human-nets@ucbvax.ARPA (12/05/84)
From: Charles McGrew (The Moderator) <Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers>
HUMAN-NETS Digest Tuesday, 4 Dec 1984 Volume 7 : Issue 79
Today's Topics:
Query - Removal from US MAIL Mailing Lists,
Information - Latest Columbia Journalism Review,
Computer Technology - Compact Disks,
Computers and People - Are books obsolete?,
Computer Networks Registered E-mail (3 msgs),
Computers and the Law - Unions
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Date: 2-Dec-84 12:33 PST
From: William Daul - Augmentation Systems - McDnD
From: <WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: US MAIL QUERY
Does anyone have the address of the company that will permanently
remove one from all JUNK mail? Is there a way to remove one from all
RESIDENT/OCCUPANT mail?
Thanks, --Bi\\
------------------------------
Date: 28 Nov 1984 12:06:16-PST
From: smith%umn.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Subject: Nov/Dec '84 Columbia Journalism Review
The latest issue of Columbia Journalism Review has three articles
likely to be of interest:
'Privacy and the Electronic Newsroom' is about the use of terminals
in newsrooms and in particular about inadvertent or intentional
compromises of confidential information. The article consists
primarily of quoted stories by newspeople who had unfortunate and
sometimes funny experiences. In a way it reads like stories about
university timesharing systems of a dozen years ago. The article
concludes that "privacy depends, as it did in the typewriter newsroom,
more on the atmosphere of the organization than on the strength of the
drawer lock."
There were also two articles and an editorial on VDT radiation
hazards. The editors of CJR are worried that the media coverage of
VDT hazards doesn't take the problem seriously, so they are making a
conscious effort to publish whatever facts they find on it. An
interesting point is that anxiety by itself is a well known cause of
miscarriages, so that anxiety about VDT hazards may be as damaging as
the hazards themselves, if any.
On the subject of VDT Hazards... someone mentioned recently (maybe
in Human Nets) some experiments that related physiological symptoms
(dizziness, vertigo, anxiety) to visual aspects of VDT's (i.e.
scrolling, screen refreshing, etc). Does ANYONE know where this work
is described, perhaps in some research journal?
Rick.
[smith.umn-cs@CSNet-Relay]
[...ihnp4!umn-cs!smith]
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Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 01:10:04 PST
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA>
Subject: compact disk prices vs. INFORMATION prices
To: HUMAN-NETS@RUTGERS
The disks may theoretically be cheap in quantity, but don't expect
the information providers (publishers, record producers, database
owners) to slit their own throats by pricing such "data" below what it
would cost to release in more conventional forms. In fact, I would
expect the price of, for example, a dictionary on compact disk, to be
(maybe much) higher than a comparable printed dictionary. The
argument will be that once people have the dictionary in "online" form
they can get much more "value" from it, and also that it subjects the
data to much easier duplication, transfer through networks, transfer
to other media (magnetic tape, conventional disks, etc.) In other
words, there are data ownership, value, and even piracy problems to
consider that go far beyond the cost of the media itself. Remember
that an empty reel of conventional computer magnetic tape only costs a
few dollars. But put information (software, operating systems, data,
etc.) on that tape, and suddenly it can be worth 1000's or 10's of
1000's of dollars.
On the more mundane hardware level, it can be expected that the
controllers and interfaces for the disk players, for use with popular
micros, will probably result in a considerable price increment above
the sorts of prices we are now seeing quoted for the players
themselves.
--Lauren--
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From: aurora!eugene@RIACS.ARPA (Eugene miya)
Date: 2 Dec 1984 1834-PST (Sunday)
To: ames!riacs!jlg@lanl.ARPA
Subject: Are books obsolete? -- People are missing the point
I note comments in both the AIList and the Human-Nets lists on this
subject. I am only posting to the human-nets on this.
This discussion surprises me in two ways: 1) the surprisingly limited
ways people are thinking about the question (in particular Jerry P.
and Jim Giles), and 2) that neither Adele Goldberg nor Alan Kay, nor
any of their coworkers have answered this question.
Books are only obsolete if you want to think of them in that way. My
library consists not only of books but thousands of 35 mm slides,
records, and video tapes, and computer tape and disks. I don't
(quite) consider a particular media better than another of storing
"pure" information (however, don't push me when it comes to music for
instance). Does it matter that music is stored in digital or analog
form so long as it comes out at a decent 20 KHz?
Practically all of the discussion centered on the cost/capacity
comparison of storage media. This sort of reminds me about the
discussion of human memory some two years ago on this list. The
bottom line is that users will need as much of a media as they can get
a hold. I think this discussion was somewhat shallow.
Books lack a certain degree of flexibility (part of this is in
structure) and interaction. This might not be terrible. I am
considering writing a "book" on the C programming language in which an
instructor can hopefully move the chapters around and restructure the
material as he (she) sees fit.
The important issue missed is the software! We haven't given thought
(like in the early days of computing) about the software. The only
earlier classic works are things like Bush's Memex (1945) and Goldberg
and Kay's Dynabook (1977). We are not just talking about statically
storing information, with reasonably large systems we have the
potential for things like man-machine dialogues. We might bring back
the concept of apprenticeship (maybe not). Perhaps, if we had
software back at the time of Shakepeare, a student could "hold a
dialogue" with the Bard himself.
I would like to think books helped to augment human thought like
NLS/Augment and Tioga at Xerox augment human thought (my hats off to
Doug Englebardt(sp?)). So, it will be with Dynabook software.
Lastly, I should mention that there are potentially bad side effects.
Consider Orwell's 1984 and the government's ability to rewrite
history. If an author perhaps has remote control of some "dynamic
document" [Peter Wegner's terminology] and decides to change some idea
in all copies of his document, what is the point of citation?
Consider this note you are reading changing before your eyes because I
change my thought.
Jim Giles in the AIlist points out about the portability issue of all
this information. I own a Mac which I carry (20 lbs) in my Lowe
Alpine Systems day pack on my bike to work. (I am careful about
dropping it, don't worry.) I don't think size is something we need to
worry about for some time, we will probably have Cray-on-a-lap before
the end of the Century.
No, books (especially old ones) are not obsolete. Our concept of
moving information around is changing. Fortunately, the public
libraries are slowly moving along in this direction, otherwise, if
libraries only concerned themselves with books, I would think we have
cause for concern.
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
{hplabs,hao,dual,ihnp4,vortex,lll-crg}!ames!aurora!eugene
emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA or eugene@riacs.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: 30-Nov-84 00:29 PST
From: William Daul - Augmentation Systems - McDnD
From: <WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Registered-type mail
To: Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA
Acknowledge-receipt: Requested
The Augment mail system supports two types of acknowledgment of
delivery. We can request an acknowledgment from our mail process, of
the delivery to another Augment recipient or if the recipient is not
on our host, the mailer will send an acknowledgment that it handed the
message to a foreign mail system. The other acknowledgment is a
request from the recipient that he/she/it send an acknowledgment when
they receive the mail item. If the recipient decides not to, the
sender will remain in the dark forever. The capablity comes in handy.
<---for what it is worth
--Bi\\
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Date: 30-Nov-84 07:05 PST
From: David Potter Augmentation Systems Division / MDC
From: <DAP.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: "Registered" E-Mail
To: Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA
Acknowledge-receipt: Requested
Well, our mail system -- the one I'm using now (part of AUGMENT) does
allow requesting either or both of:
a return receipt from the recipient (this requires an explicit
action on the part of the recipient -- has to say "Send
Acknowledgement (for message)...." Requires a couple keystrokes;
a delivery acknowledgment from the receiving mail system. This of
course says nothing about whether or not the intended recipient
ever read the message -- but it does confirm that it made it
through the vast regions (of hyperspace?) without getting zapped by
the network Klingons....
Wonder who else has implemented such a mechanism?
Incidentally, I'm requesting both kinds of acknowledgment for this
message. The "return receipt" request shoud show up in the message
header; the delivery acknowledgment is, I suspect, invisible to you,
but shows up in my author copy.
-- David Potter
------------------------------
Date: 30-Nov-84 07:30 PST
From: David Potter Augmentation Systems Division / MDC
To: <DAP.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: Frwd: "Registered" E-Mail
To: Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA
Comment: FYI -- thought you'd be interested in seeing the following,
which are the message header from my author copy of the message I send
you a few minutes ago, and a copy of the delivery receipt message on
the same item.
TYM-DAP-5W82G 30-Nov-84* "Registered" E-Mail
From: DAP.TYM; David Potter Augmentation Systems Division / MDC
To: Seiler@MIT-XX.ARPA
Cc: human-nets@rutgers
Identifier: TYM-DAP-5W82G
Acknowledge-receipt: Requested
Posted: 30-Nov-84 10:08-EST Received: 30-Nov-84 10:08-EST
MAILER-5W82B 30-Nov-84 Delivery acknowledgement: TYM-DAP-5W82G
From: MALR.TYM; AUGMENT MAILER
To: DAP.TYM
Identifier: MAILER-5W82B
Posted: 30-Nov-84 10:05-EST Received: 30-Nov-84 10:23-EST
Message:
(TYM-DAP-5W82G) has been delivered to the following addresses:
:RUTGERS: human-nets :MIT-XX.ARPA: Seiler
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 84 16:35:09 pst
From: hpda!hptabu!dclaar@Berkeley (Doug Claar)
Subject: unions for mediocrity?
As a condition of employment, one of my friends must
belong to a union. His major gripe is that, no matter
what kind of job he does (good or bad), he'll get the same raise as
everyone else. Unions protect those who are
doing marginal jobs, and ensures that they can't be
fired, and will get the same raise as everyone else.
They have to, or people won't join.
My friend wants a chance to compete, because he believes he
would come out ahead. But the union (and his job is the type
of job that's largely unionized) precludes that possibility.
This is free enterprise?
------------------------------
Date: Thu 29 Nov 84 23:05:38-PST
From: Richard Treitel <TREITEL@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: unions and choices
Brint's suggestion of comparing employee conditions in the last
century versus this one seems to me to be off-track. Rather, compare
two otherwise similar countries, or industries, or companies, that
differ now in the extent (or existence) of unionisation. That will
show you what unions are good for now, as opposed to what they were
once good for. If you compare across countries, you should not look
too hard at fringe benefits because they are strongly affected by
other factors such as taxation and existence of free social services
(where "free" does not mean free, they are paid for out of taxes ...).
- Richard
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 84 14:53:34 pst
From: aurora!eugene@RIACS.ARPA (Eugene miya)
Subject: More on Unionization
My friends--
I felt (as many of you) that in this high tech day and age
that perhaps unions have out lived their usefulness. That was until
yesterday.
First, I felt that in many ways technology was a type of
equalizer which could help reduce such problems as discrimination like
the power of media with television and warfare. In 1980 or so, I
attended a Unix user group meeting in San Francisco, CA where I saw an
excellent presentation on Deafnet given by someone who was
hard-of-hearing. The audience gave a standing ovation on this use of
technology to break down barriers.
However, yesterday (after a protracted battle) a friend lost
an ongoing 'discussion' with her management. My friend is employed as
a technical writer for an H-P spinoff whose name will remain
anonymous. We tend to think companies like this are forward thinking
socially [thereby removing some of the need for unions].
My friend is by training a liberal arts major (as many in
Santa Clara are) and she works in an engineering department. She came
up for her review at which time she was thinking that she would
formally get the title "technical writer." Instead, another totally
independent department reached across and denied her title and so she
gets the title "documentation clerk." This is a necessarily shortened
version of the entire story. This is not even an issue of pay
anymore. I know that many of you would say "What's in a name?" but
there are problems in title with many technical organizations. This
company does appear to discriminate regardless of the EOE line on the
bottom of forms.
I wanted to mention this in the net because until 24 hours ago
I did not think this way. It is totally shitty! My friend is
technically competent [Anybody in Silicon Valley interested in a
technical writer with some Unix experience? mail to me]. We must be
careful. Many nuclear scientists were similarly naive in the period
from 1930 to 1950. [This latter is an example and not the issue of
this mail.]
I hate to say it, but there appears to still be a place for
unions, but they must evolve to the types of problems people face
today.
--eugene miya
{hplabs,dual,nsc...}!ames!aurora!eugene
The opinion expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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