4.0322 Retransmission of 4.0319 (Garbled Posting) (2/48)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 26 Jul 90 16:51:46 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0322. Thursday, 26 Jul 1990.


(1) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 13:58 EST (30 lines)
From: Tom Rusk Vickery <TVICKERY@SUNRISE>
Subject: hypersatire

(2) Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 12:28 EDT (18 lines)
From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet>
Subject: Knowledge and information

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 13:58 EST
From: Tom Rusk Vickery <TVICKERY@SUNRISE>
Subject: hypersatire

Nissan's hypersatire is as fascinating as Rafaeli's observations about
hypertext as a means of multi-authorship are intriguing. However, as
part of this exercise in multi-authorship, may I juxtapose the following
quote taken from another stream of our HUMANIST discourse with their
comments. I assume the analogy is obvious.

>QUOTE RE MEMORY FROM MARK TWAIN

>The passage occurs in _Life on the Mississippi_. In Chapter 13, Twain
>speaks of a pilot whose memory was amazing. After seeing each part of
>the river once in the day and once at night, his memory was so nearly
>complete that he took out a daylight license. After only a few trips,
>he obtained a full license. The man forgot very little.

>Wrote Twain: "Such a memory as that is a great misfortune. To it, all
>occurrences are of the same size. Its possessor cannot distinguish an
>interesting circumstance from an uninteresting one. As a talker, he is
>bound to clog his narrative with tiresome details and make himself an
>insufferable bore. Moreover, he cannot stick to his subject. He picks
>up every little grain of memory he discerns in his way, and so is led
>aside."

Tom Rusk Vickery, 265 Huntington Hall
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-2340
315-443-3450 TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 12:28 EDT
From: John Lavagnino <LAV@brandeis.bitnet>
Subject: Knowledge and information

I treasure a letter from Britton Lee, Inc., dated September 1987, which
begins:

T. S. Eliot was a poet. But he sounded like a database management
specialist when he said:

"Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"

Information can't become knowledge until it reaches the right person
at the right time.

A sales pitch for a database system follows.

John Lavagnino, English, Brandeis University