human-nets@ucbvax.ARPA (10/15/84)
From: Charles McGrew (The Moderator) <Human-Nets-Request@Rutgers>
HUMAN-NETS Digest Friday, 12 Oct 1984 Volume 7 : Issue 59
Today's Topics:
Queries - Optical Scan Readers/Response to Email &
Bugs List?,
Response to Query - Size of the Internet (2 msgs),
Computer Networks - 56K Baud is Here,
Computers and People - Flaming (2 msgs) &
Unions/Working at Home
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Date: 11-Oct-84 11:27 PDT
From: William Daul - Augmentation Systems Div. - McDnD
From: <WBD.TYM@OFFICE-2.ARPA>
Subject: Use Query // electronic mail responses
I would like to hear from the readership regarding the use and/or
potential use of Optical Character Readers. How many of you have
access and use them? How often? How many of you feel that if you had
one you would use it? I realize that this note is going to MANY
users, but my experience is that very few people answer general
questions like this.
That brings me to another point/question. Has anyone studied the
response rate using electronic mail in a general network environment
like the INTERNET? I have been continually surprised at the lack of
response to questions. Yes, I realize that it could be my questions.
I have asked a few others and they support my observations based on
responses to their questions. Comments?
--Bi\\
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Date: Thu, 11 Oct 84 21:54:58 est
From: ECN.davy@Purdue.ARPA (Dave Curry)
Subject: bugs
A long time ago (2 years, maybe?) someone sent me a huge collection of
"humorous" bugs and programming errors -- things like the infamous "DO
I=1.5" and the "moon over the horizon missle attack" bugs. I think the
discussion of these originated in this list. Unfortunately, I zapped
the file about a year ago -- if anyone has a collection of these
stories, could you please send them to me.
Thanks in advance,
--Dave Curry
ecn.davy@purdue.arpa
{decvax, ihnp4, ucbvax}!pur-ee!davy
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Date: Thu 11 Oct 84 22:45:45-PDT
From: Mark Crispin <MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: size of the Internet
I seem to remember something like 10K being quoted as the size of
the REGISTERED users of the ARPANET with the actual number being much
larger. The Internet is several times the size of the old ARPANET.
I should note that Stanford University probably can count for 10K
(at least) mailboxes addressable from the Internet. The actual number
of Internet users is much smaller, of course. That is why questions
about the "size of the small-i internet" are hard to answer. Do you
answer:
. how many users are registered?
. how many users actually use it?
. how many users are addressable?
The third number is larger than the other two by perhaps an order
of magnitude.
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Date: 12 Oct 84 01:51:59 PDT
From: Murray.pa@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: Electronic mail at Xerox
To: TMPLee@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Cc: Murray.pa@XEROX.ARPA
There are ~4000 users on our Grapevine system.
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Date: Friday, 12 Oct 1984 11:38:33-PDT
From: redford%shorty.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (John Redford)
To: jlr%shorty.DEC@decwrl.ARPA
Subject: new high speed digital phone service
The Sept '84 issue of Computers and Electronics has an article
about AT&T's new high speed digital home service. With special
equipment in the home and at the local switching center they can pump
56 kbaud through the present phone lines. They are testing it now in
Illinois. The phone company has been leasing 56 kb lines for some
time, but they had to be specially conditioned. Now they've got a
technique that works over ordinary twisted pair. It works by
buffering up the data in a specially designed chip, sending it out in
a carefully synchronized burst, and then letting the noise and
reflections in the line settle out before sending the next burst.
What effect will this have? Three hundred baud was fine for
getting low cost access to the network, but is too slow for reading
large quantities of text or using screen editors. Twelve hundred baud
is good for reading since it goes a bit faster than your eye, but is
still not enough for quick skimming. Single chip 1200 baud modems are
just coming out. For more money you can get 2400 or 4800, and some
maniacs at Bell Labs have even been able to fit 9600 baud into the 3.5
kHz phone bandwidth. At 9600 baud every cycle that goes out has to
carry three bits, so you're talking about serious modulation trickery.
Don't expect to get a modem like this in your Radio Shack Model 100.
Fifty six kb, though, is a quantum leap. An entire Macintosh
screen can be loaded in three seconds. A 100,000 word novel can be
transmitted in a minute and a half. Music of the fidelity found in
Compact Disk players can be transmitted only twelve times slower than
in real time. Slow-scan TV, where the picture is updated every couple
of seconds, is now possible.
Everybody starts out with only text in their communication medium,
because text is the ultimate bandwidth compression algorithm. Speech
takes something like 50,000 bits per second to faithfully transmit,
and the same speech turned into text would only need 100 bps, a
compression ratio of 500 (beat that, you linear predictive encoders!).
But now you can get more than just text on your home system; you can
get images and music. I wonder how much Bell will charge for it?
John Redford
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Date: Thu 11 Oct 84 09:44:42-PDT
From: Ken Laws <Laws@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Flaming
"It's amazing," said Kiesler. "We've seen messages sent
out by managers - messages that will be seen by thousands of
people - that use language normally heard in locker rooms."
Information retrieval systems may need a whole new set of keywords.
-- Ken Laws
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Date: 11 Oct 84 14:52:31 PDT (Thu)
To: SocialIssues^.PA@xerox
Subject: Re: The New York Times on Flaming.
From: Martin D. Katz <katz@uci-750a>
The article seems to factor out a consideration: People tend to be
more careful as the communication becomes more immediate. That is,
people who are writing to newspapers are less careful about tact than
writing to friends. It has also long been part of our culture to
expect that people will be more honest, and more intimidated if
confronted in person than by telephone (there is some psychological
evidence, but I don't have refs.).
Another aspect is that people tend to write faster and send messages
immediately when communicating electronically. Writing a letter by
hand permits (demands) more thought between the time the idea arises
and the time the message is sent. I wonder how much of the messages
sent on the net are mostly "Free association?"
I think this subject deserves a research project. ... Any takers?
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Date: 11 Oct 84 14:42:52 PDT (Thu)
To: Tom Dietterich <DIETTERICH@sumex-aim>
Subject: Re: unions and home work
From: Martin D. Katz <katz@uci-750a>
I'm amazed at the strong anti-union sentiment expressed by the
majority of the recent contributors to this list.
I think that the problem we are having is like mixing apples and
oranges. A union is an organization of employees of a firm (or a small
number of firms in the same geographic area and industry) who band
together to bargain as a group for improved treatment (pay,
conditions, etc.).
Organizations such as AFL-CIO and Teamsters are national organizing
bodies for a large group of unions, not unions in and of themselves.
These organizations provide many services to the unions (coordination
of retirement funds, legal assistance, etc.). In addition, these
organizations were early forms of PACs (and in some ways the reason
and model for general PACs).
As you say, the purpose of AFL-CIO is largely to provide services to
unions. One of these services is to provide public relations and
political pressure which is intended to increase union membership.
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Date: 12 Oct 1984 09:34-CDT
Subject: Telecommuting
From: SLONG@USC-ISIE.ARPA
There has been much discussion on telecommuting in the past few
weeks on this list. I would like to make a couple of
observations, if you would permit me.
1. The idea of working at home vs at the office is new to this
society. If one looks back just a couple hundred years (not even
that long, really) to pre-industrial times, one will find that
working AWAY from home was quite an oddity. The few exceptions
were occupations such as merchant, soldier, and politician. Most
other jobs were performed at home with an occasional trip to the
market place to sell ones product. It was the industrial
revolution which brought about the urban society and the
outside-of-the-home job. The issue now is simply a reversal of
an earlier sociological trend. (Is it any wonder the Greeks saw
life as a circle)? And with such, those benefited by the trend,
whether by wealth or power (ie UNIONS) will do all they can to
resist and prevent the change.
2. The issue I see here, which some have already stated very
frankly, is not so much the aesthetics of "at home" vs "at the
office", i.e. lighting, safety, interruptions, or insufficient
means to communicate concepts, but rather that there are those
who are trying very hard to make the option illegal. The
particulars of working at home are left up to each organization
according to their needs. If one company finds this new concept
counter-productive, then they should have the option to decline
from doing so. If another company finds telecommuting to improve
and/or increase production, then, by all means (including the
law), they should be allowed to do so. The individual employee
is free to choose to work wherever he may if he doesn't like the
way the company does business (subject to qualifications,
openings, etc - please, no lectures or flames on this; the basic
concept is there). We should be fighting to keep the option open.
3. Since we are all so avid in expressing our views on the net,
I hope we should do likewise in expressing them to our
governmental representatives, either collectively or
individually, or both. The AFL-CIO has demonstrated its
political pull many times. If we don't stand up to counter them
in an active and vocal manner, 1) who will, and 2) they will win.
The political arena is won, not by passive complaint to one
another (which conservatives are so often guilty of), but by
becoming vocal to our representatives (which is how many liberal
rulings and decisions are passed - liberals are often
activitists). I do not propose starting another union, for
unions have to do with management vs laborer. What I am
proposing is, perhaps, starting some form of a lobbyist movement.
Like it or not, if you want to win in politics, you have to play
the politicians' game. They listen to pressure and large-group
representatives. (In fact, so few people write representatives
that a politician in office counts one letter to represent 10,000
constituents! What if N of us wrote one letter? 10,000 x N
people is a lot!)
I hope this has given sufficient food for thought. Constructive
comments would be appreciated. Flames may be tolerated, if I
bother to read them.
-- Steve
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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