### 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