3.481 responses: phds, batteries, founts & more (345)

Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Fri, 22 Sep 89 08:19:01 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 481. Friday, 22 Sep 1989.


(1) Date: Mon, 18 Sep 89 21:49:39 CDT (17 lines)
From: "Kevin L. Cope" <ENCOPE@LSUVM>
Subject: Laptop Power Gets Another Jolt

(2) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 08:11 EDT (16 lines)
From: <S_RICHMOND@UTOROISE>
Subject: essential purpose of HUMANIST?

(3) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 11:12:47 EDT (51 lines)
From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Computers and Ph.D. students

(4) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 11:16:31 EDT (30 lines)
From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Nickel-Cadmium Batteries

(5) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 16:54:42 EDT (30 lines)
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.479 omnium gatherum: WORD, tests, PhDs, etc (268)

(6) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 09:46:15 EDT (16 lines)
From: unhd!psc90!jdg@uunet.UU.NET (Dr. Joel Goldfield)
Subject: "Ph.D. candidates & computers"

(7) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 17:35:24 EDT (8 lines)
From: Geoff Rockwell <rockwell@utorgpu>
Subject: Re: 3.474 queries (100)

(8) Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 23:22:27 CDT (14 lines)
From: Amanda Catherine Lee <ALEE@MSSTATE>
Subject: Re: Fraktur

(9) Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 08:45:00 EDT (5 lines)
From: db <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 3.478 essential purpose of HUMANIST? (was no more hearts
)

(10) Date: 20-SEP-1989 16:39:20 GMT (14 lines)
From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK
Subject: Clews "language Automation Worldwide" report

(11) Date: 20-SEP-1989 17:07:13 GMT (29 lines)
From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK
Subject: Thorn and Yogh at Penn State

(12) Date: Wednesday, 20 September 1989 2203-EST (45 lines)
From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS
Subject: PhDs and Computers

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 89 21:49:39 CDT
From: "Kevin L. Cope" <ENCOPE@LSUVM>
Subject: Laptop Power Gets Another Jolt

Bob Kraft's kind reply to my inquiry concerning laptops and power supplies
for them raises another question. I've read in his letter and in other sources
about battery packs (or chargers) have some kind of "memory" capable of
recalling the last or even the average charge delivered to a laptop battery
pack. Were a user, say, to charge a battery when 90% of the charge remained,
according to these rather oracular sources, the batteries or the chargers (or
both) would somehow remember only to deliver a 10% charge. This intellectual
incorrigiblity on the part of power supplies could lead to clamaities--imagine
running a battery down to nothing, then being able only to deliver a 10%
charge, then finding a juicy book yearning to be annotated over the next
several hours! Is there any way to train--or to untrain--these magical power
sources? Or is there any truth to the legend of an intelligent battery or
charger? Thank you. Kevin L. Cope.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------32----
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 08:11 EDT
From: <S_RICHMOND@UTOROISE>
Subject: essential purpose of HUMANIST?

Brian Whittaker's note on this question is one I essentially
agree with both in form and matter. A footnote:
On the VAX system one can easily delete messages by
using a 'D' while reading the topic of the message, or a message
number. It is a handy tool in the form of life of e-mail
scanning. Note also that unlike paper waste, discarded e-mail
creates rather than consumes space; also, unlike paper waste,
discarded e-mail produces no toxic by-products.
So, please allow a thousand topics to flower--whether
about wandering hearts or unhappy disk drives.
------------------
Sheldon Richmond
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------68----
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 11:12:47 EDT
From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Computers and Ph.D. students


I feel obliged to respond to Mark Olsen's assertion that
computer technology is a great stumbling block for graduate
students, a time-waster rather than a time-saving
convenience. Yes, reading magazines, browsing e-mail lists,
and experimenting with shareware all consume valuable time
-- but we need feel no guiltier for these hobbies than past
generations of scholars for their own leisure activities.

We all have to weigh the costs and benefits of actual
programming for ourselves. Word processing has indeed made
the computer an academic necessity -- but if we all had to
write our own software, most would still be using
typewriters! (And if we had to design and build our own
typewriters, we'd be using quill pens...).

In the past, "harmless drudges" like Samuel Johnson
compiled dictionaries, concordances, and editions of texts --
saving others immense amounts of time. Compiling the OED
would not save me much time if I simply wanted to search
for the first occurrence of a word in English, but as an end
user I find it a priceless tool. Major efforts, like the
development of huge textbases or sophisticated text retrieval
software, will always cost the developers more time than it
will save them -- but will be godsends to their end users.

It IS possible to use the computer as a time-saving tool:
wordprocessing and spreadsheets are only two examples.
Consider also computerized library catalogues, DAI searches,
or the CD-ROM OED and MLA: no-one questions the time-
effectiveness of these tools. Commercial (or public-domain)
text-retrieval software, when combined with prepared
electronic texts, vastly accelerates research without costing
the end user much time at all.

What such software usually DOES cost, of course, is
MONEY. The more academic programs which become widely
available -- whether for recording student grades, compiling
bibliographies, or searching texts -- the more scholars will
find computing worth the effort. The more public domain
software is released by universities -- like the University of
Toronto's TACT -- the more scholars will find computing
worth the price.

Ken Steele
University of Toronto
KSTEELE@utorepas
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------47----
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 11:16:31 EDT
From: Ken Steele <KSTEELE@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Nickel-Cadmium Batteries



Bob Kraft complains that his laptop computer reports
"battery low" when as much as 70% charge remains. If these
batteries are the nickel-cadmium type, he might find the
answer in an article by Bill Howard called "Laptop Survival:
Tricks, Tips & Traps" in the October 1988 issue of
_PC/Computing_. Under "miscellany" on page 92, Howard
says:

Bring an extra battery if you'll be away from a 110-
volt power supply for an extended period. They're $50
to $100 . . .

If your batteries are nickel-cadmium, try to run them
all the way down before recharging. Nickel cadmium
batteries develop memory; if you only discharge them
half-way, they'll begin to give out halfway through their
normal charge times.

The situations sound similar, although I'm no computer
techie.

Ken Steele
University of Toronto
KSTEELE@utorepas
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------41----
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 16:54:42 EDT
From: cbf@faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.479 omnium gatherum: WORD, tests, PhDs, etc (268)

John McDaid misses the point about the use of test/exrecise
data bases. What we are trying to do is put in machine-readable
form the large mass of materials which our T.A.'s use for
handouts and quizzes in first and second-year language classes.

I readily agree that this is not revolutionary. It is intended
to be pragmatic, to make use of computer technology at a level
appropriate to our facilities and expertise. I would love to
be at an institution which would allow us to deliver sophisticated
computerized language instruction, but I am not. In the first
place, we have no computer laboratories; in the second, the
available software for language teaching--particularly in
relatively robust form--leaves much to be desired.

In the meantime, we can use state-of-the-art technology to
scan materials into a data base and desktop publishing to
get them out. In the process we will have introduced our
graduate students to some basic concepts of data base
design and have made their lives a little less hectic.

Charles B. Faulhaber
Department of Spanish
UC Berkeley CA 94720
bitnet: ked@ucbgarne
internet: cbf@faulhaber.berkeley.edu
telephone: (415) 642-2107
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 09:46:15 EDT
From: unhd!psc90!jdg@uunet.UU.NET (Dr. Joel Goldfield)
Subject: "Ph.D. candidates & computers"

I concur with Mark Olsen that computers, outside of their word-processing
function, are likely to slow down the progress of Ph.D. candidates sig-
nificantly in terms of "TITO" ("Time in, time out"). However, the computer
may also allow a type of research and completeness of analysis that would
have otherwise been impossible for the lone scholar. I believe that any
dissertation advisor must weigh carefully her/his perception of the
candidate's self-discipline and the nature of the project before waving off
the energetic youth with a brilliant idea from the proposed work even though
it might take an "extra" year or two.
Joel D. Goldfield
Plymouth State College (NH)
J_GOLDFI@UNHH.bitnet
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------13----
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 17:35:24 EDT
From: Geoff Rockwell <rockwell@utorgpu>
Subject: Re: 3.474 queries (100)

About the creation of letters for the Mac. There are two types of fonts
for the Mac. Bit-mapped fonts are used for the screen and, being bit-maps,
they do not scale well. Think of a bit-map or screen font as a matrix
of black dots
(8) --------------------------------------------------------------28----
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 89 23:22:27 CDT
From: Amanda Catherine Lee <ALEE@MSSTATE>
Subject: Re: Fraktur

I know I came in late on this discussion, but honestly, what's the
problem? Fraktur is simply not that difficult to read, providing the
reader has some knowledge of the language. I am working on my master's
in German and freely admit I was never required to learn to read Fraktur,
but if the need arises, I am able to understand it just fine. Granted,
the need must be dire, because I don't enjoy the headache that comes from
the eyestrain, but, like it or not, many of the works necessary for my
studies are only available to me in Fraktur (in other words, if the books
have been reprinted since they quit using Fraktur, our library doesn't
have them).
(9) --------------------------------------------------------------13----
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 89 08:45:00 EDT
From: db <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 3.478 essential purpose of HUMANIST? (was no more hearts)

Hear Hear! Daniel Boyarin, Bar-Ilan University
(10) --------------------------------------------------------------36---
Date: 20-SEP-1989 16:39:20 GMT
From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK
Subject: Clews "language Automation Worldwide" report

I'll pass on to John Clews the comment from David Birnbaum that
the "language Automation" report appears to be unavaillable from
US Libraries. By the way, does this mean that US academic library
budgets are as short of funds as UK libraries? Or that American
libraries need special reminders to obtain non-US originating
research documents?

Edis Bevan
Open University, UK.
aeb_bevan@UK.AC.OPEN.ACS.VAX (JANET)
(11) --------------------------------------------------------------51---
Date: 20-SEP-1989 17:07:13 GMT
From: AEB_BEVAN@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK
Subject: Thorn and Yogh at Penn State

One possible help for the team at Penn State looking at
ways of putting Middle English letters into the 'standard
alphabet' might be the company "Ecological Linguistics"
PO Box 15156 Washington DC 20003 . They have a reputation
for searching out obscure font sets.

When printing from a MAC you need to ask a number of questions
like are you using resident or downloadable fonts. There will
be a difference between imagewriter and laserwriter fonts
for example.

There are a lot of MAC orientated books that discuss the fonts
problem. I found Robert Eckhardt's book "The Fully Powered MAC"
(Brady, New York 1988.) a good basic introduction. He references
a two volume comprehensive work called Lasersampler II as the
best follow up. (Lasersampler, MacTopography, 702 Twinbrook
parkway, Rockville, Md 20851 Tel (301) 424 1357. ) I havent
myself seen the Lasersampler so I have no personal comments on it.

By the way if anyone knows of a Lithuanian font for the MAC
Id be glad to hear of it!

Edis Bevan
Open University UK.

(12) --------------------------------------------------------------48---
Date: Wednesday, 20 September 1989 2203-EST
From: KRAFT@PENNDRLS
Subject: PhDs and Computers

I suspect, and hope, that my PhD students and recent graduates
do not share Mark Olsen's cynicism about the value of using
computers in PhD dissertation research and production. As Mark
admits, the word/text processing aspect has been of immense
help, and some of them have used only that. But others use
the computer for access to and manipulation of data that would
otherwise be inaccessible and/or intransigent. Of course, the
fact that large bodies of electronic data are available for the
study of ancient (especially Greek) texts is a major factor,
but there are other fields in which similar conditions exist
(e.g. French literature, as Mark well knows). Whether the
use of computers will actually speed up anything for these
students (beyond the actual dissertation preparation mechanics)
is a discussable point, but I am sure that the types of topics
that they can choose and the manner in which they can research
those topics will change. If the student chose certain types
of pre-computer topics and then used computers intelligently
in the research, the entire process would probably be accelerated.
But what happens is that new types of topics are chosen (that
would not have been attempted without computers), and the same
amount of time is used to research and prepare them. So the
payoff is less in speed of execution of the project than it is
in the definition of an executable project itself.

For the new PhDs who have prepared their dissertations on
computer, the time and effort factor for moving from dissertation
form to published form should be significantly reduced. That is
in itself a tremendous boon!

Kevin Cope is cynical in another direction -- if the PhD process
is sped up, we will recreate the horror of overproduction that
has haunted us recently. Ah, Kevin, don't you believe the
new prophets of doom who say that we will soon have a desperate
shortfall of qualified teachers (I'm due to retire in 2002!)?
I wonder how many of the PhDs we produced in the years when there
were insufficient teaching opportunities will want to still be
considered if and when the market does open up more widely?
I know a few who would fit that category. I wonder if the
analysists take them into account?

Bob Kraft, Professor of Religious Studies