Offtopic--the IBM Watson's as bosses?
lwin
were from IBM, so here's a history question. (We can talk about
Stretch in this to throw it back on topic).
In reading the histories of Watson Senior and Junior, including
Jr's autobiography, I got the impression that both, while brilliant
business leaders, were extremely difficult to work for. Both
seemed to have violent tempers and went out of their to "stir
things up" just for the sake of stirring things up; and both
liked to dig down and find a tiny little thing out of place and
make a huge fuss over it.
In the case of Stretch, the designers really pushed the state of
the art into unknown areas, esp with the multi-"pipelining", and
a hard accurate performance would naturally be very hard to predict.
Indeed, predicting performance on the 1950s machines would be a lot
easier since there were far fewer components and functions executed
in a very predictable fashion. But once machines began the capability
to do serious overlapping, the instruction set exploded into many
variations, and various speeds of memory and processing were available,
I would think it would be extremely hard to predict performance,
especially on the first machine of a new technology.
Was it fair for Watson Jr to be so angry about the reduced
performance level? After all, the machine was still the fastest
thing out there, and gave them a valuable test bed for new
technology. Did Watson have to reduce the price so much--would
the customers been satisfied with perhaps a minor adjustment?
(I thought the customers really liked their machines).
Eugene Miya
In article <8nsnqv$o...@netaxs.com> lwi...@bbs.cpcn.com (lwin) writes:
>Forgive me for going way off topic, but I noticed some contributors
>were from IBM, so here's a history question.
The group is unmoderated and traffic is low. It's not off topic.
>(We can talk about Stretch in this to throw it back on topic).
Gawd, old architecture. Why dredge that far back?
>In reading the histories of Watson Senior and Junior, including
>Jr's autobiography, I got the impression that both, while brilliant
>business leaders, were extremely difficult to work for. Both
>seemed to have violent tempers and went out of their to "stir
>things up" just for the sake of stirring things up; and both
>liked to dig down and find a tiny little thing out of place and
>make a huge fuss over it.
Father, Son & Co.? Hey I just saw that. (walked over to museum shelf).
So this is a business/psychology question and not a Watson technical
knowledge question. Were they brilliant? I'll have to read this book.
Tempers: many smart people don't have the most personable personality.
I think my favorite example might be Paul Erdos:
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
Of course this doesn't sit well with the unemployed PhD humanists.
And Erdos was probably right.
Personalities develop in response to intellectual challenges and a
relatively short life time. Shockley had a strong personality.
I think Cray had one (ask the Crayons). I know Pauling had one
as did Feynman.
Business isn't strictly a personality contest.
>In the case of Stretch, the designers really pushed the state of
>the art into unknown areas, esp with the multi-"pipelining", and
>a hard accurate performance would naturally be very hard to predict.
>Indeed, predicting performance on the 1950s machines would be a lot
>easier since there were far fewer components and functions executed
>in a very predictable fashion. But once machines began the capability
>to do serious overlapping, the instruction set exploded into many
>variations, and various speeds of memory and processing were available,
>I would think it would be extremely hard to predict performance,
>especially on the first machine of a new technology.
Machines in the past were built. Simulation and emulation only came
later when it was realized that computers could be used to design
computers. Were Watson EEs? No. Predicting performance is noteably bad.
The Intel 432 is the classic 80s example of bad prediction.
>Was it fair for Watson Jr to be so angry about the reduced
>performance level? After all, the machine was still the fastest
>thing out there,
You believe that?
>and gave them a valuable test bed for new technology.
Sweet talk.
>Did Watson have to reduce the price so much--would
>the customers been satisfied with perhaps a minor adjustment?
I think the term you are looking for is penalty.
Contracts can be written for less than intended performance.
>(I thought the customers really liked their machines).
Maybe for a short period of time.
You have to know the customers.
After reading Pugh's book (Memories), I have largely come to the
conclusion that Watson (as a business man) merely listened too closely
to his engineers for the famous small N quote for the market.
It's like blaming Clinton for Somalia when his cabinet had individual
lesser blame. Watson and Clinton are fine easy to hit targets,
but their staffs had their own flaws.
It's far more important to be resilent and bounce back.
Smart, good people will attract like minded smart good people, and they
will on occasion fail. And they will overlook human personality issues.
lwin
> Gawd, old architecture. Why dredge that far back?
It was a supercomputer. And one customer was Los Alamos, which is
being discussed right now about Compaq.
Interestly enough, the question of scalability has come up for
today's computer, which was the problem with Stretch. History
repeats itself...
> Father, Son & Co.? Hey I just saw that. (walked over to museum shelf).
>
> So this is a business/psychology question and not a Watson technical
> knowledge question. Were they brilliant? I'll have to read this book.
My question dealt with their management style, in particular, of
a computer development company. In the end, did that style spur people
on to greater excellence, or did it thwart it?
> Machines in the past were built. Simulation and emulation only came
> later when it was realized that computers could be used to design
> computers. Were Watson EEs? No. Predicting performance is noteably bad.
> The Intel 432 is the classic 80s example of bad prediction.
IIRC, Stretch was designed with some computer simulation. However,
it was both the first time computer simulation was used, and also
the first time pipelining and the like were simulated. The problem
was that in practice, not as many functions could run simultaneously
as expected, lowered the total throughput and machine performance.
The raw performance was as expected, but the advanced features
didn't produce as much extra oomph as hoped.
> >Was it fair for Watson Jr to be so angry about the reduced
> >performance level? After all, the machine was still the fastest
> >thing out there,
>
> You believe that?
What do you mean? What are the facts in this situation?
> >and gave them a valuable test bed for new technology.
>
> Sweet talk.
Again, what do you mean?
> >Did Watson have to reduce the price so much--would
> >the customers been satisfied with perhaps a minor adjustment?
>
> I think the term you are looking for is penalty.
> Contracts can be written for less than intended performance.
I don't know what the contract terms were for those specific
machines, and if a level of performance was guaranteed in them.
I suspect it was more a matter of prestige and standing behind
a product.
> >(I thought the customers really liked their machines).
>
> Maybe for a short period of time.
> You have to know the customers.
AFAIK, the machines remained in service for many years and the
customers were pleased. We have some Los Alamos people here,
maybe they could shed some light on the operating experience.
> After reading Pugh's book (Memories), I have largely come to the
> conclusion that Watson (as a business man) merely listened too closely
> to his engineers for the famous small N quote for the market.
What do you mean by 'small N quote'?
Yes, the Watsons (both father and son) were strictly business people,
not technical people (Watson Jr barely got through DP training)
Watson later said developing supercomputers was like developing
fancy sports cars, better left to specialty companies, while
his company stayed more mainstream (ie GM vs. Lamborgina).
Roger Glover
You wrote:
> Tempers: many smart people don't have the most personable personality.
> I think my favorite example might be Paul Erdos:
>
> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
The first place I ever saw this quote was in Robert Heinlein's _Time
Enough for Love_ (ca. 1977). Now you are not known for getting your
attributions wrong, but Bob definitely labeled it as a quote from his
protagonist Lazarus Long.
On the other hand, Bob's poetic license could easily allow Lazarus to
lose the source of his quotes after 2000+ years.
So I guess this is a chicken and egg question, was Bob quoting Paul
without attribution, or vice versa?
-- Roger
Keith Thompson
[...]
> Tempers: many smart people don't have the most personable personality.
> I think my favorite example might be Paul Erdos:
>
> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
Actually, I'm pretty sure that was Robert A. Heinlein, writing as
Lazarus Long.
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) k...@cts.com <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
San Diego Supercomputer Center <*> <http://www.sdsc.edu/~kst>
Welcome to the last year of the 20th century.
Eugene Miya
Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> writes:
>Hi Eugene,
Hey ROger!
>You wrote:
>> Tempers: many smart people don't have the most personable personality.
>> I think my favorite example might be Paul Erdos:
>>
>> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
>> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
>> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
>
>The first place I ever saw this quote was in Robert Heinlein's _Time
>Enough for Love_ (ca. 1977). Now you are not known for getting your
>attributions wrong, but Bob definitely labeled it as a quote from his
>protagonist Lazarus Long.
I did a strings(1) on the database to /usr/games/fortune and grabbed it
from there (cut and paste).
>On the other hand, Bob's poetic license could easily allow Lazarus to
>lose the source of his quotes after 2000+ years.
It can be like calculus with simultaneous "discovery" in more than one place.
>So I guess this is a chicken and egg question, was Bob quoting Paul
>without attribution, or vice versa?
Beats me. It might be interesting to resolve.
Good luck trolling for an answer.
John Ahlstrom
> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
>
To me that sounds like Lazarus Long. Tho' Heinlein might have gotten it from
Erdos.
Any references?
JKA
--
Any sufficiently well-rigged demo is indistinguishable
from advanced technology.
Roger Glover
sporadic
contributor to this group. But I have not been back in quite a while.
So
you may feel free to consider me a newbie for all intents and purposes.
Over in comp.sys.super, Eugene Miya <eug...@george.arc.nasa.gov> wrote:
> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
Of course, I and several others remembered this as one of the more
interesting entries in the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long" from TEFL.
We can't decide if Erdos was quoting Heinlein in some context where the
attribution was lost, or if RAH was quoting Erdos and could not find a
way
to give the attribution without popping the bubble of suspended
disbelief
(after all, after 2000+ years it is amazing enough that Long remembered
the
quote verbatim, much less that he remembered who said it, or that the
unwanted acolytes surrounding Long would even care that someone else had
originally said it).
I would like to assume that neither Erdos nor Heinlein would stoop to
plagiarism.
Does anyone know for sure one way or the other?
-- Roger Glover
Eugene Miya
John Ahlstrom <jahl...@cisco.com> wrote:
>Eugene wrote:
>> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
>> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
>> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
>
>Erdos.
>
>Any references?
Roger is checking other news groups.
I cut and pasted the quote from /usr/games/fortune which came from
Berkeley.
Eugene Miya
>> >(We can talk about Stretch in this to throw it back on topic).
>> Gawd, old architecture. Why dredge that far back?
>
>It was a supercomputer.
The "marketing" term "supercomputer" only happened AFTER the Stretch
in reference to the CDC 6600 and later machines, more definitely,
the Cray-1. It certainly Stretched the limits. In that era, all
computers were supercomputers.
>And one customer was Los Alamos, which is
>being discussed right now about Compaq.
True enough in this unmoderated group.
>Interestly enough, the question of scalability has come up for
>today's computer, which was the problem with Stretch. History
>repeats itself...
Oh to a degree. The scaling is at a different level less at the device
level and more at modules and units. But I am willing to consider what
you have to say.
>> Father, Son & Co.? Hey I just saw that. (walked over to museum shelf).
>>
>> So this is a business/psychology question and not a Watson technical
>> knowledge question. Were they brilliant? I'll have to read this book.
>
>My question dealt with their management style, in particular, of
>a computer development company. In the end, did that style spur people
>on to greater excellence, or did it thwart it?
Well, I suggest to you, that if you want people from the firm to answer
your question, you might pose that question to them (most of whom where
after Mr. Watsons times) via email. Why some of them may have responded
to you, but you aren't doing well here trolling a broadcast response
from them.
In comparison, a newer firm like Intel, which has had its share of ups
and downs, has always tried to keep a technical hand in business
(Noyce, Moore, Grove, etc.).
>IIRC, Stretch was designed with some computer simulation. However,
>it was both the first time computer simulation was used, and also
>the first time pipelining and the like were simulated. The problem
>was that in practice, not as many functions could run simultaneously
>as expected, lowered the total throughput and machine performance.
>The raw performance was as expected, but the advanced features
>didn't produce as much extra oomph as hoped.
And Fred Brooks pointed out later:
Always plan to throw one away.
>> >Was it fair for Watson Jr to be so angry about the reduced
>> >performance level? After all, the machine was still the fastest
>> >thing out there,
>>
>> You believe that?
>
>What do you mean? What are the facts in this situation?
You will find some facts to this situation by looking and studying at
various competitors. Fastest is fleeting.
You aren't the first person to walk down this path.
>> >and gave them a valuable test bed for new technology.
>> Sweet talk.
>Again, what do you mean?
It is a fine fertilizer.....
Are you familiar with this joke?
>> >Did Watson have to reduce the price so much--would
>> >the customers been satisfied with perhaps a minor adjustment?
>>
>> I think the term you are looking for is penalty.
>> Contracts can be written for less than intended performance.
>
>I don't know what the contract terms were for those specific
>machines, and if a level of performance was guaranteed in them.
I am aware of the terms of ASCI Blue Pacific, and the government is more
than happy to make certain than the taxpayers get a reasonable
about of performance from its contract.
>I suspect it was more a matter of prestige and standing behind
>a product.
Were that enough.
>> >(I thought the customers really liked their machines).
>>
>> Maybe for a short period of time.
>> You have to know the customers.
>
>AFAIK, the machines remained in service for many years and the
>customers were pleased. We have some Los Alamos people here,
>maybe they could shed some light on the operating experience.
I seriously doubt that any of them were around at the time of Stretch.
But you are welcome to ask openly or troll for them in email.
>> After reading Pugh's book (Memories), I have largely come to the
>> conclusion that Watson (as a business man) merely listened too closely
>> to his engineers for the famous small N quote for the market.
>
>What do you mean by 'small N quote'?
I'm a mathematician by training. I don't care whether Mr. Watson said
that the world only needed six machines or seven or five. Single digits
or double. Compared to the millions and low billions which exist today.
What ever the number.
>Yes, the Watsons (both father and son) were strictly business people,
>not technical people (Watson Jr barely got through DP training)
And that probably helped Intel and Microsoft later.
>Watson later said developing supercomputers was like developing
>fancy sports cars, better left to specialty companies, while
>his company stayed more mainstream (ie GM vs. Lamborgina).
Yes, that's what got Deloren in trouble, too.
It only cost his firm $600M.
Say where'd you find that quote? I can add it to the FAQ.
David C. DiNucci
>
> In article <39ABE5BB...@cisco.com>,
> John Ahlstrom <jahl...@cisco.com> wrote:
> >Eugene wrote:
> >> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
> >> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
> >
> >Erdos.
> >
> >Any references?
>
> Roger is checking other news groups.
>
> I cut and pasted the quote from /usr/games/fortune which came from
> Berkeley.
For what it's worth, my fortune database (on Linux, which is actually at
/usr/share/games/fortune) attributes it to 'Lazarus Long, "Time Enough
for Love"'. The only quote therein attributed to P. Erdos is "A
mathemetician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."
Eugene, it looks like it's time to get a new fortune database.
-Dave
Roger Glover
"David C. DiNucci" wrote:
>
> Eugene Miya wrote:
> >
> > In article <39ABE5BB...@cisco.com>,
> > John Ahlstrom <jahl...@cisco.com> wrote:
> > >Eugene wrote:
> > >> Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
> > >> is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
> > >> make messes in the house. -- Paul Erdos
> > >
> > >To me that sounds like Lazarus Long. Tho' Heinlein might have gotten it from
> > >Erdos.
> > >
> > >Any references?
> >
> > Roger is checking other news groups.
My responses in alt.fan.heinlein to date make it seem very unlikely that
Paul ever said that. The quote *is* referenced in an Erdos obit piece,
as having been seen (by the reporter?) on a sign in Robert Graham's
office. Graham was a friend and part-time caretaker of Erdos, so
*someone* associated with the BSD fortune cookie database might have
assumed it was a quote from the ever quirky, ever colorful Erdos. To
me, however, the quote seems thoroughly inconsistent with Erdos'
personality. He often made mordant references to non-mathematical life,
but never moronic references.
Graham, however, seems like exactly the sort of renaissance man that
Heinlein often enshrined in fiction. Perhaps Graham had read the novel
and agreed with the sentiment. Graham was alive and very healthy as of
4 years ago. Perhaps someone here could track him down and settle this
for sure.
> > I cut and pasted the quote from /usr/games/fortune which came from
> > Berkeley.
>
> For what it's worth, my fortune database (on Linux, which is actually at
> /usr/share/games/fortune) attributes it to 'Lazarus Long, "Time Enough
> for Love"'. The only quote therein attributed to P. Erdos is "A
> mathemetician is a device for turning coffee into theorems."
>
> Eugene, it looks like it's time to get a new fortune database.
That seems almost definitive. I'm convinced Bob wrote it. Graham could
nail it shut.
-- Roger Glover
M.C. van den Bovenkamp
> My responses in alt.fan.heinlein to date make it seem very unlikely that
> Paul ever said that.
I have found a URL (http://www.dejal.co.nz/quotes/heinlein2.html, search
for 'messes', say) where it is attributed to Lazarus Long on page 263 of
'Time Enough For Love'. I don't have my copy of TEFL here, so I can't
check it, but it fits my recollection. Whether Heinlein got it from
someone else, I don't know.
Regards,
--
Marco van den Bovenkamp.
CIO EMEA Network Design Engineer,
Lucent Technologies Nederland.
Room: HVS BG148
Tel.: (+31-35-687)2724
Mail: bove...@lucent.com
Roger Glover
"M.C. van den Bovenkamp" wrote:
>
> Roger Glover wrote:
>
> > My responses in alt.fan.heinlein to date make it seem very unlikely that
> > Paul ever said that.
>
> I have found a URL (http://www.dejal.co.nz/quotes/heinlein2.html, search
> for 'messes', say) where it is attributed to Lazarus Long on page 263 of
> 'Time Enough For Love'. I don't have my copy of TEFL here, so I can't
> check it, but it fits my recollection. Whether Heinlein got it from
> someone else, I don't know.
We know that Heinlein used the quote in TEFL. The only point at issue is
whether or not he "borrowed" it from Erdos.
Along that line I sent the following message to Dr. Ron Graham, who was perhaps
Erdos's closest friend and associate:
> Dr. Graham,
>
> I apologize in advance for this e-mail interruption. I hope that you
> have a few minutes to respond to a question, a point of trivia really,
> related to the late Dr. Paul Erdos. In the Usenet newsgroup
> comp.sys.super, the following quote appeared, attributed to Dr. Erdos:
>
> "Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not
> fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman
> who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not to
> make messes in the house."
>
> A number of us noted that we had first seen that quote in the 1977 novel
> _Time_Enough_for_Love_, by Robert Heinlein. That novel is well inside
> the long span of Dr. Erdos' career, so at first glance it seemed equally
> possible that Heinlein "borrowed" the quote without attribution, or that
> Dr. Erdos quoted Heinlein at some point and it was taken as original, or
> that they both quoted a third source without attribution.
>
> The question, then, is "who is the originator of this quote?"
> Unfortunately (for much more important reasons!), neither Mr. Heinlein
> nor Dr. Erdos is with us to set the record straight.
>
> Digging a bit, someone discovered that this quote was once posted on a
> sign in your office. It occurs to me then that you might be the best
> authority available on the true source of this quote. It has also occured
> to me that:
> - your well known association with Dr. Erdos
> - his well known eccentric turn of phrase
> - that sign in your office
> caused someone to misattribute the quote to Dr. Erdos?
>
> If you could take just a moment to clear this up I would be very
> grateful. Thanks again for your time.
Today I received the following response:
> You raise an interesting question. To the best of my knowledge, I never had
> this quote posted in my office, and I don't recall Erdos ever saying or writing
> anything close to this. He certainly appreciated people who could "prove and
> conjecture", and was quite annoyed with people who could but didn't (for whatever
> reason), but he was tolerant of people who didn't have this particular talent.
> Thus, I would place my bets on Heinlein. Did this actually appear in a story
> he wrote?
This pretty much seals it up for me. The quote originates with Robert
Heinlein. Anyone who is not convinced is free to carry this further on their
own.
-- Roger Glover
Eugene Miya
Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> wrote:
>*someone* associated with the BSD fortune cookie database might have
>assumed it was a quote from the ever quirky, ever colorful Erdos.
Well what do you expect from graduate student labor?! ;^)
I appreciate the real work Roger did answering this question, so
I've edited my quotes DB. But it's still great trolling bait (on two levels).
All kinds of potential with it.
But it won't answer lwinson's question.
Bruce Scott TOK
Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> wrote:
>This pretty much seals it up for me. The quote originates with Robert
>Heinlein. Anyone who is not convinced is free to carry this further on their
>own.
It predates Time Enough For Love... it was in a collection of quotes
from Lazarus Long in Analog Magazine in early 1975 (maybe late 1974).
The quote jumped out at me and the first thing I thought was Heinlein
lifted it. But then maybe not.
--
cu,
Bruce
drift wave turbulence: http://www.rzg.mpg.de/~bds/
Roger Glover
Bruce Scott TOK wrote:
>
> In article <39B684F4...@talarian.com>,
> Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> wrote:
>
> >This pretty much seals it up for me. The quote originates with Robert
> >Heinlein. Anyone who is not convinced is free to carry this further on their
> >own.
>
> It predates Time Enough For Love... it was in a collection of quotes
> from Lazarus Long in Analog Magazine in early 1975 (maybe late 1974).
"I did not know that. Ed, did you know that?" "Yes."
But seriously... thanks for the info.
> The quote jumped out at me and the first thing I thought was Heinlein
> lifted it. But then maybe not.
I don't know about that. To me it seems like dozens of other techno-survivalist
sentiments that Heinlein was wont to put in the mouths of his characters. In
Lazarus Long that penchant merely appeared in its most distilled form.
But again, if you are not convinced, you are welcome to carry the torch from
here.
-- Roger Glover
Roger Glover
Bruce Scott TOK wrote:
>
> In article <39B684F4...@talarian.com>,
> Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> wrote:
>
> >This pretty much seals it up for me. The quote originates with Robert
> >Heinlein. Anyone who is not convinced is free to carry this further on their
> >own.
>
> It predates Time Enough For Love... it was in a collection of quotes
> from Lazarus Long in Analog Magazine in early 1975 (maybe late 1974).
"I did not know that. Ed, did you know that?" "Yes."
But seriously... thanks for the info.
> The quote jumped out at me and the first thing I thought was Heinlein
> lifted it. But then maybe not.
I don't know about that. To me it seems like dozens of other techno-survivalist
Andy Isaacson
Bruce Scott TOK <b...@rzg.mpg.de> wrote:
>In article <39B684F4...@talarian.com>,
>Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> wrote:
>>This pretty much seals it up for me. The quote originates with Robert
>>Heinlein. Anyone who is not convinced is free to carry this further on their
>>own.
>
>It predates Time Enough For Love... it was in a collection of quotes
>from Lazarus Long in Analog Magazine in early 1975 (maybe late 1974).
>The quote jumped out at me and the first thing I thought was Heinlein
>lifted it. But then maybe not.
The quote in question appears on page 247 of my 1974 paperback
Berkeley Medallion edition of TEFL. The chapter is titled
"Intermission \n Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long".
Searching for that phrase on google finds as the third hit
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/20th/txts/heinlein/heinlein.lore.html
which says
Robert A. Heinlein. The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.
Astounding Science Fiction. June 1973. Portions of Time Enough
for Love (1974). Collected in New Destinies 6 (Winter, 1988).
[now why I'm posting this to comp.sys.super, I couldn't say.]
-andy
Roger Glover
Andy Isaacson wrote:
(deeper corrections to my ever fallible memory of dates)
> [now why I'm posting this to comp.sys.super, I couldn't say.]
On a thread that was labeled "Off Topic" to begin with, anything goes.
-- Roger Glover
Eugene Miya
It's an unmoderated news group. It was lwinson trolling for opinions
about the Watsons' personality. He attempted to justifying by noting
STRETCH. But it really doesn't matter. I'm more irked by the cross
post followuping w/o trimming. I've no interesting in reading about
pocket calculators in c.s.s. News group maintenance is more interesting.
Sorry Roger, I'll get to your email. We had a bunch of VIP visitors
(a few were old friends: had not seen Barlow in years) and we got
a major acquisition in the bike (on that web site).
Roger Glover
Eugene Miya wrote:
>
> In article <39B9238E...@talarian.com>
> Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> writes:
> >Andy Isaacson wrote:
> >(deeper corrections to my ever fallible memory of dates)
> >
> >> [now why I'm posting this to comp.sys.super, I couldn't say.]
> >
> >On a thread that was labeled "Off Topic" to begin with, anything goes.
>
> It's an unmoderated news group. It was lwinson trolling for opinions
> about the Watsons' personality. He attempted to justifying by noting
> STRETCH. But it really doesn't matter. I'm more irked by the cross
> post followuping w/o trimming.
I'll try to remember that, but I don't generally remember to check the
newsgroups header before posting. Canceling and reposting seems like throwing
good bandwidth after bad.
> I've no interesting in reading about
> pocket calculators in c.s.s. News group maintenance is more interesting.
Ahh, but you are interested in fire flies (or "lightning bugs" to the home
folk). I readily admit that I am not the best self-editor in the world, but
someone else brought up pocket calculators. I just responded. :^}
> Sorry Roger, I'll get to your email.
The e-mails are so far off topic that I did not post them at all. Thought you
might be interested though. No rush.
> We had a bunch of VIP visitors
> (a few were old friends: had not seen Barlow in years) and we got
> a major acquisition in the bike (on that web site).
Congrats. And now back to comp.sys.super, already in progress....
-- Roger Glover
Steve Gombosi
>>This pretty much seals it up for me. The quote originates with Robert
>>Heinlein. Anyone who is not convinced is free to carry this further on their
>>own.
>It predates Time Enough For Love... it was in a collection of quotes
>from Lazarus Long in Analog Magazine in early 1975 (maybe late 1974).
TEFL was published in 1973.
Steve
Eugene Miya
Roger Glover <rgl...@talarian.com> writes:
>I'll try to remember that, but I don't generally remember to check the
>newsgroups header before posting. Canceling and reposting seems like throwing
>good bandwidth after bad.
Actually, disk space is a bigger problem than bandwidth these days for
most sites. It reduces expire times, etc. Cancel is a very small signal.
>> I've no interesting in reading about
>> pocket calculators in c.s.s. News group maintenance is more interesting.
>
>Ahh, but you are interested in fire flies (or "lightning bugs" to the home
>folk). I readily admit that I am not the best self-editor in the world, but
>someone else brought up pocket calculators. I just responded. :^}
My recent use of c.u.c. was very useful for copy editing, and there's at
least one person who's name in the literature will be more correctly
spelled, despite the limitations of Omnipage.
Now fireflies are special. They can inspire people to think about
science. And we don't have them on the West Coast. People who don't
travel, don't know what they are missing (fond country evening about 20
years ago skateboarding (with a broken leg) near Port Deposit).
Bruce Scott TOK
Sorry about the error, another post said it was 1977 (about the time I
read it).
To those worried about bandwidth... get a grip, OK?