Human-Nets-Request%rutgers@brl-bmd.UUCP (07/13/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Tuesday, 12 Jul 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 33
Today's Topics:
Administrivia - New Moderator,
Queries - Command Syntax(es?) & ICONS,
Reply to Query - Keyboards,
Computers and the Law - New Mass. definition for stored info &
DOD and Ownership,
Computers and People - Effect of Automation on Jobs (3 msgs) &
Young Computer Users
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Date: 11 Jul 83 21:42:09 EDT
From: Charles <MCGREW@RU-GREEN.ARPA>
Subject: Hello!
Hello,
I am the new moderator of Human-nets. I bid you all welcome to the
continuation of human-nets, and hope for many a happy flame from one
and all!
I will probably make a few mistakes early on with this. For
instance, I accidently put out a second -- different -- V6 #32 as my
first issue of Human-nets; both issues are valid. Please bear with
me... I am sure that I can live up to the fine job that Mel has done.
Charles
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Date: 15 June 1983 14:46 cdt
From: Heiby at HI-MULTICS (Ronald W.)
Subject: Command Syntax(es?)
I have a question about the philosophy of the user interface. I am
implementing a program on two systems which is/has been implemented
on several others. The program has basically the same function on
each system on which it is implemented. Also, each implementation
has similar abilities for having its behaviour modified by command
line arguments.
The question is, where command line syntax differs on different
systems, should the implementations conform to each other or to the
system on which they are running re command language syntax and
conventions.
The main argument for having all of these tools support the same
identical command line syntax is that of least confusion. If a user
learns how to invoke the tool on one system, the user can invoke it
on any other in the same way.
The main argument for having the tool match the system is that of
least confusion. If a user learns how the command language on a
particular system works, the user can use that knowledge to invoke
this tool.
I tend towards the tool matching the system point of view. I'd
appreciate the opinions and comments of the group. Thanks. Ron H.
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Date: 22-Jun-83 00:50 PDT
From: Vongehren@OFFICE-12
Subject: ICONS: Passing Fad or New Found Wisdom?
My current work has brought me to the question as stated in the
subject. Rather than elaborate on it in this message, I would like
to make contact with others who would be able to contribute to the
discussion. I will, however, briefly state a few of the questions
which fall out of this:
A - Do you think that the current interest in the use of icons on
terminals and computer displays is just a passing fad?
B - Aren't some of the current 'graphics' just a little too 'cute'
e.g. IBM upper-case 'lock'. Is this just a sign of an immature
field? Will the marketplace tolerate this long enough for growth
and maturity to occur?
C - What must happen for this field to mature?
D - Standardization of Signs and Symbols has occurred in other
fields, e.g. Traffic. Is there any effort to standardize within
the computer field? Should this be done?
E - Are there any obvious indicators for when it is inappropriate to
use an icon in place of a word?
F - What would you offer as guiding principles for the use of icons
in computer displays? Will these differ for icon use on keyboards?
I'll be glad to hear from you if you are willing to do some (or have
done some) thinking on these issues.
Ed vonGehren,
Bell-Northern Research
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Date: Sat, 9 Jul 1983 19:04 EDT
From: SJOBRG.ANDY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC
Subject: HUMAN-NETS Digest V6 #32
I don't know about an ansi standard, but there apparently is a
european standard...the one that IBM followed when they did
(=~ totally brain damaged =-) keyboard for the IBM PC.
------------------------------
Date: 15 Jun 1983 12:42:03-EDT
From: csin!cjh@CCA-UNIX
Subject: more on "computer crime"
A rag called TECH, which recently appeared in my in-box
proclaiming its attraction to the New England high-tech community,
says that Massachusetts has elected not to define computer crime per
se (thus avoiding the morass of technicalities) but is defining
electronically-stored information as property --- so if you take
some info that isn't yours you can be prosecuted for larceny. This
answers the worries a number of HNers have raised; how many problems
do y'all expect it to produce?
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Date: 6 June 1983 00:23 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: DOD's STARS
The current climate is that if you invent something totally on your
own, no military funding, no direct military use, if the military
decides it's of military use they will clamp it in secrecy so you
can't get it patented (for example, mathematical trapdoor functions
and encryption methods suitable for general commerce more than for
military messages). I would be reluctant to submit any programming
technique to the DOD for consideration. If it isn't useful to the
military, you've wasted yor time and theirs; If it is, you may find
yourself forbidden to discuss the method with anyone else or publish
or use it even, even if it's just a powerful way to develop reliable
programs that the USSR might use for reliable weapons control.
------------------------------
Date: 6 June 1983 00:56 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Although "eventually" we'll just dictate to a machine that does the
typing for us, that's skipping a step. First we'll have machines
that do most of the dictation automatically but have a lot of
trouble and make a lot of mistakes. The secretary will become a
proofreader who will simply scan the computer-generated file looking
for obvious errors, and correct them without having to refer to the
digitized voice in most cases. Once in a while the computer data
will be messed up enough to be ambiguous, and the
secretary-proofreader will ask the computer to play back the
digitized-voice segment marked as a region of text in the edit
buffer (the computer will maintain links between the digitized voice
and the edit to facility automatically retrieving any desired
segment of text), listen to it, and then make the correction.
This could be here in 2 years if some big company (IBM, Xerox)
started working on it now; existing semi-AI software should suffice
for converting voice into a close-enough-to-guess-at transcript.
Some executives may even prefer to send the pidgin-transcription
without editing, if they're sending it to somebody who can do the
guesswork at his end and not even bother actually correcting the
transcript. Where it's ambiguous, the recipient could ask the
mail-monger to go fetch the digitized voice segment via WorldNet,
again with the links between edit buffer and digitized voice kept by
the message system.
------------------------------
Date: 6 June 1983 01:06 EDT
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC>
Subject: job outlook
It sounds like with the aging population and needs for health care,
computer (mycin) assisted health care would allow relative novices
at medicine to provide health care, starting with the computer doing
just about everything including calling for assistance any time the
computer is worried, and gradually getting more experience so the
semi-novice nurse can know when to call the expert-nurse, until
after a few years of experience the trained-on-the-job nurse is
ready to become a fullfledged expert-nurse. Perhaps some formal
nursing education could be given during idle moments on the job
(probably 50% of nursing work is idle wait-for-something-to-happen,
be available in case needed), so that after a few years the nurse
not only has lots of practical experience (not to mention a source
of income all this time) but also enough education to take a formal
certification examination. Full-fledged nurses could then use idle
moments to train to be surgeons or nutritionists or doctor-
paramedics or any other medical speciality. Even full-fledged
doctors could have the computer feed them during idle moments with
the latest techniques and dogma, since all routine tasks including
general examinations could be handled by the computer-assisted
nursing staff so the doctor wouldn't be so overworked as at present.
------------------------------
Date: 7 Jun 83 01:02:57 EDT
From: Ron <FISCHER@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Subject: Re: "requires political intervention..."
I hope I don't sound too libertarian here (affected by my
office-mate no doubt) but I cannot imagine any good coming from the
GOVERNMENT making laws about how factories can and cannot auomate.
Wow. Let's regulate automation to kill industry (when it can no
longer compete).
Marvelous.
(ron)
PS- What was that message doing on Human-nets?
------------------------------
Date: Sat 2 Jul 83 11:03:39-PDT
From: William "Chops" Westfield <BILLW@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Subject: Computers and kids
BC-COMPUTER-KIDS
(Art en route to picture clients)
By RICHARD SEVERO
c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service
NEW YORK - It was the usual computerese one hears around the new
cognoscenti - talk of chips and programs, pixels and peripherals,
hardware and software, commands and graphics.
The only difference, really, was that the nine conferees were all
between the ages of 6 and 16, with a decided clustering around the age
of 7.
And if the graduate students and teachers who gathered to hear
them Friday at the Teachers College at Columbia University in
Manhattan were impressed by what the nine children had learned about
computers, they seemed delighted also to learn that among the nine
there was a love of such non-computer things as parents, humor,
baseball and good music and, most important to the teachers, of words
written on paper and bound into books.
The occasion was the end of a three-day national conference
conducted by the Teachers College and entitled ''Microcomputers,
Electronic Toys and Genius Machines in Early Childhood Education.''
The conference promised to take a critical look at what the computer
age was doing for and to children, without dodging the possible
negative psychological effects of obsession with the machines.
But apprehensions were allayed when Erik Hueneke, who is 7 years
old, said that although he liked computer training, he preferred
''reading a book.''
Patricia Vardin, the conference director, asked Erik why he liked
books. ''It's because I like to read,'' Erik replied, ''and also I
find out more things, just like a story.''
The scholars gathered around - worried at the national decline in
reading skills and the emergence of young people who play videogames
and seem to relate far more to the pictography of video terminals than
the kind of imagination and intelligence nurtured by words - burst
into applause when Erik said that.
In the course of the discussion, it became clear that Erik was by
no means alone.
Robert Schlesinger, who is 14, said he played the violin and liked
baseball and reading, but emphasized there was ''nothing wrong with
learning about computers.''
''If people don't learn,'' he said, ''they won't be able to go
anywhere in the year 2001.''
The children, most of whom are studying computers under Karla
Pretl at the Fleming School on Manhattan's East Side, were asked what
they would have the computer do if they were allowed to have it do
anything they wanted.
Robert said he thought it would be nice to ''break into Government
computers'' to see just what they held, while Erik said he would ask
the computer to ''find a baby deer for me to take care of.'' Then
Robert added he would like it to ''change my grades.''
When asked by Miss Vardin, all the children said they thought they
were ''smarter'' than the computers they programmed, but when asked if
she thought she was smarter, Dierdre Cohen, 7, replied, ''I don't
know.''
Using computers is not all fun. Katherine Redfern, who at age 6
was the youngest participant, said staring at a screen ''makes you
very tired.'' Jonathan Niborg, who is 8, acknowledged that once in a
while computer work gave him ''a very small headache.''
Gary Caldwell, who at 16 was the oldest participant, said that he
was convinced computer use had strained his eyes, and that he would
probably have to wear glasses for the rest of his life.
But he said he loved computers anyway and would like to learn more
about them at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His advice to
those thinking about getting an education in computers was, ''Don't
get it out of fear of being left behind - get it out of a desire to
get ahead.''
But for most of the others, careers seemed a long way off and they
preferred to think of the computer as a source of amusement now.
Eric said he liked using computers because ''no other activity
includes machines.''
''You are the boss of it,'' he said, ''and it's the one that does
the work.''
Robert said he found using computers satisfying because it was
something he could do and his parents would not have the slightest
understanding of what he was up to.
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End of HUMAN-NETS Digest
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