earle@jplopto.uucp (Greg Earle) (10/24/87)
My 2 (U.S.) cents' worth on East-West interchange: Recently, the Yugoslavian band Laibach performed as the accompaniment for the second act of two performances by the neo-modernist Michael Clark Ensemble dance troupe in L.A. Although theoretically not a `concert', in truth it was close enough so that one could say these were Laibach's first ever concerts in the U.S. In the aftermath, the dance critics fell over themselves to describe them as `neo-Nazi', `neo-Fascist', `militaristic', and similar epithets (after all, Ignorance Is Bliss). I myself would more aptly put it as precisionist post-modern drum-based music with inventive orchestrations and gruff vocalisations, but I stray a bit ... In any case, they have toured the European continent quite a bit over the last couple of years, but never Amerika. Apres'-gig I asked them if they ever had any problems getting permits to leave Yugoslavia to play gigs. In reply I got, `The amount of trouble we have leaving Yugoslavia is miniscule compared to the amount of trouble we have entering your country.' [They were refusedniked Visas last year thanks to our wonderful INS and its `No Cultural Value' ruleset mind]. Touche' ... On another note, I'd like to throw down the gauntlet on a new Topic: The late Eighties and Information Overload - Wither UNIX Gurus? [or, If We Don't Coredump Dennis, Brian, Guy, Doug, Chris et al. soon, We're Going To Be In Deep Shit] Abstract: The discussion should center around the information explosion we all face, and how at this stage there are so many Black Holes of wonderful things to explore (UNIX, kernels, PostScript, Window systems, TeX and LaTeX and document production systems in general, etc. etc.) that each can take up all of one's time. In the face of this, how can one enter the fray at this late stage and hope to become one of the all-knowing Guru Elite? It would appear impossible at this stage, and only those who (through early entrance to this netherworld) have already accumulated the knowledge will be able to keep up. When they evolve out of this, this knowledge will be lost. Looking for all arguments pro and con ... Greg Earle earle@jplopto.JPL.NASA.GOV S(*CENSORED*)t earle%jplopto@jpl-elroy.ARPA [aka:] Rockwell International earle%jplopto@elroy.JPL.NASA.GOV Seal Beach, CA ...!cit-vax!elroy!smeagol!jplopto!earle
fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube) (10/26/87)
In <4692@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> Greg Earle writes: >reply I got, `The amount of trouble we have leaving Yugoslavia is miniscule >compared to the amou>nt of trouble we have entering your country.' [They were >refusedniked Visas last year thanks to our wonderful INS and its `No >Cultural Value' ruleset mind]. Touche' ... As I understand it, INS has disingenuously declared that visa applicants that are, say, music performers, must have proof that they have some sort of "established audience" to gain entry, this constituting proof that they aren't just trying to get here and stay here to live. This audience must be evidenced by album sales in the US (how else could one do it ?), which (Catch 22) generally occur *after* a successful tour by a new-and-struggling group. The thought occurs, what music groups now known by American audiences (of whatever musical persuasion) would previously have been barred by this rule ? And, does this doom us to European versions of Barry Manilow and Wayne Newton ? :-<
dm@BFLY-VAX.BBN.COM (10/27/87)
>reply I got, `The amount of trouble we have leaving Yugoslavia is miniscule >compared to the amou>nt of trouble we have entering your country.' [They were >refusedniked Visas last year thanks to our wonderful INS and its `No >Cultural Value' ruleset mind]. Touche' ... Canadian musicians have been barred from the US, too. I have heard that the regulation involved was made at the instigation of the musicians' union, to keep foreign (read: non-union) musicians from coming here to steal jobs from the natives. Intended as it is to keep people from ``touring'' piano-bars, it's no different from the green-card business that prevents ``tourists'' from being employed at any other job. Unfortunately, it frequently gets misapplied to people who tour concert-halls and coffee houses. [Now, to make this remotely relevant to this list:] Laws and regulations are like programs. Unfortunately, lawyers and legislatures aren't familiar with the notion of fence-post errors. Congressional hearings are like structured walk-throughs (unfortunately, the code frequently gets patched after the hearings, so they're walk-throughs of the specifications, not the code). In what I realize is a distinctly non-traditonal view, I think that judges and juries are responsible for debugging laws. Why have a jury of one's peers unless it is to allow the jury to say: ``a law that requires this person to be punished this severely for this action is plainly wrong''? Someone else has mentioned a legislator who ``holds hearings'' on a BBS system. I think this is great. There was that CMU study a few years ago that found that electronic discussions involved more people who often are not heard in face-to-face meetings. That electronic meetings, stripped of signs of status, were more democratic. As a result, more aspects of a proposed action may be considered. Imagine this democracy applied to the law-making process (of course, as always, only those rich enough to have PCs are heard from...). Unfortunately, the CMU study also concluded that typically a worse decision was reached by electronic meetings than by face-to-face meetings. I don't know how they evaluated the quality of the decision. Another interesting application of computers to the law-making process is taking place in (I think) Minnesota. There a legislator brought in a spread-sheet program and his PC. During the budget debates, he could crank through the results of proposed amendments on his PC, and say, ``Increasing funding for county road repair 10% will force us to cut funding of county schools by so much.'' He started having people come by his office to borrow time on his PC, and was handing out copies of his spread-sheet to other legislators. HE said that he felt the budget being produced was much better as a result of all this -- that previously the budget-making process was too complex for many legislators to know what they were doing. With the spread sheet, they got a better feel for the effects of amendments and changes in the budget. Imagine that. Something as simple as a spread-sheet. Imagine the effects of a missing semi-colon. (Where's my aspirin?) On the down side of computers in the law-making process is the recored of the Office of Management and Budget under Stockman. He relates in ``The Triumph of Politics'' how he and his staff kept cooking the numbers and tweaking the model until the results endorsed the supply-side mysticism. Our grandchildren will still be paying the price for that bit of garbage-in, garbage-out. The danger is that legislators who previously didn't understand the budget process will now not understand the computer models used to make the budget, and the budget debate will (as it has been in the US in the 1980s) a clash of computer models. Time to re-read Weiszenbaum, paying particular attention to his subtitle: ``Computer power and human reason: FROM JUDGEMENT TO CALCULATION''.
rupp@cod.NOSC.MIL (William L. Rupp) (10/30/87)
> From: dm@BFLY-VAX.BBN.COM > Subject: Re: East meets West, la Choi makes Chinese food, swing - > American! > Date: 27 Oct 87 16:19:03 GMT > judges and juries are responsible for debugging laws. Why have a jury > of one's peers unless it is to allow the jury to say: ``a law that > requires this person to be punished this severely for this action is > plainly wrong''? The reason we have a jury of our (ideally) peers is so that the decision rendered by that jury be as fair as possible, reached after a careful consideration of the facts, and without regard to the social, physical, economic, religious, or ethnic state of the accused. The task of deciding whether a law is basically fair, I believe, is assigned to the appeals system, including the Supreme Court. Bill ====================================================================== I speak for myself, and not on behalf of any other person or organization .........................How's that, Gary? ======================================================================