4.0416 Various: Handedness; Sledd; Halio (3/69)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 23 Aug 90 21:13:35 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0416. Thursday, 23 Aug 1990.
(1) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 1990 8:53:49 GMT+0400 (26 lines)
From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: RE: 4.0407 Handedness and Memory
(2) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 02:10 PDT (12 lines)
From: Jack Kolb <IKW4GWI@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0395 ... Jim Sledd
(3) Date: Thu, 23 AUG 90 16:56:52 GMT (31 lines)
From: Simon Rae <SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK>
Subject: Halio - again (sorry) UK version.
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 1990 8:53:49 GMT+0400
From: LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL
Subject: RE: 4.0407 Handedness and Memory (3/61)
Re: Stephen Clausing's suggestion of other criteria for left-right
differences: I suspect we're fascinated by the face-name business
because it's intrinsically so bizarre. But I don't think Stephen's
criteria are linked with handedness, even though better criteria than
face-name diffi- culties must exist. My husband, who is right-handed,
can not only repeat a melody and create a harmony from hearing, but also
play the thing on his left-over-from-childhood accordion; I, who am
left-handed, am lucky if I get to sing it almost-right, and you wouldn't
want to hear me try to play it, even though my loving parents sent me to
piano lessons for 7 long years. I am not that good at drawing either.
My sense of direction, on the other hand, is pretty good, whereas I have
a right-handed friend who can't get from point A to point B in a strange
town even with a street map and even when he's done the same trip on
half a dozen previous visits (but sit him in a jeep in the desert and he
will unerringly negotiate among a spiderweb of dirt tracks, all of which
look alike to me. Then when we get back to the road you have to tell
him whether to turn right or left.) In short, I and my husband just
about cancel out Stephen and his wife. I seem to remember that musical
ability is often linked to mathematical (my husband's a physicist and
dreams in equations) and I wouldn't be surprised to find it linked to
handedness but I haven't, personally, seen any sign of a link to date.
Judy Koren.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------127---
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 02:10 PDT
From: Jack Kolb <IKW4GWI@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0395 Why "computers"; Jim Sledd (2/74)
Re: James Sledd. My dad, his collaborator on "Dr. Johnson's
Dictionary," is still using a manual typewriter, though I hope, now
that he's retired, to coax him to the keyboard. So I'll have to speak
for JS. I grew up with the man and his family in Chicago in the 1950s.
Like all of us, he has his negative qualiti es. He was the proverbially
dissatisfied academic. But he had--and could not help have, a fiercely
independent and intelligent mind. I remember him with great fondness
and admiration. Jack Kolb.
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------39----
Date: Thu, 23 AUG 90 16:56:52 GMT
From: SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK
Subject: Halio - again (sorry) UK version.
Having read the recent discussion on HUMANIST about the Halio report and
attendant (US) national publicity I'm a bit loathed to send this but ...
The front page of "Computer Weekly" for this week (23/8/90) carries the
following headline below a photo of (presumably) Marcia Halio: "STUDENT
IBMPC USERS OUTSCORE MAC LOVERS". The article briefly resumes the
report beginning with the sentence: "Students using IBM-PCs may reach
higher academic standards than their counterparts using Macintoshes,
according to a study at the University of Delaware."
"Computer Weekly" is a free computer paper sent out to computer
professionals in the UK - it covers it's cost by carrying job ads etc.
Of all the freebies in the UK it has a reasonable reputation and does a
good job of reporting the UK computing scene: commercial, academic and
research.
A leader comment on the editorial page refers to the report and wonders
whether, "Although the results from Delaware hardly count as scientific
research ...", "we might not be sacrificing accuracy for the sake of user
friendliness."
The real lesson from this may be of course, just how far behind the US
press the UK press really is!
Simon Rae. SA_RAE@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK (BITNET)
Research Adviser, Academic Computing Service, The Open University,
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom.