3.1302 Answers; Plate-spinning; and IBM v. MAC (135)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 19 Apr 90 18:36:57 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1302. Thursday, 19 Apr 1990.
(1) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 14:29:29 PDT (13 lines)
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles
Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.1297 Notes and Queries
(2) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 23:03 EST (9 lines)
From: BML@PSUARCH.Bitnet
Subject: RE: 3.1299 Research Computing; Why E-Texts?; Postmodernism
(3) Date: Thursday, 19 April 1990 8:13am CST (9 lines)
From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject: 3.1299 Research Computing; Why
(4) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 10:36:24 EST (16 lines)
From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM>
Subject: Twin Smells...
(5) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 17:27:38 EDT (8 lines)
From: fbhjj <FBDJJ@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 3.1297 Notes and Queries
(6) Date: 19 April 1990 09:24:10 CDT (23 lines)
From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981"
<U35395@UICVM>
Subject: brief footnote on plate-spinning
(7) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 15:50:40 MDT (13 lines)
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Mac vs. PC
(8) Date: 18 April 1990, 21:16:38 EDT (50 lines)
From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB
subject: not flaming about IBM and Apple, but a bit disillusioned
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 14:29:29 PDT
From: cbf%faulhaber.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu (Charles Faulhaber)
Subject: Re: 3.1297 Notes and Queries (206)
For Peter Robinson:
The address you have is working for me.
Try also:
MARCOS@EMDUAM11.BITNET
Charles Faulhaber
UC Berkeley
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------13----
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 23:03 EST
From: BML@PSUARCH.Bitnet
Subject: RE: 3.1299 Research Computing; Why E-Texts?; Postmodernism
to Parsons on beginnings: did you know of Edward Said, BEGINNINGS:
INTENTION AND METHOD, Columbia U Pr, published within the past decade.
Bernie Levinson (sorry--this line may be truncated)
Penn State
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------18----
Date: Thursday, 19 April 1990 8:13am CST
From: EIEB360@UTXVM.BITNET
Subject: 3.1299 Research Computing; Why
This is a reply to Mikeal Parsons' query about the study of beginnings:
you might try Edward Said, _Beginnings: A Study in Intention and
Method_ (1977). I think I have the subtitle right, but I'm certain of
the main title. I think the book falls squarely into the category of
postmodern studies of beginnings.
John Slatin
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------24----
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 10:36:24 EST
From: Jan Eveleth <EVELETH@YALEVM>
Subject: Twin Smells...
For Douglas J. Bottoms inquiring about twin smells: In the tradition of
the Evil Twin Skippy, I vote for the distinctive smell of synthetic
banana flavorings in chewy candies as being, at best, an evil twin of
the real thing.
Hardly an olfactory rhapsody evoking the greater virtues of twinness, the
synthetic banana flavor is twinness nonetheless by virtue of its innocent
chemical identity and unmistakable charlatan personality. After all,
what is a twin but the perception of physical sameness blanketing
separate and unique characters?
From a non-twin.
Jan Eveleth
Yale University
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------15----
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 17:27:38 EDT
From: fbhjj <FBDJJ@CUNYVM>
Subject: Re: 3.1297 Notes and Queries
Hmmm..
Sounds like it is an Indian Foundation of some sort. I think you could
get more information from the Embassy of India, if there is one in your
country.
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------32----
Date: 19 April 1990 09:24:10 CDT
From: "Michael Sperberg-McQueen 312 996-2477 -2981" <U35395@UICVM>
Subject: brief footnote on plate-spinning
For the record (and for the reputation of Stanford's dining halls, if
not its physics department), it should be noted that Richard Feynman's
plate-spinning observation was done at Cornell, not Stanford. I don't
recall any dining hall at Stanford which had the university crest on its
plates, in any case. Where but on the east coast would you find that
kind of, er, taste in chinaware?
Feynman aficionadoes will also be interested in a collection of articles
on Feynman published a year or so ago in Physics Today; one article
there points out that Feynman's account of the plate-spinning episode
gets the salient detail backward (giving a ratio as 2:1 instead of 1:2).
>From the position of the anecdote exactly 1:2 way through the first
edition, the author infers that Feynman was making a little joke. It's
also true, of course, that the editor of Feynman's anecdotal
recollections was not a physicist and may just have messed up the
syntax in post-editing. (You see, there is *always* a text-critical
angle!)
Michael Sperberg-McQueen
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------25----
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 90 15:50:40 MDT
From: koontz@alpha.bldr.nist.gov (John E. Koontz)
Subject: Mac vs. PC
Given that corporate source is economically and politically, perhaps
morally, relevant to a decision to purchase a microcomputer, there isn't
much point in comparing IBM policies to Apple policies in arguing the
virtues of PCs vs. Macs. One doesn't buy a PC from IBM. On the other
hand, one does buy a Mac from Apple, either directly or indirectly. IBM
may not like this situation, but there it is. IBM is not the major
supplier of PCs. Nominally they don't even supply PCs as such at all,
though some of their current PS/2 line are essentially PCs in disguise.
(8) --------------------------------------------------------------55----
Date: 18 April 1990, 21:16:38 EDT
From: FLANNAGA at OUACCVMB
Subject: not flaming about IBM and Apple, but a bit disillusioned
The gentleman from Dublin (for shame, attacking a Flannagan!) makes some
good points about the OS2 architecture, about which I know very little,
and about the comparative ruthlessness of both companies. Since I wrote
about Mac vs IBM I have been attempting to garner support from either
for seed equipment for a humanities institute that would be centered on
collection of texts. How could I do that, you say, being so inimical to
both companies? You will have to believe that I have not been
hypocritical, but I have been testing the good will and the genuine
desire of both companies to support education in order to "sell more
boxes on campus" (that was the honest way an IBM rep put it, when I
talked to her at length about IBM and education early last summer). Our
local IBM rep has not offered much support, though I went to him first
and explained a very ambitious project that would nevertheless not
require huge amounts of support monies or equipment from IBM. I asked
for help locating people within IBM who might be interested in the
systematic collection and encoding of texts. He hasn't been able to
locate anyone. He promised to send samples of software; he hasn't. My
general philosophy of "Put not your faith in sales reps" seemed to be
operative. When there was no response, my chairman and I went to Apple,
whose sales rep said they would like to give us some equipment, then
said that Apple would give us equipment, but only if our Dean would
commit matching funds for 50% support (really that is a 50% discount on
the hardware, isn't it, not counting tax breaks?). The Apple rep then
said that the decision had to come from Chicago. It hasn't come, but
further stipulations have. We had to get *corporate* support from
alumni/ae monies channeled through the Dean's office, and the names of
the corporations had to be on the grant coming from the Dean. So many
strings were being attached we began wondering if something had dried up
Apple's charity. This process of sour grantsmanship must be a common
one in academic America, where we often feel like the poor lay brothers
of business and industry. The push and pull of it is in the process of
brown-nosing the big corporations who need the tax write-offs while we
resent their treating us with contempt. They lure us with advertising
that says they support education, we beg for money or equipment and then
they withdraw it. I wish I could trust what either corporation says,
since both have their own types of locks on academia. I do admire much
of what both companies have done in the past--even the modest Apple II,
for the courage it took to invent and market such a machine--and I admire
the way IBM treats its employees, allowing them the business equivalent
of tenure and job satisfaction. But I don't much like what they both
bring out in us Humanists. One last reply to the Dubliner: I stand by
my use of "standard" for DOS, since it has been the most commonly used
and the measure of all other operating systems for computers derived
from the IBM PC, "an established or accepted model" as according to
Chambers. Now, could we shut up about our favorite machines? Roy
Flannagan