Apollo BBS Archive - April 1990

Apollo BBS Archive - April 19, 1990



Message: 64761
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: John/english
Date: 04/14/90  Time: 02:52:31
 
That's my fault.  The last year I took english was in the eighth grade but I
was too busy trying to have fun.  I'm learning a bit at a time.  Todd Reese
has helped me with some of my problems but I think that when he found out he
                          <<* 3. WEAK: I think *>>^
was helping me, he quit...ha, ha.  "Oh well", as one famous Apolloite once
                       ^<<* 17. LONG SENTENCE: 24 WORDS *>>
           <<* 14. REVERSED PUNCTUATION *>>^
said.
 
[A]bort, [C]ontinue, [I]nsty-reply or [Z]ap:Insty-reply

Enter a line containing only an [*] to stop
 1:Ho, ho, ho and that was real cute, Todd.  Thanks.  See you around.
 2:end

Edit command:S

Saving message...

As for the message to which you replied...
[A]bort, [C]ontinue or [Z]ap:Zap

Mail from Todd Reese
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 17:19:35

[A]bort, [N]ew only, [R]ead or [S]kip:Read

                        <<** SUMMARY **>>
 
     OVERALL CRITIQUE FOR: c:roddy.txt
 
     READABILITY INDEX: 3.07
 Readers need a  3th grade level of education to understand.
 
       Total Number of Words in Document:  83
       Total Number of Words within Sentences:  64
       Total Number of Sentences:   6
       Total Number of Syllables: 102
 
     STRENGTH INDEX: 0.86
 The writing has a strong style.
 
     DESCRIPTIVE INDEX: 0.58
 The use of adjectives and adverbs is within the normal range.
 
     JARGON INDEX: 0.00
 
  SENTENCE STRUCTURE RECOMMENDATIONS:
               15. No Recommendations.
[A]bort, [C]ontinue, [I]nsty-reply or [Z]ap:Insty-reply

Enter a line containing only an [*] to stop
 1:Thanks again.  Peace.  -Rod

Public & Free Bulletin Board command:$C

Message: 64847
Author: Gordon Little
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Rod
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 03:26:25

It IS difficult to spend all the time you'd like with children -- especially
as their numbers grow!  Also, I can't say I'm a perfect father in terms of
having a limited capability for make-believe games, limited patience for
conversation at low levels of knowledge (not *intelligence*, but knowledge;
children are very bright!), and so on.  Still, I think attitude and
receptivity count for an awful lot.  If we have other things to do and other
needs to take care of, I think kids understand that.  If we really like our
kids and enjoy seeing them grow and learn, and also set an example of how to
do so, I think they understand that too.
    I agree about people being in the service of the State, or the System,
which is an extension of it.  Lots of thoughts on this and little time to
express them, except for this:  Whereas Communism and Capitalism are polar
opposites in many ways, we also need to look for their similarities as power
structures.
    T-shirts:  There must be dozens of pithy sayings that I'd love to see on
a T-shirt.  They seem to be rumbling about at a subterranean level of
consciousness and none of them will pop to the surface right now.  There is
one, though, that goes like this:

     DON'T EDIT REALITY FOR THE SAKE OF SIMPLICITY.

     I can't claim originality for it.  It was used by somebody on the
ARPANet Space forum.  Still, I don't mind pocketing a quarter per T-shirt on
behalf of whoever forgot to copyright it!

Message: 64848
Author: Gordon Little
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Miscellaneous
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 03:28:56

Cliff:  I know a guy with a Lewis gun.  A real one, legally owned.  (Perhaps
you know him too.)  Now, if I could persuade him to come to the shootout GT
and bring it with him, would you shoot THAT in front of a camera?
     Paul:  I hope (but I also assume) that with the skill of reading, you'd
also include writing.  There has to be output to match input.  Reading
teaches, and makes further learning possible.  Writing clarifies and
organizes thought, and uses what we learn to make an impact.  (Multiple
choice is a killer of articulate expression!)
     Of course politics is #1.  It's all about how to get yours.  If I had a
choice of subjects to teach kids, I'd teach psychology.  It's never really
taught in schools.  It would tell the kids why people behave in the crazy
ways they do, why the world is the way it is.  It might let the kids know
they were right all along.  Almost everybody would be threatened by it.
     Melissa:  Do read Robert M. Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance", if you haven't already.  An original and wonderful book.  (You
don't have to know anything about motorcycles.)  If you're forced to learn
something you don't want to learn, swallow it anyway and reassure yourself
that no learning is useless.  It all drops into place somewhere in the
universe of knowledge -- probably when you're about 53, but much better late
than never.  (P.S.  Loved your spelling of $h!+)
     Einstein:  Nahh!  His first wife invented the theory of relativity
anyway, which is why he agreed to give her his Nobel prize winnings!
[ Ducks :-) ]

Message: 64849
Author: $ Paul Savage
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: John Cummings
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 06:11:01

 I have two grandchildren in the Peoria school district, one in Peoria High
and one in grade school (I'm not sure which one). I also have a
daughter-in-law who works as a teacher's assistant with problem children in
the district. All who are there rave about the district, so I have to say it
must be something special. If, as you say, they really teach reading,
accolades to them!

Message: 64850
Author: $ Paul Savage
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Gordon/last
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 06:20:44

 Yes, I would teach writing as well as reading, but probably not
coincidental with it. It would have to rate just under reading in order of
importance, since it is a form of expression, and without the knowledge
gained from reading, a child has a poor foundation for creative expression.
 Psychology is not for primary grades. Younger children have enough to do
just to grow up into older children without having the burden of learning
the whys and wherefores of behaviour patterns. Perhaps an introductory
course in psych. in junior high might be acceptable though.
 Thanks for your comments.

Message: 64851
Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
Category: Vote
Subject: NEW [V]ote!
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 09:28:52

        B-Dog sent in a NEW [V]ote question....  How about looking it over
and making your choice.   I can't see who you [V]ote for, as like the [P]ost
Office, the [V]ote question is GREEKED making it so I can't see your
selection.  Apollo's [V]ote is private!   
        
        Only $tatus users can use the [V]ote cmd when there is a question.
If you don't have $tatus, and would like to join in, maybe it is time you
joined Apollo.  See the [$]cmd in the [M]ain menu for more info.

        The current [V]ote question appears in the [S]TOre room as well, and
when the question is over, the results will be included on that post and
will remain till after the REAL election to see if we were close.

                                cliff

Message: 64852
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Answer!
Subject: Jeff/B&A
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 09:35:20

I think it is a very provocative statemen and very interesting. I thought
you were using it to undermine your own idea (and mine) of what time is.
Time is very dependent upon the "illusion" of before and after. Without
that there is no way to define time.                           

Message: 64853
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: solitons
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 09:47:25

Fascinating. You must have found some books on this fascinating phenomena.
Do you have some references. I can see how this may also be related to
chaotic systems as well. Thanks for entering that long and informative
essay on solitons.

Message: 64854
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Politics
Subject: rod/taxes
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 09:49:46

Taxes are independent of capitalism. One might even venture to say that
government spending is anti-capitalistic. The problem isn't capitalism but  
excessive government intervention in a capitalistic system.     

Message: 64855
Author: $ James Hawley
Category: Answer!
Subject: Vote
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 10:24:50

My vote is going to be strange.

Message: 64856
Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: James on Vote?
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 12:13:47

        Could you PLEASE elaborate on your statement about your vote being
strange?

                cliff

Message: 64857
Author: $ Beauregard Dog
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: James' vote
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 17:46:00

Perhaps he voted for Ev ?

Message: 64858
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Question?
Subject: Gordon/teaching
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 19:36:41

Exactly which version of psychology are you going to teach?  You say that
teaching psychology in school would tell kids why people behave in the crazy
ways they do, why the world is the way it is.  According to whose theories?
You say that as though it were a matter of scientific record.  You might as
well argue that creation science be taught.  Will you teach that from the
Bible, or the Koran, or from some other text?

Message: 64859
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Roger/b&a
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 19:40:10

True, but I still find it interesting to consider whether cause and effect &
before and after must necessarily go hand in hand.  What if events simply
occur, and it is our minds that order them?  Just an idle musing.

Message: 64860
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Roger/sources
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 19:42:07

Sorry.  I thought I'd stuck that in there somewhere.  I paraphrased, quoted,
condensed, and sometimes edited for clarity the information on solitons
from a book called "Turbulent Mirror," subtitled "An illustrated guide to
chaos theory and the science of wholeness," written by John Briggs and
F. David Peat, published by Harper & Row in 1989.
Their primary sources for the material included:
 
Solitons and Condensed Matter Physics, A.R. Bishop & T. Schneider
Solitons and Nonlinear Wave Equations, R.K. Dodd, et al
"Studies of Nonlinear Problems," in Collected Papers of Enrico Fermi,Vol. 2
"Models of Jovian Vortices," Andrew P. Ingersoll,in Nature 331 (1988):654
Particle Physics and Introduction to Field Theory, T.D. Lee
Solitons In Action, Karl Lonngren & Alwyn Scott, eds.
Dynamical Problems in Soliton Systems, S. Takeno, ed.
"Nonlinear Deep Waves," H.C. Yuan & B.M. Lake in The Significance of
Nonlinearity in Natural Sciences, ed. B. Kursunoglu, et al
"Vacuum Instability and Higgs Scalar Mass," Paul H. Frampton, in Phys. Rev.
Lett. 37 (1976):1378
"Consequences of Vacuum Instability in Quantum Field Theory," P.H. Frampton
in Phys. Rev. Lett. D15 (1977):2922
 
A partial review of Turbulent Mirror follows.

Message: 64861
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Turbulent Mirror
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 19:43:59

Turbulent mirror is divided into three sections.  The first, called "Order
To Chaos," is composed of a prologue and chapters numbered 1 through 4.
The reason for my attention to such trivialities will be made evident.
This section deals with nonlinearity, phase space maps, attractors,
turbulence, iteration, period doubling bifurcations to chaos, intermittency,
sensitive dependence on initial conditions,  and so on.  In short, the
standard layman's treatment of chaos.
The second section is called "The Mirror," and is composed of a single,
long Chapter 0.  This chapter deals primarily with topology and fractals.
The third section, which I have not quite finished, is "on the other side
of the mirror," and is called "Chaos to Order."  This material is the most
unusual, since the other topics have been discussed before, and in many
cases more extensively, in James Gleick's "Chaos," as well as other books.
It deals primarily with "self-organizing" systems out of turbulent or
chaotic systems, and has a number of interesting ecological and biological
discussions, which I have not yet finished.  The last section contains four
chapters labeled 4 through 1, and a prologue at the end, followed by a
foreward.  (Yes, there is a foreward at the very beginning of the book, too.
 

Message: 64862
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Jeff/b&a
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 20:49:59

How can we decide this question ? 

Message: 64863
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: jeff/self-organizing
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 20:54:16

This has enormous implications for biological evolution. If systems
are naturally self-organizing, the problems of how the first DNA or
RNA molecules evolved are perhaps solved.

Message: 64864
Author: John Cummings
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Paul/reading
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 21:20:38

Paul--I have recently been converted from your stand of "teach reading,
writing only secondarily." What we want to teach is the English Language--or
even Communication. We want to teach kids that our alphabet is a code which
they can learn to break and use it themselves. Several high school English
teachers tell me that the way to do this is to teach reading from
kindergarden, start writing in second or third grade, and continue both
together until graduation. My own favorite is grammar--I believe it must
also be taught starting in second or third grade.

Message: 64865
Author: Michael Kielsky
Category: Get-Togethers (GTs)
Subject: When & Where
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 21:50:56

I'll try to be there.

Message: 64866
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Roger/self-organizin
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 22:07:52

There is just such a discussion in the book.  "According to Sherwood
Chang of NASA's Ames Research Center, the dissipative structures that led to
life on the planet probably began at the chaotic interface between solid,
liquid, and gaseous surfaces where there is a flux of high energy.  Some
scientists speculate that at this chaotic nexus, autocatalytic chemical
structures like the Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction constituted a form of
protolife and that on early Earth many variations of such reactions
flourished.  Responding to the far-from-equilibrium environment, the
descendants of these first autocatalytic, self-referential, self-similar
structures linked together to form a larger structure of feedback loops
called a hypercycle.  One hypercycle structure was RNA."
 
Belousov-Zhabotinski is a "purely chemical critter" in which a spontaneous
chemical reaction occurs between malonic acid, bromate, and cerium ions when
mixed together in a shallow dish of sulfuric acid, at the right
concentrations and temperature.  "The reaction first goes through a period
of chaos.  The form that emerges has complex levels of detail (you should
see the pictures) and can self-reproduce its structure much like something
alive."

Message: 64867
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: My Dinner with...
Subject: Weapons Systems...
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 22:09:25

"...With the nuclear build up on both sides of the ocean and the placing
of ever larger payloads of plutonium and tritium in ever more accurate
ballistic missiles, none of the scientists who were the "fathers of the
bomb" believed that peace, troubled as it was by local, conventional wars,
would last to the end of the century.  Atomic weapons had amended
Clausewitz's famous definition ("War is . . . a continuation of political
activity by other means"), because now the threat of attack could substitute
for the attack itself.  Thus came about the doctrine of symmetrical
deterrence known later as the "balance of terror."  Different American
administrations advocated it with different initials.  There was, for
example, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), based on the "second strike"
principle (the ability of the country attacked to retaliate in force).
The vocabulary of destruction was enriched in the next decades.  There was
"Total Strategic Exchange," meaning all-out nuclear war; MIRV (Multiple
Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicle), a missile firing a number of
warheads simultaneously, each aimed at a different target; PENAID
(Penetration Aids), dummy missles to fool the opponents radar; and MARY
(Maneuverable Re-Entry), a missile capable of evading antimissles and of
hitting the target within fifty feet of the programmed "ground zero."  But
to list even a hundredth of the succession of specialized terms is
impossible here."

"Although the danger of atomic warfare increased whenever "equality" was
lessened, and therefore the rational thing would seem to have been to
preserve that equality under multinational supervision, the antagonists
did not reach an agreement despite repeated negotiations.
There are many reasons, which the authors of Weapons Systems divide into
two groups.  In the first group they see the pressure of traditional
thinking in international politics.  Tradition has determined that one
should call for peace but prepare for war, upsetting the existing balance
until the upper hand is gained.  The second group of reasons are factors
independent of human thought both political and nonpolitical; these have to
do with the evolution of the major applied military technologies.
Each new possibility of technological improvement in weaponry became a
reality, on the principle "If we don't do it, they will."  Meanwhile, the
doctrine of nuclear warfare went through changes..  At one time it advocated
a limited exchange of nuclear strikes (though no one knew exactly what the
guarantee of the limitation would be); at another, its goal was the total
annihilation of the enemy (all of whose population became "hostages" of a
sort); at still another, it gave first priority to destroying the enemy's
military industrial potential."

"The ancient law of "sword and shield" still held sway in the evolution
of weaponry.  The shield took the form of hardening the silos that housed
the missiles, while the sword to pierce the shield involved making the
missiles increasingly accurate, and later, providing them with self-guidance
systems and self-maneuverability.  For atomic submarines the shield was the
ocean; improved methods for their underwater detection constituted the
sword.
Technological progress in defense sent electronic "eyes" into orbit,
creating a high frontier of global reconnaissance able to spot missiles at
the moment of launch.  This was the shield that the new type of sword, the
"killer satellite," was to break, with a laser to blind the defending eyes,
or with a lightninglike discharge of immense power to destroy the missiles
themselves during their flight above the atmosphere. But the hundreds of
billions of dollars invested in building these higher and higher levels of
conflict failed, ultimately, to produce any definite, and therefore
valuable, strategic advantage; and for two very different, almost unrelated
reasons.
In the first place, all these improvements and innovations, instead of
increasing strategic security, offensive or defensive, only reduced it.
Security was reduced because the global system of each superpower grew more
and more complex, composed of an increasing number of different subsystems
on land, sea, and air and in space.  Military success required infallible
communications to guarantee the optimum synchronization of operations."

"But all systems that are highly complex, whether they be industrial or
military, biological or technological, whether they process information or
raw material, are prone to breakdown, to a degree mathematically
proportional to the number of elements that make up the system.  Progress
in military technology carried with it a unique paradox: the more
sophisticated the weapon produced, the greater was the role of chance in
the weapon's successful use.
This fundamental problem must be explained carefully, because scientists
were for a long time unable to base any technological activity on the
randomness of complex systems.  To counteract malfunctions in such systems,
engineers introduced redundancy: power reserves, for example, or, as with
the first American space shuttles, the doubling, even quadrupling of
parallel onboard computers.  Total reliability is unattainable: if a system
has a million elements and each element will malfunction only one time out
of a million, a breakdown is certain.
The bodies of animals and plants consist of trillions of functioning parts,
yet life copes with the phenomenon of inevitable failure. In what way? The
experts call it the construction of reliable systems out of unreliable
components.  Natural evolution uses various tactics to counteract the
fallibility of organisms: the capacity for self-repair or regeneration;
surplus organs (this is why we have two kidneys instead of one, why a half
destroyed liver can still function as the body's central chemical processing
plant, and why the circulatory system has so many alternate veins and
arteries)..."
"...and the separation of control centers for the somatic and psychic
processes.  This last phenomenon gave brain researchers much trouble: they
could not understand why a seriously injured brain still functioned, but a
slightly damaged computer refused to obey its programs.
Merely doubling the control centers and parts used in twentieth century
engineering led to the absurd in actual construction.  If an automated
spaceship going to a distant planet were build according to the directive
of multiplying pilot computers, as in the shuttles, then it would have to
contain, in view of the duration of the flight, not four or five but
possibly fifty such computers.  They would operate not by "linear logic"
but by "voting": once the individual computers ceased functioning
identically and thus diverged in their results, one would have to accept,
as the right result, what was reached by the majority.  But this kind of
engineering parliamentarianism led to the production of giants burdened with
the woes typical of democracies: contradictory views, plans and actions.
To such pluralism, to such programmed elasticity, there had to be a limit.
We should have begun much earlier, said the twenty first century
specialists, to learn from biological evolution, whose several billion
year existence demonstrates optimal strategic engineering.  A living
organism is not guided by "totalitarian centralism" or "democratic
pluralism"
but by a strategy much more complex.  Simplifying, we might call it a
compromise between concentration and separation of the regulating centers."
(To be continued)

Message: 64872
Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
Category: News Today
Subject: Auto Insurance
Date: 04/19/90  Time: 22:33:35

        There may be a REPEAL of mandatory auto insurance for Arizona
drivers.  Seems even though it is LAW, there are about 40% who still do not
have it. It's poorly enforced, so some feel since it don't work, get rid of
it and just maybe the insurance companies will compete and work for your
account.

        Some of us have been CAPTIVE customers of the insurance business
and prices have risen something short of criminal.  I would love to tell my
agent to stick it where the sun don't shine, if the law is repealed.

        Now if we could only get rid of lawyers.....

                        i

Message: 64873
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Cliff/last
Date: 04/20/90  Time: 01:02:20

Amen!  Make that two amens.

Message: 64874
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Gordon
Date: 04/20/90  Time: 01:11:55

I think a four day work week would be peachy keen.  If the shirt business
shows promise I just may do that.  

It seems that each of my children attend school less often as they reach the
upper grades.  I do not force them to go as I feel they are intelligent
enough to decide if it is worth it.

From what I gather they find the long hours of captivity rather boring
especially when there is life to enjoy.

When a letter comes addressed to me from the school I give it (it will say
on the face: To the parents of (and the childs name) to that child to handle
without reading it myself.

I have explained to my children and caused them to understand what one must
do in a capitalistic state in order to survive.  Of course I am now talking
about the bigger of the children as the little ones still like school
because they get to play together, draw, etc.  

Thanks for the comment and the T-shirt idea.  -Rod