[mod.ai] almanacs and magnitudes

LEWIS%cs.umass.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA (07/17/86)

    I would appreciate any information people could give me on the availability
of online almanacs or similar large bodies of broadranging statistical data.
Public domain or cheap would be preferable, of course.  I also would be 
interested in hearing about any work that has been done either on AI programs
for heuristically estimating the information one finds in almanacs, or on 
psychological research on human order of magnitude estimates.  So far the
only place I've seen this subject discussed are the entertaining diatribes
on "number numbness" by Douglas Hofstadter in Metamagical Themas, and by
Jon Bentley in a recent issue of CACM.
     Please send replies to me; if there is sufficient interest I will summarize
for the digest.
     Thanks, David D. Lewis
             Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst
             "well, I used to think it was LEWIS@UMASS-CS
              and lately it's been LEWIS%cs.umass.edu@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
              but maybe it's longer now"