in O(n log n) time)
and discuss implications for the overlay problem.

The aboveness order, which is so useful in the plane, breaks in three
dimensions.  This is clear from the need to cut objects to draw them from
back to front using the "painter's algorithm."  In fact, we'll show a
configuration where the objects cannot be split into two sets, one above
the other, no matter which way is up.  This also has implications for
assembly planning.

Newsgroups: ont.events
From: Kaizhong Zhang <kzhang@csd.uwo.ca>
Subject: Colloq. Wednesday, January 13, 1992 at 2:00pm
Organization: Relayed-by-Sendmail
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:08:56 GMT
To: 42131_3665@uwovax.uwo.ca, KIRBY@VAXR.SSCL.UWO.CA, allcs@csd.uwo.ca,
        brenda@engrg.uwo.ca, creider@csd.uwo.ca, dawes@uwovax.uwo.ca,
        eagleson@uwovax.uwo.ca, elmarag@uwovax.uwo.ca, grads@csd.uwo.ca,
        hugh@engrg.uwo.ca, jjiang@uwovax.uwo.ca, m.kinnucan@uwo.ca,
        marcu@csd.uwo.ca, ont.events@newshost.uwo.ca, tague@uwo.ca,
        undergrads@gaul.csd.uwo.ca, uwo.general@newshost.uwo.ca,
        wy@apmaths.uwo.ca, zakaria@csd.uwo.ca

          The University of Western Ontario
            Department of Computer Science

                    COLLOQUIUM

Speaker: Vladimir Estivill-Castro
         Laboratorio Nacional de Informatica Avanzada, Mexico
Title:   Adaptive Parallel Sorting
Time:    Wednesday, January 13, 1992, at 2:00pm
Place:   MC 320
Abstract:

  The capacity of an algorithm to modify its behavior
  for the size, difficulty
  or structure of a problem instance is called adaptivity.
  Parallel algorithms are normally called adaptive
  if they work with a fixed number of processors on
  inputs of unbounded size,
  whereas sorting algorithms are normally called
  adaptive if they perform work proportional
  to the amount of disorder in the input.
  We combine these two concepts and present the first
  two parallel sorting algorithms that:
  are designed for a fixed number of processors and reconfigure
  them according to the size of the input,
  adapt to the amount of disorder in the input, and
  are cost optimal.
Newsgroups: bnr.test,ont.test