### Apollo BBS Archive - September 17 - 23, 1990

    *=* Public & Free Bulletin Board entered *=*

    Message: 69664
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: last
    Date: 09/16/90  Time: 16:38:13

            Not when you consider you have to listen to people like yourself
    hammer insults at you day and night.

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    Message: 69665
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: rod/the lord
    Date: 09/16/90  Time: 19:42:55

    Amen, brother.

    Message: 69666
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Roger/axiom II
    Date: 09/16/90  Time: 21:07:48

    "Axiom II: consider Mx (where x is M,I, or U).  You may replace Mx with
    Mxx."

    "(Mx)x is not the same as Mxx according to axiom II."

    Actually, axiom II says nothing about my use of parentheses to make a point
    clearer.  (Mx)x *is* the same as Mxx, because the parentheses do not alter
    the meaning or order of the symbols.  The parentheses are inserted merely to
    make the logic of my solution clearer.  Axiom II also says nothing about
    when or where Mx yields Mxx.  It merely says, where Mx, then Mxx (if you
    wish).  Therefore,

    MI     -->  MII
    MII    -->  MIII
    MIII   -->  MU

    You may not have intended Mx to yield Mxx when Mx is a substring, rather
    than the total string, but your axiom is not *rigorous* enough to restrict
    its use to your intentions.

    It's kind of like a global editor...you submit search and replacement
    strings, and it does its thing.  It doesn't matter whether the strings are
    whole words or substrings within words.  If you want to restrict the axiom
    to the whole string, you have to say so.

    Message: 69667
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Previous
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 01:48:52

      Yes, you *did* misunderstand, though possibly the *reason* is that the
    description was not clear.
      The axioms apply to theorems (whole strings).  A partial string
    (substring) is meaningless.  This is not to say that these particular
    strings can have any useful meaning -- they're only a formal system.
      And with the text editors that I usually use (p-System and Turbo IDE), a
    global search-and-replace normally does not find, for example, the word
    "then" when I tell it to look for "the".

              We all live in a   ____nhnn________   yellow subroutine

    Message: 69668
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Drug Talk
    Subject: Jeff/Bayer
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 02:24:32

      By the way, what would be your solution to the Bayer problem?  Would you,
    for example, require that they reduce their price?  That would cause them to
    get a bigger market share, and would do no one any good -- especially the
    other companies that already sell their product for less than Bayer.

              We all live in a   ____nhnn________   yellow subroutine

    Message: 69669
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/69667
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 03:13:50

    No, I did *not* misunderstand.  I took deliberate advantage of a flaw.  It
    should be obvious that I did not misunderstand; from the moment I posted my
    solution I stated that I was taking advantage of a loophole that was
    unintended.

    Of course your global search-and-replace doesn't find "then" when you tell
    it to look for "the."  But if you told it to replace all occurences of
    "the," it would replace the first three letters of "then" as well as the
    stand alone word "the," as well as any other substring "the" within a word.

    NOWHERE does it state that the axioms do not apply to substrings.
    In fact, it is *obvious* from the language of the axioms that they DO apply
    to substrings.  Look at axioms III and IV:

    "axiom III: if III occurs *in a string* ,you may replace III with U."

    "axiom IV: if UU occurs, you may delete UU *from the string*."

    If III and UU did not include substrings, the highlighted phrases would not
    have been used.
    It is also obvious logically that the axioms apply to substrings.  If axiom
    IV only applied to whole strings, it would read "if UU occurs, you may
    delete it."  But if UU were the entire string, nothing would be left to work
    with.  That's absurd.

    Message: 69671
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Steve/theorems
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 04:17:11

     Symbols are not theorems.  Theorems state relations.  In and of themselves,
    these symbols do not state relations.  It is true that one might refer to
    the statement "MU=MI" as a theorem, but MU and MI are not theorems, they are
    symbols of theorems.

    Message: 69672
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Bayer solution
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 04:17:27

    It is not at all clear that a reduction in Bayer's price would increase
    their market share.  Part of the mystique of brand name products, and part
    of the myth of popular capitalistic culture, is that you get what you pay
    for.  People not only assume that if Bayer's price is so much higher, it
    must be so much better, but those who have bought into the Bayer myth,
    whether through family tradition or commercial conditioning, are even less
    likely to admit that the product is overpriced.  After all, they have to
    justify their willingness to shell out twice the price of the competition.

    I have not indicated that a solution is required.  I have merely shown that
    laissez-faire propaganda is false.  Any solution I might enact would be part
    of a far more general reconstruction of sociological norms, values, and
    priorities.  I have nothing specific in mind, and I am not going to devote
    any substantial portion of my free time to the construction of a new system
    merely to satisfy your curiosity.

    Message: 69673
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Politics
    Subject: Sandi
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 06:01:22

     It's fairly obvious that Mecham's "80% disaster" remark was little more
    than an outpouring of the sour grapes of an individual who never did learn
    how to lose with any modicum of grace or good taste.
     At least, this race has the possibility of turning into a reasonably
    intelligent one, where if Mecham were an entity, any such chance would be
    immediately removed.
     I am looking forward to a race between two individuals who make claims to
    quite different political philosophies, both hopefully addressing the issues
    that confront the state. When we have so many problems to deal with, such as
    fiscal responsibility, toxic waste importation, transportation, pollution,
    etc., I see little real room for personal attacks between the candidates.
     Let the discussions and debates begin!

    Message: 69674
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: War!
    Subject: Global S&R
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 06:28:41

      No, neither text-editor, told to replace every occurance of "the" with
    "das" (for example), would change "then" to "dasn", because "then" is not
    equal to "the", and the fact that it contains it is irrelevant.

        We all live in a   /``''\._./``''\   belfry somewhere

    Message: 69675
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: On the Lighter Side
    Subject: Axiom
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 06:30:45

      Well, then, if you did *not* misunderstand, but were taking advantage of a
    "loophole", as you call it, then that must mean that you understood that
    axiom II related to whole theorems only, not to strings, in spite of the
    misstatement of the axiom.

      We all live in a   ____________o,,o   deep, dark pit

    Message: 69676
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Roger/"Puzzle"
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 06:34:02

      Would you like to restate your puzzle, getting all the axioms straight
    this time?  Then I'll try to come up with a non-existance proof of the
    theorem MU.

       We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....   yellow subroutine

    Message: 69677
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: steve/puzzle
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 07:57:09

    Let's try again:
    The MIU system has an alphabet of three symbols: M, I , U. The only strings
    of the MIU-system are string which are composes of those three letters.

    Axiom I: Given a string whose last letter is I, you can add on a U at the
    end.

    Example: MIUI -> MIUIU

    Axiom II: Given a string Mx, where x is any string in the MIU system,
    you can add x to the end producing Mxx. Once x is chosen, it is fixed until
    this axiom is used again.

    Example: MIU -> MIUIU
             MI -> MII
             MII -> MIIII

    Axiom III: If III occurs in a string you may replace III with U.

    Example: MIIII -> MUI or MIU

    Axiom IV: If UU occurs in a string you may delete UU.

    Example: UUU -> U

    Message: 69678
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Cliffy on give away
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 10:07:59

    You've got to remember that the welfare program is right now a big
    give-a-way AND the Republicans are in office - they always are in Arizona!
                                   -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 69679
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Politics
    Subject: last/Ann
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 13:00:33

            The Mayor and Governor are NOT REPUBLICANS.

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    Message: 69680
    Author: Don Seely
    Category: Bulletins
    Subject: BBS UPDATE
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 14:43:29

    TO SYSOP: WANT TO SEND YOU AN UPDATE OF THE BBS TO TODAY'S DATE; FILE
    CONTAINS ABOUT 54 LINES.  HOW DO YOU WANT IT SENT?*

    Message: 69682
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/S&R
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 16:53:49

    Perhaps you'll get my drift if you try using Apollo's line editor on the
    following sentence:

    Then the theorem fall and go boom.

    Try replacing the string "the" with "abc."  It will find the first occurence
    of the string "the," in "Then," and replace it with abc, to yield "abcn."

    This way we can get around questions about what your text editor does and
    does not do.

    Message: 69683
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/69675
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 17:02:54

    Let me try again:

    Strings of symbols, whether those symbols are entire strings or substrings,
    are NOT theorems.  Theorems state relations.  MU=MI is a theorem.  MU and MI
    are not theorems.

    The axioms gave rules for the manipulation of symbols.  These rules apply to
    all occurences of the symbols, whether as whole strings or substrings.  A
    theorem is a relation between strings of symbols, which is provable by using
    the axioms to, in the case of MU=MI, transform MI into MU.

    The axioms state relations between symbols.  These relations cannot be
    proven within the system; they are taken to be true without proof.  That is
    why they are axioms and not theorems.  The relations apply to the symbols
    whether the symbols constitute substrings or whole strings.

     In Roger's restatement of the axioms, axiom II has been tightened somewhat,
    but axioms III and IV still apply to substrings.  Actually, axiom II as
    stated could still be exploited, but the examples given implicitly extend
    the axiom to remove the weakness.

    Message: 69684
    Author: $ Sandi Marlin
    Category: Politics
    Subject: paul/govrace
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 17:42:21

    Yeah, I suspect that there would have been a dearth of honest, intelligent
    debate...

    Message: 69685
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Roger
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 19:11:23

      Okay, now we can get on with the business of replying to the puzzle, and
    to to typographical errors therein.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69686
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Tales & Tall Stories
    Subject: Theorems
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 19:21:33

      Theorems state relations?
      Who taught you that?  Or are you making it up yourself?
      Mathematical systems (like the MIU system) are defined by their
    definitions, axioms and postulates.  In the "puzzle" at hand, the definition
    is the description of a string (a sequence of the letters "M", "I", and
    "U").  The axioms are the axioms given.  There is one postulate:  MI.
      Now -- any string that can be derived from the definitions, axioms, and
    postulate is a theorem.
      What we have here is (I repeat) a formal system.  It consists of form, not
    of meaning.  It is *devoid* of meaning, like "X+Y=Z".  We're getting back to
    models, like Neuton's law of universal gravitation as a model of how gravity
    works.  The model does not fit reality *exactly*, but we can work with it
    anyway.  The MIU system is a model, and we can work with it, too.  The fact
    that it does not model reality exactly (as Neutons LoUG) doesn't keep us
    from working with it.
      Two of the most enjoyable classes I had in college dealt with systems
    similar to these (but most were more complex, and some were actually useful
    for things other than educational purposes).

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69687
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Search & Replace
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 19:24:42

      No, I'm not talking about search-and-replace in Apollo's line-editor, I'm
    talking about it in the two text editors that *I* use: UCSD p-System EDITOR,
    and Turbo IDS.
      You make a flat statement about search-and-replace, implying that no
    editor, in effect, could tell the difference between the word "the", and the
    string "the" in the word "then".  I said that there *are* such editors.
    Your saying that the Apollo editor can't do it does *not* prove that *no*
    editor can.

      We all live in a   ....,,,,________nnhn____   yellow subroutine

    Message: 69688
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Jeff/sound
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 20:22:29

    Okay, mea culpa!  I've had my physics, and to repair TV's I gotta know a
    little about suchlike phoenomena.  But, still I think that the sound is
    there even if nobody is there to hear the tree fall.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69689
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Politics
    Subject: Paul/Mecham
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 20:26:51

    I dunno, Paul.  Considering all, I'm surprised that Mecham got ONE out of
    FIVE Republican votes in the primary.  Just because the margin was far and
    above for Symington doesn't mean Mecham was thrashed.  It scares me that he
    got that many.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69690
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Politics
    Subject: Civil Rights day...
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 20:32:44

    Being 21, I wasn't around in the days of MLK.  I have to agree with Cliff as
    far as having a specific day for him.  I would be far and above more
    influenced to have a day for such as Hariett Tubbman, who not only escaped
    through Underground Railroad, but WENT BACK and helped others.  It strikes
    me as a greater contribution to freedom and civil rights than merely
    espousing your views to the public.  Then again, we get Christmas off, and
    Jesus was "just" a martyr too...
    -----Darren

    Message: 69691
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: puzzle "solution"
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 20:58:43

    In order to translate MI into MU, it is necessary to get rid of the I.
    No axioms allow the deletion of I symbols.  The only axiom which allows
    the conversion of I is axiom III, which only allows a substring of 3-I
    to be converted to 1-U substring.  (I say substring, because no axiom
    provides for the deletion or conversion of M, thus any concatenation of
    the other two symbols will exist as substrings of the Mx master string.)
    In order to derive MU from MI, then, *one must insure that the total number
    of I symbols in the master string is a multiple of three.*
    The only axiom which allows us to increase the number of I symbols is axiom
    II.  Axiom II allows us to double the total number of I symbols in the
    master string.  By a judicious use of axioms II and III, one can in turn
    double the number of I symbols in the master string, and reduce the number
    of I symbols by multiples of three.
    If no U symbols are introduced, the number of I symbols will be powers of
    two, none of which are multiples of three.
    It is then necessary to introduce U symbols, either through axiom I or axiom
    III.  If one restricts the generation of U symbols to the method of axiom I,
    then the total number of I symbols will remain powers of two.  If one
    generates U symbols by axiom III, one may leave an odd total number of I
    symbols in the master string, but this odd number will not be a multiple of
    three.  Because if the number of I symbols left after subtracting multiples
    of three was itself a multiple of three, then it must have been a multiple
    of three before any subtractions were made.
    Therefore, the puzzle has no solution.

    Message: 69692
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: War!
    Subject: Steve/theorems
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 21:17:03

    Tone it down, buddy boy.  You're getting close to ad hominem attacks when
    you accuse me of making things up.

    Meaning has nothing to do with relations.  X+Y=Z is devoid of meaning, but
    it is a relation between (X+Y) and Z.
    Allow me to document my use of the terms axiom, postulate, theorem, and
    symbol.

    "Symbols are the letters and marks out of which mathematical expressions
    formulas, and so on, are built."  -- Webster's New World Dictionary of
    Mathematics.

    "Axiom:  a statement used in the premises of arguments and assumed to be
    true without proof...more precisely, an axiom is a wff that is stipulated
    rather than proved."   -- The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics

    "Theorem:  a statement derived from premises rather than assumed.  In logic,
    a theorem is a wff A of a formal system S such that A=Bn for some proof B1,
    B2,...,Bn in S."    --ibid.

    A postulate can be used as a synonym for "axiom."  Sometimes, postulates
    distinguish definitional axioms from logical axioms.

    MI is neither a logical nor a definitional axiom, therefore it is not a
    postulate.  MI is not a wff, it is not a statement derived from premises
    (axioms); therefore it is not a theorem.  MI is no more a theorem than X, Y
    or Z.  The theorem we are called upon to prove here is that MU=MI, or if you
    prefer, "MU is derivable from MI."  That is the only theorem so far stated.
    Actually, even that is not a theorem, because I have proved it false.  But
    initially, we were asked to prove that it was in fact a theorem.

    MI is string of symbols.  It is no different from MU, or MIUUI, or any other
    possible concatenation of symbols in the MIU system.  The only thing which
    *involves* it in a theorem is Roger's challenge to demonstrate that MU=MI is
    or is not a theorem.

    The MUI system does not model reality at all.  You said yourself that no
    meaning has been assigned to its symbols.  Therefore, I find your remark
    that "The MUI system is a model...it is not an exact model of reality, but
    we can work with it" to be nonsensical.

    Message: 69694
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: jeff/proof
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 22:14:17

    Quite so. Assuming MU, the only way to generate MU is to have MIII.
    Then the problem reduces to proving that MIII is not possible, by the
    same technique. Likewise, one considers all paths to MIII and so forth.

    Message: 69695
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: jeff/loophole
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 22:15:02

    Mind telling me what the loophole is in axiom II now ?

    Message: 69696
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Jeff
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 22:36:27

      I didn't say that MUI was a model *of* anything -- only that it is a
    model.  In models, theorems do not have to represent anything.  If they
    happen to, then they are useful.  If not, then they aren't, but they still
    exist.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69697
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/use of "model"
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 22:52:03

    In your message #69686 you state:

    "The MIU system is a model, and we can work with it, too.  The fact that it
    does not model reality exactly (as Newton's LoUG) doesn't keep us from
    working with it."

    What does this imply, unless it implies that the MIU system models reality
    *inexactly*?

    In message #69696 you say "I didn't say the MUI system was a model *OF*
    anything -- only that it is a model."

    How can something be a model and not be a model *OF* anything?

    "MODEL:
    1. (of a set of wffs)  An *interpretation* I of a set of wffs such that each
    member of the set is true in I."
    2. (of a formal system) An *interpretation*.
    3. (mathematical) Any system of definitions, assumptions, and equations set
    up to discuss particular phenomena."   ---Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics

    A model is *always* some sort of interpretation; that's part of the
    definition of "model."    A model is the interpretation of a formal system
    so as to confer some meaning on its expressions and symbols.

    Message: 69698
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Roger/loophole
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 22:53:11

    The same one as before.  Only now, the examples you give close the loophole
    implicitly.

    Message: 69699
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: addendum/69691
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 22:58:16

    At the close of 69691, my language, though true, might conceivably cause
    confusion.  For the phrase "one may leave an odd total number of I symbols
    in the master string, but this odd number will not be a multiple of three,"
    I would like to substitute the more precise phrase "one may leave a total
    number of I symbols which is not a power of two, but this number will not be
    a multiple of three."

    Message: 69700
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Bulletins
    Subject: .INF file
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 23:09:23

            The O.INF file was updated by a Don Seely who actually called
    all the systems listed.  Thanks Don!

            You might better know the O.INF file as the ther Systems list in
    the ain menu.

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    Message: 69701
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: The SYSOP Speaks
    Subject: Mopar users
    Date: 09/17/90  Time: 23:15:05

            Make note that there is a place that can help you with all your
    Mopar (Dodge/Plymouth) needs.  Hi-Perf. parts, restoration parts (like for
    my Formula 'S' 1965 Cuda) and so on.   This place is called MOPAR Country
    and is now listed in the  cmd in the ain menu.  If anyone from
    Apollo visits Carl Harvey's Mopar Country, PLEASE tell them you saw it on
    Cliff's BBS!

    P.S.  New and Used parts....  Carl is also a trader...

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    Message: 69702
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Politics
    Subject: Steve/Barnum
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 01:18:34

       I think it was risky for P. T. Barnum to make customers mad, if he
    really made them pay to get back in after the Egress. What did they
    expect to see after following the "Man Eating Chicken" sign anyway?
    Maybe not a man, but certainly not a chicken eating a man. They had
    to know better than that, and if they didn't it was a good lesson for
    them. I don't think it should be considered fraud, especially since
    it was a circus.
       The context of a statement has to be considered also. If a
    stand-up comic tells you something resembling a news item during his
    act, it is your own mistake to take it seriously. Under a more
    stringent code of truth in advertising, etc. a little disclaimer
    might need to be made before many of the things we hear today.
       See You Later,
          Dean H.

    Message: 69703
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Politics
    Subject: $Jeff/Bayer
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 01:19:20

       Your misdiagnosis regarding Bayer is indicative of your overall approach
    to free enterprise. You have misemployed the terms 'monopoly' and
    'monopolistic' throughout this discussion. Monopoly means exclusive control
    of a product or market. You ill-define this and apply it to any price
    result in the market which you do not understand or agree with, despite the
    fact that there is no exclusive control involved, and that price is one
    which a diffuse array of market factors has set for that product in
    competition with many others.
       Taking a closer look at the trivial example you use to support your own
    skewed notion of 'monopoly', we find that even that out-of-whack definition
    is not supported by the facts. Bayer aspirin is not just an identical
    substitute for generic aspirin, and its higher cost than plain store brands
    contributes to it being able to taste better, advertise, offer safer
    packaging, support research and development, and offer a toll-free hotline
    to handle customer concerns and reports about product tampering, etc.
       The aspirin component itself is a common compound, but that is only the
    beginning. The dose per tablet varies between manufacturers, as do the
    other ingredients. Bayer offers 350mg. of aspirin in a tablet which is free
    of sodium and caffeine, and has a special coating designed to make it
    easier to swallow and prevent the bitter aftertaste and burning sensation
    of generic aspirin.

       By offering a more highly developed product and spending the money on
    packaging and promotion to make it well known, Bayer has provided us with
    the opportunity to judge them for ourselves and buy or not. Their
    investment and the profit they desire put their prices at a certain range
    in the market. You have not substantiated your intuitive claim that they
    make a great deal more per aspirin than anyone else does, but even if you
    could, that would be essentially useless as an argument against the free
    market.
       No force is better qualified to judge the value of a commodity than the
    market, least of all government. Everyone who spends $8.xx at ABCO or $6.xx
    at Target for 200 Bayer aspirin has the choice of buying a bottle of
    nasty-tasting generic pills for a lot less, or of paying about $2.00 more
    than Bayer's price for 200 Anacin to get the extra 50mg per tablet, a
    different type of coating, and a dose of caffeine. Or they could select
    from the many other choices the market has provided.
       The market encourages these choices to be made available through that
    principle you denigrate; capital enters the market wherever there is an
    opportunity to reap a return by offering a new choice. The Bayer product
    offers a tablet of pain reliever that many of us would rather have than the
    3 or 4 cents we must part with to get it. If it did not, its competitors
    would have driven it from the market.

       As an advocate of government control over the market, who has picked
    Bayer as an example of pricing which is improper, you are implying that
    government intervention would provide a better result, presumably by
    prohibiting profits above some government standard. Have you ever studied
    the effect of such controls everywhere they have been used? Would you
    invest your money in an industry where your return was dependent not on the
    value that industry could create in the market, but on the return that the
    controlling government bureaucracy for that industry might decide to grant
    you? Having gained such control, the tendency is for government to cause
    stagnation in the industry and then squeeze profit margins until the
    capital can only be held there by force, which government soon does also.
       Getting back to earlier arguments, it was this self-serving debasement
    of monopoly terms which allowed you to twist the debate away from real
    free market issues, and on to an endless quarrel over advertising and
    the like.
       See You Later,
         Dean H.

    Message: 69706
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Politics
    Subject: $Jeff/Regulation
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 01:20:59

       The origin of this debate was a question you posed, as to whether
    I would support government intervention against the oil companies. I
    said that I would not, and described some reasons why, namely that a
    free market would do a better job of moderating prices "over that
    long haul" than government would, and that government intervention is
    very costly, even though the costs tend to be hidden in various forms
    such as higher taxes and administrative costs which end up being
    passed along to the consumer as higher prices.
       In discussing government regulation as regards monopolies, I
    thought we were talking about firms which forced consumers to pay
    high prices through their exclusive control of a product. Since this
    is the only 'monopoly' which is injurious to an economy it is
    certainly the only one which deserves any consideration in a
    discussion on government regulation of industry. Instead I found that
    when I made statements such as "the free market does not tolerate
    monopolies", you were not interested in actual monopolies which were
    overcharging anyone, like the many trusts which formed near the turn
    of the century in industries that were not capital intensive enough
    to offer economies of scale over new competition, and were
    subsequently destroyed by investment capital coming into competition
    with them as they tried to corner their markets.

       No, you focused on firms which excelled against their competition
    by offering lower prices, better products, promoting themselves
    better, or a combination of these. These activities rate no
    consideration as a basis for government intervention in the economy
    whatsoever.
       You responded with charges that free market principles are nothing
    but "metaphysical dogma" and that government intervention is required
    to prevent "economic dictatorships". You even contrived to discredit
    the principles of economics as being quasi-religious and unreal by
    demanding an example of a major, contemporary free market which you
    could seek to prove did not function according to principle.
       I pointed out that this was not a reasonable direction, since
    voluntary trade between people is a given necessity of any society
    which would benefit from freedom and specialization of labor, and
    that market controls are the assertion which should be examined for
    validity. We could do this by comparing the differing degrees of
    market control around the world and easily see that market controls
    are a leading cause of economic stagnation and falling standards of
    living.

       It is also unreasonable to assume, in this world of rampant
    political power, that the fullest expression of free market
    principles is always on full uncorrupted display somewhere. And if it
    is not, that the principles are therefore false. There is nothing
    metaphysical in all the empirical evidence that market controls
    damage an economy in a myriad of ways, some of them intended to give
    advantage to some over others, and some not intended at all. It is
    not even metaphysical to say, based on this evidence, that an economy
    in which the free market was not hindered, but only protected from
    fraud and force, should prosper.
       Asking you to contrast the historical record of market freedoms
    from the Athenian Agora to latter day Hong Kong with that of less
    free markets does not correspond to asking you to believe in the
    baseless fairy tales of age old prophets. Calling for an end to
    government intervention in the economy, so that freedom can be given
    a fair test, is not on par with asking you to trust in the lord until
    you die and find out for sure if he exists. The evidence that market
    controls do more harm than good is here to be evaluated, and if the
    further experiment of removing those controls for a set time period
    resulted in "economic dictatorships", the power of government could
    always be re-exerted.

       It is the opposite case, where government power is found to have
    run away and stifled freedom, that rolling it back is nearly impossible.
    Your occasional protestations that you understand and fear the
    insidiousness of government power lack conviction as you continually
    defend its use against the voluntary exercise of peaceful trade.
       See You Later,
         Dean H.

    Message: 69710
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Politics
    Subject: $Jeff/Fraud
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 01:23:28

       No, you have it all wrong. Fraud is the use of a lie. If no lie
    was used then it isn't fraud. If an untrue statement was used, but it
    turns out that the statement was believed to be true at the time by
    the person who made it, then it was unintentional. In order for
    something to be a lie it has to be intentional. That is where intent
    comes in to a determination of fraud. First, was it a falsehood, then
    if so, was it done on purpose?
       This we can determine easily enough. If we find that the statement
    was false, then it is up to the defendant to show that it was not
    known to be false at the time. Simple, see? You have confused the
    much broader issue of overall intent behind a statement with the much
    narrower issue of whether a false statement was knowingly made.
       It is you who can not have it both ways, in that you can not
    prosecute based on intent to commit fraud when it is your opinion
    that there can be no standard of truth in language. You are left with
    intent to persuade, which is the purpose of all advertising, as your
    definition of a crime; regardless of what was said, or how true it
    was, or how accurately it really described what was offered.
       I called for allowing government to prosecute only for fraud and
    coercion and only on behalf of individuals who had been victims. You
    favor specific government regulations covering every aspect of
    business, which allow government to attack virtually anyone with
    charges of violating their myriad of costly regulations, even if
    there is no injured party to complain.

    Message: 69711
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: puzzle addendum 2
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 01:31:05

    Also, that there is no solution y to the Diophantine equation y=x*2, where y
    is a multiple of 3 but x is NOT.

    Message: 69712
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Dean
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 01:43:38

    There is far too much to respond to off the cuff.  I will remark that I have
    not called Bayer a monopoly, only pointed out that their prices are
    monopolistic.  That is not a contradiction, because the term "monopolistic"
    in this context simply means "like a monopoly" or "in the manner of a
    monopoly."  Here is an example of that usage given from the Oxford English
    Dictionary:

    "Associated press franchises are a monopolistic possession that gives some
    newspapers an advantage over others."

    It is obvious that if monopolistic necessarily refered to "exclusive
    control," there would be no other newspapers over which to have an
    advantage.

    Pat Buchanan may refer to welfare policies as socialistic without implying
    that those who support such policies are socialists.  Dan Rather may report
    on the capitalistic reforms taking place in China or Russia, without
    implying that the Soviets or the Chinese run capitalist governments.

    Message: 69713
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Politics
    Subject: Ann/welfare
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 05:17:20

     I have to side with Cliff on this one, not from his angle, since neither
    the mayor nor the governor wield enough power to establish a give-away
    welfare program by themselves, but from the point that much of the current
    welfare program (e.g. indigent health care) was forced on the state by
    federal decree. I recall a few years ago that the state govt. was
    considering a reduction in health benefits to transients, since we have so
    many of them in the fall and winter months. The feds stepped in and dictated
    an increase in those benefits. The last time I looked, the federal govt. is
    pretty much Democratically controlled.

    Message: 69714
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Politics
    Subject: Darren
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 05:24:27

     Mecham has always had a hard core of fanatic support, largely in the Mormon
    community as well as the radical right wing of the Rep. party. That kind of
    support bothers me also, but, fortunately it is no longer strong enough to
    get him elected to anything. You have to remember that his election to gov.
    was, in reality, a fluke. He was elected by a plurality in a 3-way race that
    never would have happened had Schultz not entered the scene. In this 5-way
    primary, he got less than 1/4 of the votes. That is far more significant of
    his real power base. Hopefully, it will now fade into nothingness, but
    that's probably wishful thinking, since he doesn't have enough sense to know
    when he's been beaten.

    Message: 69715
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Model
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 05:52:53

      *Why* does a model have to be "of" something?
      And when I said "not a perfect model", I did not mean "an imperfect
    model"; I meant "not a perfect model".
      Consider a Venn diagram with two concentric circles, the larger being
    models, and smaller being perfect models.  Call the circles "B", and "A",
    respectively.  We see that //all A is B//.  The MIU model is //not A//.  You
    are saying that it is //B//, but it can also be //not B//.
      And you're completely ignoring mathematical definitions of mathematical
    terms, which sometimes look a bit silly.  When you invent a new system, the
    terms are going to take on modified meanings (which keeps us from having to
    make up completely new terms for not-quite-identical entities.
      As an example, try to answer this:
      Is the sum of the angles of a triangle less than, equal to, or greater
    than 180 degrees?

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69716
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: jeff/loophole
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 08:35:40

    Gotta close that loophole. Axiom II may be applied only when Mx is a whole
    string. i.e., Mxy -> Mxxy is not permitted because Mx is a substring of the
    whole string Mxy.

    Message: 69717
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Dean
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 12:07:15

    "Bayer aspirin is not just an identical substitute for generic aspirin...
    Bayer offers 350 milligrams in a tablet which is free of sodium and caffeine
    and has a special coating designed to make it easier to swallow and prevent
    the bitter aftertaste and burning of generic aspirin."

    I went to ABCO and compared three brands of aspirin, none of which are
    generic or store brands:

    Western Family/  Size: 200 tablets.  Price: $4.39.  Coated: yes.  Dose per
    tablet: 350 milligrams.  Caffeine or sodium: no.  Printed safety seal: yes.

    Norwich/  Size: 250 tablets.  Price: $3.39.  Coated: yes.  Dose per tablet:
    350 milligrams.  Caffeine or sodium: no.  Printed safety seal: yes.

    Bayer/  Size: 200 tablets.  Price: $8.89.  Coated: yes.  Dose per tablet:
    350 milligrams.  Caffeine or sodium: no.  Printed safety seal: yes.

    As you can see, except for the price (and Norwich's extra 50 tablets), they
    are all identical.  I hate to be the one to break the news, but nobody puts
    caffeine and sodium into their aspirins any more.  Claiming to be free of
    them is like claiming to be free of paint thinner. About that price, though:
    Bayer's price is over 200% that of Western Family's, and over 250% more than
    Norwich's; almost 350% higher than Norwich's when you consider that Norwich
    gives you 1/4 more tablets in its closest size.

    "[Bayer's] higher cost contributes to its being able to taste better,
    advertise, offer safer packaging, support research and development, and
    offer a toll-free hotline..."

    Well, we've seen that one coated aspirin doesn't taste any better than
    another.  They all have printed safety seals.  Research and development?

    "Hey Fred, I've developed a process whereby we can spray or dip aspirin
    in a clear coating, by the thousands, for pennies per batch.  Our research
    shows that the rubes which make up our buyers will gladly pay through the
    nose for this, especially if we trademark our dip and call it our "special
    Toleraid micro-coating."

    A toll-free hotline?  They all carry the relevant warnings on the label.
    "Hello, Glenbrook Labs, I was wondering; do they stamp the letters in the
    aspirin or are they hand carved?"  "Hello, Glenbrook Labs, the bottle says
    I should take two aspirin.  Is that like, at the same time, or what?"
    What a waste of money.  You're bragging about this?

    As for advertising...you have it backwards.  The advertising and marketing
    is what allows Bayer to charge so much more for their aspirin, as well as
    their monopolistic grip on the aspirin market.  The advertising produces
    more profit both ways.

    "You have not substantiated your intuitive claim that they make a great deal
    more per aspirin than anyone else, but even if you could, that would be
    essentially useless as an argument against the free market."

    Yes, I clearly have substantiated it, short of breaking into Bayer's
    accounting department.  And let's assume that Bayer *was* the only one with
    a coating, etc..  My attack is not against the free market, but against
    your exaggerated and unrealistic claims for it.  The issue is not whether
    American bourgeoisie are so effete and spoiled that they would rather pay
    two or three times as much to avoid a few seconds of an unpleasant taste;
    the issue is not how many people are willing to pay 200 to 350 percent
    more for a product which is functionally equivalent: the issue is whether
    or not Bayer can "fool the market with an arbitrary price scheme," whether
    Bayer can produce aspirin "at a price which is not related to its costs of
    capital and production" without the help of Uncle Sam and his sinister band
    of mean 'ol federal party poopers, whether Bayer can lead the market without
    "remaining more efficient than any competitor and passing that efficiency
    along in the form of lower prices."  Can it, does it?  You bet!  The example
    may be "trivial," but it is certainly factual, and it is a simple, clear
    example of common practices in the real business world which defy your
    ludicrous claims on behalf of laissez-faire capitalism.

    "As an advocate of government control over the market, who has picked
    Bayer as an example of pricing which is improper, you are implying that
    government intervention would provide a better result, presumably by
    prohibiting profits above some government standard."

    I am not an advocate of government control over the market.  I do not find
    Bayer's price "improper;"  I find it in contradiction with your assertions.
    I have not suggested that the government establish government standards on
    aspirin prices.  I am someone who is annoyed by exaggerated claims.  I find
    your laissez-faire philosophy almost as naive and pernicious as socialist
    claims.  I have often argued against Rod for his (in the past when he has
    advocated them).  It disturbs me to see someone as intelligent and
    articulate as yourself spreading this garbage like some blind, toadying
    stooge.  Can't you see you're a patsy for Big Money interests?  Moderation,
    old chap, moderation.  Forgive me for my impatience with the free market;
    I've only got three score and fifteen -- I can't afford to wait centuries
    for someone to power cities from the fusion of oceanic hydrogen.
    I do not believe that Big Money, if left to its own devices, will somehow
    regulate itself.  You are a fool if you do.  Greed and power-lust are not
    reasonable checks and balances.   Nor is it inconsistent of me to maintain
    that government power is insidious and something to be feared -- in excess.
    I fear the insidious power of Big Money, too, but I don't insist in a
    centralized economy any more than I insist that government let Big Money
    do whatever it wants whenever it wants.

    You have become as dogmatic as any Christian fundamentalist.  Your views
    are as dichotomistic as those of any religious fanatic.  Instead of Satan,
    your secular paranoia substitutes The Government.  Every economic good is
    the result of the Free Market (i.e. God) and the evils we apparently suffer
    at its hands are in reality divine punishment for yielding to temptation,
    the result of our straying from the straight and true path of economic
    righteousness.  Get thee behind me, Uncle Sam!  Let's examine some more
    verses from the Holy Smith inspired gospel of St. Dean:

    "The fact that government power has corrupted the market everywhere is no
    proof that the market needed such corruption."  Ah, but the flesh is weak.

    "Complex arrangements do not change the underlying truths."  Amen!  The
    truth is eternal, immutable, and perfect.  Never mind that "The Wealth of
    Nations" was written in 1776, before the industrial revolution had begun.

    And I must insist on calling your doctrines metaphysical.  What else should
    I call a system of belief which you are prepared to maintain in the face of
    all evidence to the contrary?  Or should that be, a system of belief which
    perverts all contrary evidence into affirmative evidence?  You are so eager
    to support your dogma that, rather than investigating matters for yourself,
    you snap up Bayer's propaganda like a dog snapping up a scrap of butcher's
    discards.

    You maintain that the free market forces reasonable, competitive prices.
    I showed you it doesn't.  Do you admit your error?  No, you turn right
    around and claim how good it is, that the free-market, in its infinite
    wisdom, gives us the freedom of will to accept its unreasonable prices.
    You maintain that only the government can give life to outrageous concen-
    trations of wealth and power and outrageous dominations of the market.
    I give you examples where this is not so.  Do you begin to suspect your
    belief in the purity of the free-market?  Do you doubt for an instant?
    No, you turn right around and claim it's the government which, through
    its interference with the laws of God, has caused the very excesses which
    it has sought to control, has created the very conspiracies it has sought
    to break up.  First you insist that the government can maintain monopolies
    against the free market, and now after you see that it was government
    intervention which broke up those monopolies, you turn right around and
    claim that it was the ubiquitous and heavenly capital which rushed in to
    destroy those monoliths.  But wait; I thought you said government could
    prevent capital from rushing in?  Make up your mind.
    If you had your way, we would all still be smoking unfiltered camels.
    Our food would be adulterated beyond belief, and we wouldn't have the
    slightest idea, because it wouldn't be labeled.  Almost every major industry
    in the world would be owned by a group of at most three or four
    companies, and we'd pay whatever they charged for the essential goods they
    sold; the alternative would be to freeze, starve, die of exposure for lack
    of shelter, lose our jobs for lack of transportation...

    Our environment would be completely devastated.  Our water would be
    a hundred times as polluted as it is now, and we'd end up paying through
    the nose for the necessary filtration from the private water companies
    and sewage treatment facilities which started the whole mess.  Either that
    or we'd end up buying bottled water at similar prices.  Whole ecosystems
    would be destroyed by greedy, short sighted corporations, and the disastrous
    results would only be acknowledged after they could no longer be ignored.
    Not that we'd hear about it.  The private media corporations, no longer even
    feebly regulated, would become even more concentrated than they are now,
    and without government enforced broadcast standards, they would, being
    owned by the same environmentally destructive corporations, be all too happy
    to cover up.  We'd probably get to the point where the air was too polluted
    to breathe unfiltered, and the same corporations responsible for the
    pollution would most likely be the ones to build domes and filtration
    systems and sell us "their" processed air at whatever prices they cared to
    name.
    With all of this power and wealth, they would BE the government.  They
    almost are already.  Why do you think that the government is so ineffectual
    in combating them?  They already have most of the nation's "leaders" in
    their hip pocket.  You blame the government for the excesses of the free-
    market, and then you blame them again when they do a poor job trying to
    regulate these excesses.  Blame the financial combinations for the excesses,
    and blame them for sabotaging attempts at correction and for buying out
    those who's job it is to protect us from them.

    "Fraud is the use of a lie.  If no lie was used then it isn't fraud.  If
    an untrue statement was used, but it turns out that the statement was
    believed to be true at the time by the person who made it, then it was
    unintentional.  In order to be a lie it has to be intentional. That is
    where intent comes into a determination of fraud...If we find that the
    statement was false, then it is up to the defendant to show that it was
    not known to be false at the time.  Simple, see?"

    No.  First, how are you going to legally determine whether a statement is
    false or true when statements have no legally defined meaning?  If you say
    "that's false," and I say "No, it's true," how are you going to prove me
    wrong, when the words I use in my statement can be used any way I want to
    use them?  In order to determine which use of words is acceptable under the
    circumstances it is necessary to interpret them according to some standard
    authority.  In a court of law, that standard is found in legal books and
    documents, not Dean Hathaway's private dictionary.  If I say fish is
    fresh when it's 10 days old, and you say it's only fresh when it's just come
    out of the sea, who is to determine whether the statement "We only sell
    fresh fish" is true or false?  Second, by what method are you going to
    determine guilt if the burden of proof lies with the defendant?  In this
    country, a person is innocent until proven guilty.  Are you going to make
    people prove to the government that they didn't commit a crime?   "Honest,
    I didn't mean to lie."  "We think you did; but we don't have to say why
    because that would mean proving your guilt."

    How does one determine what is a lie, with reference to images?  Or can't
    images lie?

    This artificial and sterile distinction between intentional perversion of
    truth and intentional lie is a worthless one.  Your misguided obsession with
    some socio-economical analogue to Darwinian fitness has obscured the fact
    that it is the intentional perversion of truth, not the verbalization of an
    untrue statement, that is important in determining fraudulent practices.
    You have said yourself that, even should a statement be determined to be
    untrue, it does not constitute fraud unless it was told intentionally.
    But if the intent behind a single statement can be determined, the intent
    behind a body of statements can be more easily determined.  A pattern of
    false or *misleading* statements points more directly to fraudulent
    intent than any single false statement.  The intent to mislead, to pervert
    truth, can be best judged from a body of statements.  The point of laws
    regulating truth in advertising is to *protect* the public from deception,
    not to discriminate against the stupid, the gullible, or the senile.
    Laws are enacted to protect society, not to weed out those who you consider
    inferior and punish them for their flaws.

    Well, that's it.  Perhaps we can go back to discussing the issues and leave
    all ad hominem irrelevancies out of the discussion.  I am not keen on
    unilateral agreements, however.  (In any case, knowing each other, I don't
    think we'll take these things very seriously -- but I don't want to restart
    or encourage a bad general precedent among the users.)

    BTW, I checked with Target regarding aspirin.  They didn't have any other
    brands except their own and Bayer, so I couldn't compare.  Bayer was $6.45
    for 200 and Target store brand was $1.69 for 300.  However, Target's aspirin
    is uncoated, so no doubt it tastes bad for the second or two between the
    time you place it on your tongue and the time you wash it down.

    Why aren't my whites whiter?  Why aren't my brights brighter?  I bought the
    special soap in the small package with the handle, and now I'm frustrated!

    Message: 69727
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/silliness
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 12:20:17

    All I know is, I documented my use of the terms and your use of them doesn't
    agree with accepted usage.  Call that silly if you want; apparently, that's
    all you can do.

    This talk of Venn diagrams and perfect models is a smokescreen to confuse
    the issue.  Let me remind you with one of your own quotes, once again:

    In message # 69686, you state "The MIU system is a model, and we can work
    with it too.  The fact that *it* does not model reality exactly (as Neuton's
    LoUG) doesn't keep us from working with it."

    I corrected your misspelling of "Neuton" once; since you're going to be
    petty, I will respond in kind and not correct it a second time.
    In your quote, you state that "it," meaning the MIU system, doesn't model
    reality exactly.  That implies that it does model reality, only inexactly.
    Your semantic sophistry does not stand up to your own quote, as you are
    forced to admit (if only to yourself).
    A model is an interpretation.  You can call this "silly" but in so doing you
    do not dispute the definitions I provided from references.  Intepretation
    involves the assignment of meaning.  Again, if you wish to insist that
    meaningless systems are models, go ahead.
    Your pettiness, however, your inability to admit when you are wrong, even
    when you are obviously wrong, renders you contemptible.   Your behavior is
    neither intelligent nor rational.

    The MIU system is not a model, because its wffs have not been interpreted.
    There is no function assigning them values in a domain.  It is a formal
    language: it is a set of symbols together with a set of formation rules that
    designate certain sequences of symbols as wffs, and a set of rules of
    inference that, given a certain sequence of wffs, permit the construction of
    another wff.  The rule of inference govern only the manipulation of symbols,
    independent of any intepretation they might have (and by interpretation
    here, I refer, as I said, to a function assigning wffs values in a domain;
    in this case, the domain might simply refer to the set of truth values
    {TRUE, FALSE}, but *AS STATED*, no such function exists.  Do not confuse the
    rules of inference and formation, , the axioms which designate wffs and
    permit further wffs to be formed, with a function intepreting the wffs.

    As for your example, the sum of the angles in a triangle depends on the
    axiom used to define this in a particular geometry.

    Message: 69729
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Definitions
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 15:15:23

      First, if something is, as I said, not a perfect model, then it is either
    an imperfect model, or not a model at all.  If you insist on nothing less
    than a perfect model, then the difference is irrelevant.
      Anyway, mathematicians will continue to use terminology such as calling
    the strings in the MIU systems "theorems" even though you don't understand
    what's going on, just as the inventors of radar around WWII time had radar
    working, including the measurement of time in the nanosecond range, even
    though you doubt that they could do it.
      To them, your objections are irrelevant.  They know more about their field
    of expertise than you do.  Just as JPL scientists ignored the fellow who
    wrote to tell them that their rockets would not work in space, because there
    is no air there for the rocket to push against.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69730
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Jeff/MIU
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 15:22:22

      Okay, let's make it another puzzle.
      What is the MIU system a model of?  I'll give you a hint:  you have to
    stretch a bit to see the answer.  It's like the IQ test question that asks,
    "which of these figures is most unlike the others?"  There are four or five
    figures, and if you look carefully, you can see unique features among them,
    such as only one has a colored feature; only one has four features instead
    of three, etc.  You have to look very hard at the question to see that the
    one most unlike the others is the one with *no* unique feature.
      Roger, feel free to jump in here, too.  I think you'll have an easier
    time seeing the answer, so give Jeff a shot first.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69731
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Politics
    Subject: $Jeff
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 17:31:17

      I'll get back to you later. I'm not getting mad or anything, I just felt
    like going on the offensive and adopted a tone to match.
       See You Later,
          Dean H.

    Message: 69732
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Steve's definitions
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 18:41:12

    Yes, if something is not a perfect model, it is either an imperfect model of
    not a model at all.  You said "The MIU system is a model."  Then you said
    "The MIU system does not model reality exactly."  You have said, then, that
    it is an imperfect model of reality.  I say, it is not a model of reality at
    all.

    I never asserted that the inventors of radar could not measure nanosecond
    intervals.  I merely asked how this was possible.  No thanks to you, I now
    have a better idea of this.

    It may be that "experts" call isolated strings of symbols "theorems."  You
    have not demonstrated this, however.  You have not offered any generally
    accepted source defining theorems in such a manner as to allow this.  I have
    provided standard definitions from mathematical dictionaries which do not
    qualify this use as legitimate.

    No doubt if these experts were here, they would be able to demonstrate to me
    how such a usage is legitimate.  They would not merely dismiss my objections
    as "irrelevant" and continue with the discussion as though no objections had
    been raised.  The fact that you have not been able to do this, and have
    instead resorted to ad hominem attacks, shows me that whatever knowledge
    they might have, you do not share it.  If you did, you would be capable of
    demonstrating your position.  So far, you have only asserted it.

    Message: 69733
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Steve's puzzle
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 18:52:03

    A purely formal system examines the structure common to a variety of
    interpreted systems.  That does not make it a model.  I have given the
    definitions of "model," and have demonstrated on the basis of these
    definitions that the MIU system as here stated does not qualify.  It does
    not qualify because it is not intepreted.  An interpretation is "a set of
    entities (the domain) together with a function that assigns to suitable
    expressions of a formal language entities in the domain."  No such function
    has been defined.

    Message: 69734
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Models/Steve
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 19:16:56

    Steve, do you know of anything that was a fractally "perfect model"? If you
    have, I'd like to know about it.  The only things that are "perfect models"
    are the subject of the model itself.  Anything else you are just progessing
    to a zero limit.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69735
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Jeff/Model
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 19:19:28

    I was once taught that ANYTHING mathematically (or symbiotically) can be
    used to represent a model of SOMETHING, depending only on the range of
    comparison.  Just because something isn't stated explicitly does not mean it
    cannot be stated implicitly.  Or do I have it all brass backwards?
    -----Darren

    Message: 69736
    Author: $ Peter Petrisko
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: ART & POLITICS
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 20:15:18

         To answer a few specifics --
    Daryl: Andres Serrano is a devout Catholic, your reference to his work as an
    example of the NEA supporting "religious hatred" is wrong.  If you were at
    all familiar with Serrano or his work you'd know he has strong religious
    belief and his work isn't hate-filled at all.  Serrano has worked for years
    with bodily fluids - blood, semen, and yes even urine.  If you'd care
    to go beyond the media "sound bites" and do some real investigation, I'd
    suggest the April '90 issue of 'Art in America' which has a lengthy article
    on the artist.

    Jeff Beck -- You asked why Helms didn't point out 1000 homosexuals, instead
    of one, if he were truly out to discriminate.  Which is an easy, and more
    subtle target - one or one thousand?  Helms didn't name more than six
    "obscene" artists for the same reason he didn't name 1000 homosexuals
    allegedly doing "obscene" art.  In the media game, fewer is more.

    If NEA funding was cut off tomorrow, which art organizations would be hit
    the hardest?  Not the Museum of Modern Art, or the Chicago Symphony, or pbs
    shows such as Masterpiece Theatre.  Groups like the Harlem School for the
    Arts, which provides arts education to approx. 1300 students per year -
    mostly blacks (there's your black quotas, Jeff), hispanics and asians.  Phx's
    own MARS Gallery, which displays work by emerging hispanic
    artists.  The NEA doesn't subsidize big-ticket events, it gives seed money
    to smaller, often culturally diverse, organizations that don't get the big
    corporate underwriting.  In its 25 year existence, the NEA has been able to
    award 85,000 grants.  Less than 15 of these grants have been considered at
    all controversial.  Not too bad, if you ask me.  I suppose Jeff Beck could
    work out some stats with those figures to give us an exact percentage of
    controversy.
         And what of those artists who accept funding?  As far as I'm concerned,
    grants are little more than gov't blackmail.  Grants could, and now are,
    a form of control.  This is how I see it personally, and thats the reason
    neither I nor my gallery accept gov't funding.

         To clarify a point - for John Cummings.  Why does Karen Finley cover
    herself in chocolate?  To paraphrase the artist, the smearing of chocolate
    represents the way women have been treated in this male dominated society.
    I.E. TREATED LIKE DIRT.  Finley has performed in Phx. two times in the last
    five years.  Finley doesn't dance, nude or otherwise.  Her performances are
    direct and cut to the bone - calling her shocking and effective is an
    understatement.  If you're interested, she is in the film "Mondo New York"
    which can be rented at Tower.
         By the way, I read in the paper last week that the NEA was reauthorized
    for a full five years.  And what of artists?  There seems to be two
    directions artists are taking.  Finley is threatening to sue, claiming she
    is being blacklisted because of the political content of her work.  Frank
    Moore is calling for art to return to a grassroots level and to hell with
    bigots like Jesse Helms.  We'll see what happens.

    Message: 69738
    Author: $ Peter Petrisko
    Category: Vote
    Subject: ART
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 20:35:44

    Which is more important?

    A) That adults like yourself have the right to determine what they may see
    or hear.

    B) That society has laws to prohibit material that may be offensive to some
    segments of the community.

    (from NEWSWEEK.  Lets see how Apollo compares.....)

    Message: 69739
    Author: $ Sandi Marlin
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: hello darren
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 20:47:39

    You mean I'm not the only 21-year-old around here?

    Message: 69740
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Vote
    Subject: freedom or tyranny
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 20:58:40

    I vote for FREEDOM !

    Message: 69741
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: MIU/isomorphism
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 21:16:28

    this puzzle really bugs me.
    i'm trying to think of a system that exhibits the behavior of our
    four axioms. For example, what kind of behavior can be modelled by
    axiom 4 ? UU -> NULL. If U was an operation such as "turn 180 degrees"
    The net effect of UU (assuming that UU implies a sequence of operationS)
    turn 180 degrees, turn 180 degrees, would leave one with the effect
    of No Operation.  But if III -> U, what could III be ? Perhaps I is "turn
    180 degrees also" That would generate U. But no, this seems trivial. U
    must stand for something else that when U is applied twice, ends with
    No Effect. Also notice the effect of UU in the following case. Given
    substrings x and y, we have MxUUy -> Mxy. So UU has the effect of joining.
    And strings ending with III would create a way to enable joining. And
    strings starting with III would create a way to enable joining. Axiom
    II is pretty straighforward: It's a way of producing a copy. I'm
    "thinking" on the fly here. Lessee. Axiom I puts a U at the end of
    string that ends with I. Hmmm, that seems to make my guess about axiom 3
    unnecessary. What IS the purpose of axiom 3 ?      Oh, I see. Maybe the
    application of Axiom 3 to this string makes sense. MIIII -> MUI -> (axiom 1)
    MUIU. Applying axiom 2 we get MUIUUIU -> MUIIU Well, we have joined two
    I's using this method. So we create copies of I by following the steps
    I just outlined. Does this make any sense. Lessee, let's substitute a
    substring for I let's start with MIU (a legal string). OK, let's apply
    axiom 2 and get MIUIU (the only operation possible), hmm, nothing there.

    In fact, the only operation we can perform is doubling. This creates
    an endless set of MIUIUIUIU.... Let's try MI -> MII (axiom 2). let's double
    MII-> MIIII (we've done that already) ok, lets add a U to the end. MIIII ->
    MIIIIU (axiom 1) that generates MUIU (order of axioms not important) Forget
    MIIIIU lets try MIIIIIIII. Yikes. OK, now we have MUIIU. Ah, progress.
    Let's try axiom 2. Now, we get MUIIUUIIU, and we get MUIIIIU. (hmmm, didn't
    need axiom 1 this time.) Well whatever it is, it is strange. Oh, wait.
    Apply Axiom 2 to MUIIU and we get MUIIIIU and so it is a way of doubling
    our little population of I's. Sorry, all that stuff in between is
    unnecessary. OK, guys, what kind of system exhibits this kind of behavior ?

    Message: 69743
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Sandi
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 01:23:24

    No, and neither am I! (yay!)
    -----Darren

    Message: 69744
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Joke
    Subject: Axioms...
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 01:28:24

    Although a joke, it is quasi-serious in the search for a viable model:
    With axioms that roatate 180 deg. and do nothing, and one that simply
    creates a replication, has anybody thought of applying the symbology (not
    symbiology as I misstated earlier, and sorry to Jeff in advance,) to
    politics?  As Carol Graham would put in here:

    -----Darren

    Message: 69745
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Jeff & Roger
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 04:01:24

      Okay, Jeff kind of ignored the question altogether, and Roger tried, but
    didn't take the hint.
      Remember, the MIU system does not model reality, or any part of it.  You
    have to look deeper.  It models a model.
      Consider Euclidian geometry.  Don't look at it as a model of reality; look
    at it as a mental endeavor.  Euclid starts off with a small number of
    definitions, axioms, and postulates, and using (ideally) nothing else,
    produces a whole raft of theorems.  The MIU system is a very small model of
    the same thing:  definitions, axioms, and a postulate, from which theorems
    are produced.  It's the *system* that is a model, not the *strings* within
    the system.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69746
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Jeff
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 04:06:11

      Okay, let me get this straight:
      (1)  MIU is a model.
      (2)  MIU does not model reality perfectly.
      From these two premises, you would deduce that MIU models reality
    imperfectly.  You've a hitch in your syllogism there.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69747
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Jeff/Theorem
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 04:08:36

      You say, "an MIU string is not a theorem".
      The mathematician who came up with MIU calls the strings in it "theorems".
      Here's my question.  Try not to lose it.  Which of you two should I
    believe on this topic?

       We all live in a   ________________o,,o   deep, dark pit

    Message: 69748
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Karen Finley
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 05:28:55

    Perhaps Finley would be taken more seriously if she expressed herself more
    esoterically.  Chocolate and sprouts make for a pretty shallow statement.

    Message: 69749
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Charles Keating
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 05:30:42

    Keating has been indicted on 44 counts of fraud, with bail set at 5 million.
    To me, this seems a bit excessive --- Christian Brando is charged with first
    degree murder and bail was set at only 1 million.

    Message: 69750
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Chinese dogs
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 05:33:40

    The National Anti-vivisection Society reports that the Chinese government is
    ordering its citizens to "beat and kill" all canine pets prior to the start
    of the Asian games.  The government believes that dogs are symbols of
    Western decadence.

    Message: 69751
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Bayer aspirin
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 05:36:47

    Might not Bayer impose stricter quality control in the manufacture of its
    product?  Given the recent findings concerning the purity of generic
    perscription drugs, it seems reasonable to suspect over the counter
    medications as well.

    Message: 69752
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Peter/art
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 06:07:37

     Perhaps I am lacking something in my artistic makeup, but I do believe that
    artists of any ilk ply their craft for one reason, and that is not
    necessarily to express themselves. It is to make money. It is a basically
    financial venture.
     With that motive in it's proper place, then the same law of supply and
    demand that applies to every other financial endeavor should also apply to
    the art in question. If it is good, it will find support in the private
    sector. If it isn't, then it should and will fail on it's own lack of merit.
     If money is not the real object of the art, then it should make no
    difference if it is supported by government or not. In either case, public
    money should never go to finance private enterprise.
     To cry racism or prejudice because some of the funding goes to minority
    efforts is again begging the issue, and making a racial issue out of
    something in which race has no place whatsoever. The one and only criteria
    of success or failure should be the quality and/or acceptance of the
    product.

    Message: 69753
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Paul
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 08:18:45

    Gee, artists make money?  When did this happen?  Why aren't I or Peter rich
    by now?

    In answer to Peter's poll, the questions seem to be leading.  I mean,
    most everyone is going to say A, right?
    I have to run off to school, to my THEATRE class, but this is an issue I am
    very enflamed about at the moment.

    Message: 69754
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: steve/miu
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 08:25:47

    Too subtle for me. A model should be isomorphic with some other system.
    That is the axioms should map onto another system such as Euclidean
    geometry. It is clear that Axiom 1,2,3, and 4 are not isomorphic with
    Euclidean geometry. However, if you want to consider the model as a member
    of a class of similar models, that's ok, but it's not what I understood you
    to say.

    Message: 69755
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: keatings bail
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 08:27:13

    Doesn't Keating have a right to request a reduction of bail. I think that
    such bail is excessive and punitive in nature.

    Message: 69756
    Author: Koala Dundee
    Category: War!
    Subject: Ianuzzi and dogs
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 09:32:24

    Quite a few years ago, China had the same idea about cats.  They called them
    anti-communistic, because we capitalists had cats as pets, so of COURSE a
    Communist couldn't have such a pet.

    People were afraid to have cats because of what the neighbors might say, and
    that the government would find out, so they got rid of them.

    But it turns out that without the cats around any longer, the rat population
    started to get out of hand, so they tried to encourage people to have cats
    again.  The problem was that there was no way to come up with cats when
    there weren't any to start with.  They had to import them from somewhere
    else.  I'm not sure what the status is now.

    The situation with the dogs will probably work out somewhat the same.
    They'll get rid of them all, and THEN find a use for them.

    G'day, mates!

    Message: 69757
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Apro Poet?
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 21:03:07

    Is it the the REAL thing?!

    Message: 69758
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Vote
    Subject: Melissa
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 21:22:31

    I vote neither.  I think that:
    I.  If the government wants to restrict the types of art it gives money to,
    that is its privilidge.
    II.  If the artist does not want to work within those restrictions, that is
    his privilidge.
    III.  If either side grumbles about the other on this they are trying to get
    something for nothing, while we live in a TANSTAAFL system.  Or they're
    trying to eat their cake and have it too.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69759
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Keating...
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 21:29:00

    Doesn't all bail work on the presumption of guilt?  I mean, bail is set to
    insure the defendant will appear.  It must be a significant sum to the
    accused.  To Christian Brando (and Marlon,) 1MBuck is very high.  My
    understanding is that Keating can raise 5MBuck easily.  Also, it is a
    Catch-22 situation.  The bail was set that high probably to avoid his
    running for the Bahamas.  If he can raise it, then the idea was justified.
    If he cannot, then why was he so reluctant to show he was broke to the
    courts?  Mind you, this is opinion and not fact.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69760
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Keating/bail
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 22:17:37

    I disagree that his bail is punitive.  If he really did steal anywhere near
    as much money as it seems, $500,000 (an order of magnitude less) would be a
    paltry sum and he could easily put it up and skip the country.

    Message: 69761
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Keating
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 22:18:34

    Oh, by the way, I'm glad to see that slime in jail.  I've had a strong
    dislike for the man since I first learned about him (Citizens for Decency
    through Law days)

    Message: 69762
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Peter/discrimination
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 00:50:01

    I don't find that cogent, nor have you answered my other points.

    Message: 69763
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/69745
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 00:53:47

    Axioms, definitions, and theorems are not a model.  A deductive theory is
    not a model.  See the following posts.

    Message: 69764
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Steve/69746
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 00:58:19

    No, my conclusion is inductive, not deductive.  I infer from your
    statement that "MIU does not model reality perfectly" an implicit statement
    "MIU models reality imperfectly."   The basis for my inference is the fact
    that if you felt that MIU does not model reality at all, it is scarcely
    necessary to point out that it does not model it perfectly.  It is a matter
    of common sense, not formal deduction.  You made an error, and now you're
    too petty to admit it.  Well, fine.  That reflects poorly on you, and you
    are the only one who really suffers for it.

    Message: 69765
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Steve/69747
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:03:03

    I am still waiting for you to provide a generally accepted definition of
    "theorem" from some formal work or reference which allows primitive terms to
    be defined as "theorems."  It is quite possible, given that you do not
    understand what a theorem is, that you have misinterpreted statements by the
    individual who invented the system.  It is also possible that his use of the
    term "theorem" to refer to primitive terms is an informal one or even an
    unconventional one of his own devising.  Remember our discussion on limits?

    Message: 69766
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Nick/QC
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:04:50

    Interesting suggestion.  It may, or it may not.  In any case, it would be
    difficult to justify such a large price difference on that basis.

    Message: 69767
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: models & theorems 1
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:11:03

    From Webster's New World Dictionary of Mathematics:

    "DEDUCTIVE THEORY: (Syn: Axiomatic theory)   A formal organization of a
    mathematical or logical theory having the following character.  It begins
    with a set of unproved axioms, or primitive statements, concerning a set of
    undefined, or primitive terms, and derives mathematical statements or
    theorems, from the axioms by proof.  What is logically assumed about the
    primitive terms is only what is expressed in the axioms.  New terms are
    introduced by definition, which gives them meaning relative to the primitive
    terms (or previously defined terms)....
    In a *model*, or *interpretation*, of a deductive theory, the primitive
    terms are taken as entities having definition or existence outside the
    theory, and as having the properties expressed by the axioms (translated as
    statements in the model); the model is said to satisfy the axioms.  An
    advantage of a deductive theory is that it can deal simultaneously with its
    various models; proving a theorem in the theory establishes it in all models
    in one stroke..."

    MODEL: In applied mathematics, the representation of a real system in terms
    of mathematical relations...The term "model" also means an *intepretation*
    of an abstract deductive theory which satisfies the axioms of the theory.
    For example, the integers under the operation of addition compromise a
    model of the group."

    There are several important lessons here which can be applied to a
    discussion of the MIU system as stated here on Apollo:

    A THEOREM is a proved statement derived from axioms.  MU, MI, MUIIU, or any
    of the other infinite permutations of the MIU system are simply strings of
    primitive terms.  Taken by themselves, none of them constitute a proved
    statement.  One might conceivably use them as abbreviations for previously
    stated theorems such as MU <<-- MI, but devoid of this reference MU is not
    a theorem.  I suspect that this is the manner in which the term theorem is
    being applied to such strings, but until MacGregor is willing to provide me
    with the name of the inventor of the MIU system and the name of a paper
    or text wherein he expounds on his system, this is mere speculation.

    A MODEL is always a model OF something, whether it is a model OF a real
    system, or a model OF an abstract deductive theory.  When a model is an
    interpretation of a deductive theory, its primitive terms represent entities
    having definition OUTSIDE of the theory.  The primitive terms of the MIU
    system have not been assigned to entities in any domain by any function.

    Message: 69769
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Dean/correction
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:14:44

    That should have been 325 milligrams in all examples, not 350.

    Message: 69770
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Darren/models
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:15:47

    Deductive theories CAN be models, *once they have been interpreted*.  Until
    that time, they are NOT models.

    Message: 69771
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Bayer
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:27:40

    I've gotten a bit behind and I'm still catching up on this discussion, but I
    must say I don't have the slightest problem with a company charging high or
    even outrageous prices for their product if people are fool enough to buy
    it.  As long as people have a choice -- and an informed choice at that --
    why shouldn't a company charge whatever people will pay?

    The "informed choice" criterion is crucial.  I have a VERY large objection
    to companies that manipulate themselves into a monopoly on a product and
    thus leave the customer no choice at all.  We do have antitrust and fair
    trading laws to take care of this -- although I can't say they're always
    enforced as rigidly as they should be.  The "informed" part is vital also.
    We are absolutely right to insist on "truth in advertising", because the
    buyer has no easy defense against an outright lie.

    But I know perfectly well that I can go and buy Walgreen's or Revco brand
    aspirin or ibuprofen, and they work just as well as the bottle that has
    Bayer on it.  We have plenty of information in newspapers and magazines and
    publications like "Consumer Reports" to let the buyer know what he's letting
    himself in for and how he can save money.  If people want to fill their
    minds with advertising junk and ignore hard facts, that's their lookout.

    There are people who will go and buy the most expensive product they can
    find just because it IS expensive, and to them it means "status".  I suppose
    you can say that they got what they paid for: $1 worth of product and $99
    worth of status.  And that's a fair exchange, if they got what they wanted
    out of it.  But I have a genuine fake Rolex that I bought in Seoul.  Not
    only does it look good and impress people, but it only cost me $29.  So I
    get two chuckles out of that.

    I don't see how you can possibly expect companies not to do their best to
    sell a product.  Wanting to be successful is only human nature.  What
    bothers me a lot more is the huge number of people who are dense enough to
    fall for, or allow themselves to be emotionally swayed by, slick
    advertising.  You'll never stop people from wanting to sell products and
    make a profit.  But sellers sell what buyers want.  Buyers who lack common
    sense and education distort the market by rewarding the shrewd advertiser
    and the manufacturer of "image", and penalizing the guy who just sells an
    honest product.  An enormous amount of productivity is wasted on advertising
    whose purpose is not so much to inform as to manipulate.  Trying to
    "control" such an economy by regulating businesses is a sledgehammer
    approach that ignores the real problem -- consumer stupidity and ignorance.
    If we educated the people (something we seem to be doing very badly at these
    days), marketeers would have to adjust their sights accordingly.

    Message: 69773
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon/choice
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 02:29:21

    I have no problem with that.  What I have been saying is that the market
    does not behave the way laissez-faire purists claim that it does.
    I agree; the legitimate purpose of advertising is to inform potential
    consumers so that they can make a rational choice.  Problem is, 90 percent
    of the commercials I see on TV are devoid of informational content and exist
    solely to persuade, chiefly through the use of misleading statements in
    conjunction with misleading images.

    Message: 69774
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Keating
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 03:25:26

    Keating has been claiming to be broke.  Last month, just before his house
    was foreclosed on, he "borrowed" enough money from his friends to bring the
    payments current.  It may well be that he has the 5 million he needs to post
    bail, but he has himself cornered and cannot surface even 10% of that amount
    to pay a bail bondsman.  Later today there will be a hearing to reduce bail
    to 1 million.  My guess is that if the reduction in bail is granted, he will
    proceed to borrow 100,000 from his friends.

    Keating had every chance to flee before he was indicted.  I don't believe he
    is likely to do so because it would ruin his chances for a financial
    recovery.

    Message: 69775
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: public money
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 03:39:16

    Without public money financing private enterprise, many of the medical
    treatments we now take for granted would have either been seriously delayed
    or not developed at all.  I would venture to say that the tax revenue
    generated by the practical applications of research and development pays
    back the grant money many times over.

    As for public money financing the arts, we owe it to ourselves to promote
    artistic expression and awareness.  Most individual grants are quite small,
    and merely serve to help lay a foundation for an artist's career.  Again,
    the benefits in terms of tax revenue generated over the long haul should
    more than pay for the grant.

    I do believe that the process by which the grants are granted must be
    reviewed, however.

    Message: 69776
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: more on models
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 05:54:52

    Let's take a closer look at the example given in Webster's mathematical
    dictionary.  It says that the set of integers under the operation of
    addition are a model of the group.

    An abstract group consist of a set G of primitive terms, and a binary
    operation "*", where the set G under the operation * is closed, associative,
    contains an identity element, and contains the inverse of each of its
    members (except for the identity element).

    The set of integers {...-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3...} under the binary operation of
    addition are closed under addition (i.e. adding two integers always produces
    another integer), associative (i.e., 1+(2+3) = (1+2)+3), contains an
    identity element (zero, i.e., n+0=n, where n is an integer), and contains
    the inverse of each member (i.e., for every integer n, there exists an
    integer -n such that n+(-n)=zero (the identity element)).

    The primitive terms of the abstract group have been interpreted; they have
    been assigned to a set of entities having definition outside the theory
    (i.e., integers, in this case).  These entities, the integers, have the
    properties expressed by the axioms of the abstract group.  The set of
    integers under the operation of addition, then, is said to be a model
    of the abstract group.  The MIU system, in and of itself, is not a model
    of either a real system or an abstract system.  It might be used as a model
    of something, but it has not here been defined as an interpretation.

    Message: 69777
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Steve/MI
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 05:55:29

    And stop referring to MI as a postulate.  A postulate is an axiom.

    "POSTULATE: an axiom.  The term is usually used in certain contexts, e.g.
    Peano's postulates or Euclid's postulates."

    "AXIOM: ...Axioms are usually subdivided into logical and nonlogical axioms.
    The latter, but not the former, deal with some specific subject matter.
    For example, Peano's postulates are nonlogical axioms whose symbols are
    interpreted with respect to a domain of numbers, while the axioms of the
    propositional calculus are logical axioms whose symbols can be interpreted
    in a variety of ways..."

        --The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics

    Message: 69778
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: public funding
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 06:01:27

    What about public libraries?  Are we to convert them all to private
    libraries?  And what say does the public have with regard to the books which
    will be stocked by the libraries it supports?  Who decides?
    I don't think anyone should be forced to financially support public
    libraries if they are offended by the materials therein.  Perhaps only
    those who support them through their tax dollars or other contributions
    should be allowed to use them without paying a fee.  It's a dilemna.

    Message: 69779
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Beck/"Postulate"
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 06:17:16

      Why should I stop calling "MI" a "postulate"?

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69780
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Beck/Theorems
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 06:30:23

      Well, you typed a lot of words, but I didn't see the answer to a very
    simple question in there.  What the heck.  Let's give it another shot.
      Douglas R Hofstadter, the author of "Goedel, Escher, Bach -- an Eternal
    Golden Braid" in which the MIU system is described, is the mathematician I
    referred to who called derivable strings in MIU "theorems".  I have a degree
    in Mathematics, so that makes me at least a marginal mathematician, and I
    understood his description well enough to know what he means by "theorem",
    and agree with his usage.
      You, on the other hand, say that these strings are not theorems.
      So the questions is, whom should I believe?
                              -*-
      As for calling MIU a "model", that is my own usage, and the justification
    for that usage is a rather all-encompassing definition of what goes on in
    mathematics that one of my college math professors gave us.  He defined a
    vector as "a mathematical entity that behaves like a vector."  Note that
    Hofstadter is effectively defining a theorem as "a mathematical entity that
    behaves like a theorem."  In calling MIU a model, I'm effectively defining a
    model as "a mathematical entity that behaves like a model."
      Now if you want, you can, for your own use, restrict definitions to things
    that you've encountered and understand, but the rest of us aren't going to
    have to do that.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69781
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: (addendum)
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 06:38:54

      Restricting the definition of "model", requiring it to model something is
    of no more use than the old definition of "number" that omitted zero as a
    number, because it is the *absence* of a number, and how could zero count
    anything, when counting begins with one?  (Or the older one, that omitted
    one, because numbers denote multiplicity of things, and one is not a
    multiple of anything.)
                                 -*-
      When you got from "MIU does not model reality perfectly" to "MIU models
    reality imperfectly", the error was in your inferrance.  As if, from the
    statements "All Communists drink vodka", and "Cliff drinks vodka", you
    manage to infer "Cliff is a Communist".
      Of course, I could accept your statement that "MIU models reality
    imperfectly" as true, since not modeling something at all is certainly an
    extreme example of modeling it imperfectly.

      We all live in a   ....,,,,________nnhn____  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69782
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Isomorphism
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 06:46:20

      The MIU system is not *isomorphic* to Euclidian geometry, just a model of
    it.  The elements of the system do not correspond to those in geometry.
      You're standing too close, and the trees are in the way.  Back up a bit,
    and look at the forest.
      See the way that Euclid begins with definitions, axioms, and postulates,
    and builds upon them to create theorems.
      See the way that Hofstadter begins with his axioms, etc., and builds upon
    them to create his theorems.  It's what I would call a "toy" mathematical
    system -- one not intrinsically useful for anything directly, but one that
    shows you some small truth that you'll find useful in understanding
    something bigger (and more useful).
      Remember that the most important thing about Euclid's geometry is not the
    geometry, but the system of proof.

      We all live in a   \,,=O.O=   \,,=O.O=   rodent-free environment

    Message: 69783
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/69780
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 07:16:58

    I will examine Hoftstadter's book.  I would like to point out, however, that
    popular math books are not formal works.  You have yet to provide a
    generally accepted definition of theorem from a formal reference which
    allows the term "theorem" to be applied to random strings of primitive
    terms.
    The fact that you have a degree in mathematics is irrelevant to a
    demonstration of the use of your terms.  Mathematicians do not advance their
    arguments by saying "I am a mathematician."  One does not believe things in
    science on the basis of who is speaking, but rather on the basis of what is
    being said.  I have supported my position with standard references and
    logical arguments involving these.  You have supported yours with ad hominem
    attacks, bluffs, and posturing.  These are not the methods of mathematics.
    Likewise, to justify your use of the term model on the rather vague basis
    that it is "an all-encompassing definition of what goes on in mathematics
    that one of my professors gave me" is not the sort of argument which would
    be accepted in any classroom or scholarly debate.  I will continue to
    restrict my use of the terms to those which are properly documented until
    such time as you can give proper documentation to the extended use of these
    terms.

    Message: 69784
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/69781
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 07:25:37

    We are not discussing old definitions of number.  We are discussing current
    definitions of theorem.

    There is no basis to infer "Cliff is a communist" from "Communists drink
    vodka and Cliff drinks vodka."  There is however a basis to infer "MIU
    models reality inexactly" from "MIU does not model reality exactly."  That
    basis is the fact that, if MIU does not model reality at all, it is scarcely
    necessary to point out that it does not model it exactly.

    SM > "Not modeling something at all is certainly an extreme example of
    modeling it imperfectly."

    That's very amusing.  Next you'll be telling us that you're an imperfect
    mathematician because you aren't a mathematician at all.

    Message: 69785
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/69782
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 07:35:33

    MIU is not a model of Euclidean geometry.  Not where the term "model" is
    used in any proper sense.  One does not call one deductive theory a model of
    another simply because both are deductive theories.  Otherwise, we might
    call any deductive theory a model of any other deductive theory.
    In order for the MIU system to be a model of Euclidean geometry, it is
    necessary that, first, the elements of the MIU system are a domain of
    entities for the Euclidean system, and second, that those entities satisfy
    the axioms of the Euclidean system.  Neither is true.  Therefore, MIU is not
    a model of Euclidean geometry.

    BTW, I thought you said that the MIU system was not a model *of* anything?

    Message: 69786
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Keating
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 07:51:16

    The only thing that I can think of is that the judge had reason to believe
    that Keating would skip the country.

    Message: 69787
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: keating/presumption
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 07:53:04

    of innocence. What ever happened to the principle that the accused need not
    prove his innocence. I don't think that this trial is going to be as
    straight-forward as we have been led to believe by the press. I don't like
    Keating one bit, but I don't like the lynch-mob mentality even more.

    Message: 69788
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Melissa
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 08:18:40

     I didn't say that "artists MAKE money, dear. I said that, as with any
    endeavour in this life, the MOTIVE is financial. Unfortunately, none of us
    can live without the long green stuff with the short future.
     My point is simply to what degree should art, in any form, be subsidized by
    the taxpaying public, any more than any other field of endeavour? If I
    chose, for example, to be a plumber, and there was a strong demand for
    plumbers, I would, no doubt, be successful, as we measure success by the
    amount of security a position can buy. If, however, there were absolutely no
    need for plumbers, should the entire population of the U.S., including all
    those people who do not require or desire the services of a plumber, be
    required to support me? Hardly!
     Why, then, should not the same principle apply to those who choose to act,
    or paint, or sculpt, or cover themselves with chocolate, all in the name of
    "art"? If there is a demand for the end result of your efforts as an
    actress, great! You will no doubt find the financial security that you need.
    However, if there is no demand for your services, why sould those of us who
    never attend legitimate theater be tapped for tax money to meet your needs?
     My opinion on this is not limited to just the arts, Melissa. It extends to
    sporting stadiums or arenas, or anything else that should be strictly a
    private enterprise sort of thing. There are plenty of places for our tax
    dollars to go without supporting those things that should be regulated only
    by the law of supply and demand. That, my dear, is my ONLY point, and I do
    not point a finger at any individual effort or career. If you can be
    successful at what you do, go for it! If you can't, re-evaluate priorities!

    Message: 69789
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Oriental dogs
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 08:20:30

     I understand that many oriental countries have found a rather unique use
    for their dogs.
     Does your egg roll taste different lately?

    Message: 69790
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/more on 69780
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 08:35:42

    SM> "My professor defined a vector as a mathematical entity that behaves
    like a vector.  Note that Hofstadter is effectively defining a theorem as
    a mathematical entity that behaves like a theorem.  In calling MIU a model
    I'm effectively defining a model as a mathematical entity that behaves like
    a model.  Now, if you want, you can, for your own use, restrict definitions
    to things that you've encountered and understand, but the rest of us aren't
    going to do that."

    No, I restrict mathematical definitions to those which have been properly
    defined according to the rigorous methods of mathematics.  I'm afraid
    that doesn't include such definitions as "if it walks like a duck, looks
    like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck."  One would think that
    a degree would have taught you this.  I can only conclude that either you
    do not have a degree, or that you have forgotten what mathematics is all
    about.  It isn't about vague and shoddy definitions.  It's about deductive
    reasoning based on clear, unambiguous and precise definitions; these
    exempt it from sterile, perpetual disputes such as this one.

    I would also like to point out that isolated strings of primitive terms
    do not behave like theorems, nor does what you call a model behave
    like a model.

    Message: 69791
    Author: Kangaroo Dundee
    Category: Tales & Tall Stories
    Subject: Hofstadter
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 10:35:18

    I'm famailar with his book.  If you go farther, you see that in the
    tortoise-crab-phonograph system, the record is the model of an undecidable
    theorem.

    That reminds me of a shiela I knew once, but that's a different story.

    G'day, mates!

    Message: 69792
    Author: $ Michael James
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Jeff Beck/Libraries
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 11:06:46

    Fortunately, most people who are so easily offended don't spend much time in
    libraries.

    Message: 69794
    Author: Apro Poet
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Dee/#69757
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 20:23:41

    Yes, I tend to be real.  I'm catching up on previous posts.
    This is sure a great place to get your brain waxed.
                        Apro Poet

    Message: 69795
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Apro
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 21:20:19

    Wow, the wild pig himself!

    Message: 69796
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Jeff/models
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 22:21:07

    I do not understand, Jeff.  You write that Steve is wrong, and that you
    achieve it by inference (that there must be an imperfect model because he
    stated not perfect.)  Now you state that the system is not a model, while
    refusing the inferrence of there being a referent model of the system solely
    becuase it isn't stated.
    Or are you acting on the supposition that it isn't a model because the
    reference wasn't previously stated?
    -----Darren

    Message: 69797
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Libraries
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 22:28:41

    Perhaps the government should withhold funds from libraries for certain
    books?  It does not, however, operate on the same system as grants.  The
    grants, if I understand them, are monies the government pays individual
    artists so that they can produce their work for the public's enjoyment.  If,
    then, the government withholds money from the INDIVIDUAL, it is not the same
    as the government withholding money from LIBRARIES to hold a repository of
    information, not necessarily enjoyment.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69798
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: keating/innocent
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 22:31:06

    It is supposed to be that way, but it isn't.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69799
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Apro
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 04:16:34

    Where have you been?

    Message: 69800
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: In search of
    Subject: Models
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 04:38:20

      Quite close.  I'd adjust the terminology just a little, and say that the
    Tortoise-Crab-Phonograph system as a whole is a model of an w-incomplete
    proof system, and then say that the record is an analog of an undecidable
    theorem.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69801
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: In search of
    Subject: Mathematics
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 04:41:18

      Oh, yeah -- the infamous duck test.  Yes, I'd say that mathematics is the
    place where that method is the most useful.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69802
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Jeff/"Model of"
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 04:46:27

      In a sense, MIU is not a model *of* anything, because the theorems in it
    are not analogs of anything else.
      In another sense, it *is* a model of deductive proof systems, because the
    same things happen with their innards:  the theorems are built upon the
    definitions, axioms, and postulates.
      Like I said earlier, it's a "toy" system.  Not useful for anything
    directly, but useful as a teaching device.  It's simple enough that you can
    learn *all* about it in a short time, and apply the principles it
    demonstrates to systems that are useful, but more complicated.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69803
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Definitions
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 04:52:17

    Re: "[mathematics is] about deductive reasoning based on clear, unambiguous
    and precise definitions; these exempt it from sterile, perpetual disputes
    such as this one."

      Where did you learn that?  Or are you making it up?  The history of
    mathematics is *full* of disputes even worse than this one.  Usually, one
    side is arguing something like, "you can't *do* that in mathematics!"  The
    other says, "but look: we're *doing* it!"
      One definition I heard of mathematics was "some things and something to do
    with them".  I'd expand that only a *teeny* bit.  Mathematics is the
    symbolic representation of some things and something to do with them.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69804
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: War!
    Subject: MIU
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 04:55:33

      Oh, all right.  Have it your way.
      Since you disagree with the statement "MIU is not a perfect model of
    reality", then you must be saying that it is false, and that the opposite is
    true.

      We all live in a   ____nhnn________,,,,....  yellow subroutine

    Message: 69805
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Libraries
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 05:33:21

     A comparison between libraries and the arts for the purpose of confusing
    the  present issue is odious at best. Libraries are, and always have been, a
    public function, and should remain so, since they are a primary source of
    information and an educational tool. THe same cannot be said for those
    fields of interest generally referred to as the arts.

    Message: 69806
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: War!
    Subject: steve/perfect model
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 07:43:34

    This is akin to asking someone if they have stopped beating their wife.
    What is it that we can say about the statement "MIU is not a perfect model
    of reality" if we think that MIU is not a model. Clearly it can't be
    a perfect model and it can't be an imperfect model. It can't be a model
    at all. So the statement "MIU... " is neither true or false ? Now, we are
    getting positively Zen-like.

    Message: 69807
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Apro
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 08:09:22

    WOW!  Are you coming back for good?  Oh, you may remember me (or maybe not)
    as Mychele Nickels or Nikki Kalua.

    Message: 69808
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Melissa/n.d.p.
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 12:54:58

    Does some mysterious agency assign those n.d.ps ? I mean, when you become
    an author does your editor ask you "Do you want to use an n.d.p or your
    real name?" And if you choose to have an n.d.p., does the editor say "It
    be 75 dollars, please" And after you fork over your 75 dollars the editor
    whispers, much in the manner of giving you your mantra, "Nikki Kalua." And
    when you say, "Nikki Kalua ? I paid 75 dollars for Nikki Kalua?", the editor
    gives you another name to assuage your anger ?

    Message: 69809
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Last
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 13:31:54

    No, I don't have an editor or agent.  Those were just previous handles I
    used on here, although Mychele is my middle name and my pen name for my
    erotic stories.

    Message: 69810
    Author: Apro Poet
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: So I'm Back Already!
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 21:43:21

    No.  Actually I'm still gone. (snicker)

    Nick: I had a bum power supply and I thought I'd take
    advantage of the situation to break out of the BBS habit.
    The absence wasn't worth it.

    Melissa:  Oh, I get it.  Mychele.  I thought I had just
    forgotten the name.  Am I back for good?  Of course not.
    We will all have to die someday.  ;-)  <- Are these things
    still legal?

    Message: 69811
    Author: Apro Poet
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Birdies Begone!
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 21:47:21

      I record radio broadcasts.  The system I use picks up an
    annoying buzz.  This happens only when:
         the recorder motor is on (play or record),
         the recorder's microphone jack is connected to the
           radio's earphone jack, and
         the radio is tuned in the neighborhood of 14MHz.
      Does anyone know how to filter out these things?

                        Apro Poet

    Message: 69812
    Author: $ Roger Mann
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: melissa
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 21:59:04

    So you don't think I have a future in humorous writing ?

    Message: 69813
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Rod/Artists
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 22:33:08

    Gee, now if only I could get appliance service/sales classified as "art" I'd
    have subsidy for when business falls!  Seriously, I must agree.  In our
    small business we sometimes wonder if we'll have enough money to get by the
    next week's expenses.  We have so far, but I do not see the point of my
    receiving money for not being able to earn enough at it.  And I feel the
    same way about ANY profession.
    Thus, if the government wishes to say "Thou shalt not..." in handing out the
    money, the better.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69814
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: AP Buzz
    Date: 09/21/90  Time: 22:41:51

    Are you sure that it is not already a blown filter in your set?
    -----Darren

    Message: 69815
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Roger/Logic
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 00:16:20

      Well, look at it this way.  Start with a premise, that "MIU is not a
    perfect model of reality".  Somebody comes along and says, "Well, then, it
    logically follows that MIU is an imperfect model of reality," but disagrees
    with the conclusion he has reached.
      Now we know that sound logic cannot produce a false conclusion from a
    valid premise, so there are two possibilities:  either the premise is false,
    or the logic is faulty.  I wonder which it is?  (And the answer to that, of
    course, is *no*.)

        We all live in a   ____________o,,o   deep, dark pit

    Message: 69816
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Advertising
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 02:34:09

    Funny you should say that about television advertising, Jeff.  It also
    happens that 90 percent of the commercials *I* see on TV are also devoid of
    informational content and exist solely to persuade, chiefly through the use
    of misleading statements in conjunction with misleading images.  Could we be
    watching the same TV station by any chance?

    Yes, it just could be coincidence, though it does seem a bit too much like
    coincidence when I flip the channel switch and get precisely the same flavor
    from other channels.  Not only that, but when I look at newspapers,
    magazines and billboards (which I probably spend a *lot* more time doing
    than I do watching TV), they all seem to be projecting the same message.

    I have to admit that it does bother me a great deal when people actually
    fall for this stuff.  I also have to admit that it creates a great problem,
    for the following reason.  Let us suppose that 95% of the population are
    morons, and they buy whatever rubbish happens to be advertised effectively,
    regardless of its quality and value.  Let us also suppose that the remaining
    5% of the population sees through specious advertising and generally winds
    up getting value for money.  That ought to mean that if you and I belong to
    the 5%, then we shouldn't have any reason at all to rock the boat, because
    we are being subsidized by the other 95% who waste their money.

    Unfortunately it doesn't quite work out that way in business, because what
    happens in practice is that investors are more prepared to support companies
    that are profitable due to their success at ripping off the public, and
    ignore those who simply do good ethical business and keep their heads above
    water.  So the latter category may end up going out of business for lack of
    majority support, or else -- more likely in today's market -- they are
    swallowed up by some corporate giant in a hostile buyout, and they lose
    their identity completely.

    The root of the problem is a gullible public.  But what do you do about
    slick advertising that people fall for?  Trying to regulate it is doomed to
    failure, for two very good reasons.

    The first reason is that it is almost impossible to draw a clear line
    between "good" advertising and "bad" advertising.  It is at least two orders
    of magnitude harder than the notorious difficulty of trying to define what
    is "obscene" and what isn't.  I would readily admit that you can easily pick
    out instances that lie at the extremes of the spectrum.  A book (sitting on
    my bookshelf) with a title like "Sexual Responsibility in Marriage" is
    obviously intended as a serious work with ethical value, whereas "The Lord
    Lieutenant in Nylons" (a title borrowed from a Monty Python episode) is
    probably not.  Similarly, in an advertisement, "'Behold' works better -- and
    it's cheaper" is a plain assertion of fact (if true!), while "Nothing comes
    between me and my Calvins" (from a nubile teenage girl) is obviously at the
    opposite end of the scale.  But most ads fall somewhere in between.  How on
    earth do you distinguish between the two?

    Let us suppose that "good" advertising is meant only to impart information,
    and "bad" advertising is meant only to manipulate the observer.  Now, let's
    take the first point.  An ad should impart useful information.  But what
    "should" that information be?

    Surely, if you have a product to sell, the first thing you need to tell your
    customer is that your company exists.  The customer needs to know that
    first.  Everybody, even in the Eastern world, has heard of Coca-Cola, IBM,
    McDonald's, Chevrolet, Levi's, Budweiser, Disney, Christian Dior, Sony,
    Kellogg's.  Most people in the US have heard of Mattel, Beatrice, Chase
    Manhattan, and Random House.  Many people are aware of TRW, Bethlehem Steel,
    Novell, Daewoo, or Kathryn Beich Candies.  Some know about British Insulated
    Callender's Cables (BICC), Siemens, Holden, Rheinmetall, or Bass Pro.  Very
    few have heard of Marinel Transportation, Cobray, or Ralph's Vinyl Siding
    and Publishing Co., Inc.  These latter companies are sorely in need of "name
    recognition", which is a legitimate purpose of advertising.  TRW, for
    example, ran a series of ads back in the 70s that told what they did and
    ended with the phrase "...a company called TRW."  Not a lot of information
    in that, but perfectly legitimate all the same: aimed at creating name
    recognition.  And without exception, EVERY ad carries at least that much
    information -- that the company exists and is "here to serve you".

    A substantial amount of "name recognition", imparted by the sheer volume of
    ads, carries information in itself.  It says that "this company is
    successful -- otherwise it could never be so big, because it wouldn't be
    selling so many products."  And if it is selling so many products, goes the
    logic in the viewer's mind, then it MUST be selling a good product --
    otherwise why would so many people be buying it?  Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
    -- the fallacy of confusing sequence with consequence.  But is it reasonable
    to prohibit a company from giving the public the information that "we are
    BIG"?  Surely the public have only themselves to blame if they automatically
    draw the conclusion that "bigger is better". -- thus fostering monopolies.

    "Bad" advertising manipulates the observer.  Now, what exactly does that
    mean, to "manipulate" somebody?  Well, my definition of it would be that you
    do something to influence somebody (which invariably means arousing some
    emotion in them - a desire, or especially a fear), *without* their realizing
    what you are doing.  Because when they aren't aware of what they're feeling,
    they'll follow their feelings without subjecting them to logical scrutiny.

    Now, most ads try to do this in some way.  The most glaring examples usually
    try to associate themselves with sex.  "*Nothing* comes between me and my
    Calvins!"  Well, obviously she's not wearing any panties.  Besides sex, ads
    try to associate the product especially with desirable characteristics like
    popularity and status, or appeal to greed, or stroke the ego of the buyer in
    some way by telling him he's a member of a very smart or talented minority
    to buy this product.

    Appeals to group identification or "affiliation" -- a universal human
    characteristic -- are very effective.  But all of these things have to work
    by getting the viewer to associate the product with these attributes, or
    with banishing the fear of *not* having these attributes.  It doesn't work
    the way one would logically expect it to.  There was a classic failure of a
    TV ad campaign for "Strand" cigarettes in England in the sixties.  The
    scene: a man in the street on his own.  Music: a haunting tune that sold a
    few records under the title "The Lonely Man Theme".  Man lights cigarette.
    Voice over: "You're never alone with a Strand."  Intended message: "Strand
    cigarettes will relieve loneliness" (which so many people are prone to).
    Message received: "It's lonely people who smoke Strand.  If I don't want to
    be a lonely person, I'd better smoke some other brand."  Result: complete
    flop; cigarette taken off market in a few months.

    Now, if the lighting of the cigarette on the TV screen had caused three
    friends to stroll up from Trafalgar Square and half a dozen beautiful women
    to prance out of the Haymarket and a long-lost brother to appear from the
    Thames Embankment, no doubt the cigarette would have been a howling success,
    because the product would have associated itself with success instead of
    failure.

    This is how "association" works.  If you realize what the ad is trying to
    do, it's fine.  Some ads are very gross and transparent.  Examples: magazine
    ads saying things like "Be a U.S. Game Warden.  Carry guns, arrest
    violators!"  (Appeal to power instincts and authoritarian excuses to cut the
    other guy down to size.)  This kind of ad was beautifully satirized in the
    Monty Python Papperbok:

         FEAR NO MAN!
         I'll make you a MASTER of LLAP-Goch
         ...the secret Welsh ART of SELF DEFENCE that requires NO INTELLIGENCE,
         STRENGTH or PHYSICAL courage.
         The FANTASTIC SECRETS... of their DEADLY POWER to MAIM, KILL, SMASH,
         BATTER, FRACTURE, CRUSH, DISMEMBER, CRACK, DISEMBOWEL, CRIPPLE, SNAP
         and HARM are now revealed to YOU...

         You will no longer look pitiful and spotty to your GIRL FRIENDS when
         you leave some unsuspecting passer-by looking like four tins of cat-
         food.  They will admire your MASTERY and DECISIVENESS and LACK OF
         INADEQUACY and will almost certainly let you put your HAND inside
         their BLOUSE out of sheer ADMIRATION...

         ...WHY ALL the CAPITALS?
         Because THE most likely kind OF person TO answer THIS sort of
         advertisement HAS less trouble under-STANDING words if they ARE
         written in BIG letters...

    The question is, where do you draw the line?  Ads are meant to have
    emotional appeal; yet the real power in an ad comes not just from its
    emotional appeal, but from the fact that the observer does not realize where
    that appeal comes from.  If you believe there is subliminal advertising --
    allegations of obscene four-letter words written on children's dolls and
    pictures of copulating women hidden in the shadows on gin bottles -- then
    the danger is obvious.  Regardless of whether advertisements really do that
    or not, the real effect of the ad lies in the viewer's lack of awareness of
    his own perceptions.  Granted, advertisers try to aim their ads at areas
    that the average viewer is emotionally less aware of.  But can we blame the
    advertiser for the viewer's lack of awareness?  Every ad must surely appeal
    to one simple emotion -- greed -- in most people.  Can we blame the
    advertiser because people refuse to recognize their own greed?

    The second reason is this.  Suppose we did try to legislate to prevent
    people from being suckered in by specious advertising.  What kind of a world
    are we trying to create?  One where people aren't even expected to exercise
    their own common sense?

    A very "liberal" friend of mine in Massachusetts objected to the ad claiming
    that the Volvo was "a thinking man's car", and playing on safety aspects.
    Everybody likes to be thought of as an intelligent man (or woman).  Some
    people will fall for this line that strokes their feeling of intelligence
    (thoughI think the Volvo drives like a Sherman tank, so I wouldn't buy one).
    But a true "thinking" person ought to realize that any car, even a Volvo,
    can't be driven around as if it *were* a tank without incurring any injury.
    I have little sympathy with people who try to kid themselves they're smart
    by buying this car for the accident protection that the manufacturer says it
    offers.  If they really are that smart, then they ought to be smart enough
    to read the Federal Government's reports on car safety and see which cars
    really tested out to give the best crash protection.

    It insults my intelligence when I buy a ladder and climb most of the way up
    and see a large plastic sticker saying "Do not climb on or beyond this step.
    YOU COULD LOSE YOUR BALANCE."  Do they think I'm a moron not to know that?
    I don't really object to laws that demand such stickers, because I suppose
    there are morons out there who DON'T know that they could lose their
    balance.  But are we breeding a nation of dummies?  If we do that, we will
    only need another round of legislation to protect the even-more-stupid next
    generation from being victimized by something or other.

    No, my solution is an educated public that can understand what advertising
    (and other everyday phenomena) is all about, how it tries to take advantage
    of them, but how they in their turn can take advantage of it with just a
    little thought.  I look at an ad with the critical faculty in gear -- a kind
    of artistic appreciation, thinking "ah, very clever, I see exactly what
    button they're trying to push".  And laughing about it.  Now if we had a
    public trained to look at advertising that way, there would be no problem
    whatsoever.  But we *do* need the public to be educated.

    And when I see the failure of education today, I say to myself that this
    doesn't happen entirely by accident.  Someone, somewhere, doesn't *want* to
    see an educated public.  Someone doesn't *want* people to think and be aware
    of what's going on around them.

    And that's scary.

    Message: 69827
    Author: $ Steve MacGregor
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Previous
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 04:55:02

      I agree with your opinion of the sign at the top of the ladder.  But it's
    there because (believes the Government) you're stupid.  You wouldn't think
    of this for yourself.  No, the kind of thinking you'd do for yourself would
    be along the lines of, well, let's see.  This box of cookies has a picture
    on the front of a bunch of cookies.  Oh.  There must be cookies in here.
    Oh.  The cookies are on a plate.  The plate is on a tablecloth.  There must
    be a plate and tablecloth in here, too.
      Because you're stupid, the cookie-company is required to *tell* you that
    there's no plate or tablecloth in the box, so they say, "SERVING SUGGESTION"
    at the bottom of the picture, so you'll know.
      The health warnings on cigarette packages are the same thing.  The problem
    is that you have to have some kind of smarts to understand the warning, and
    if you have (at least) the brains God gave a rubber snake, you don't smoke
    in the first place, so what good are the warnings doing?

        We all live in a    /``''\._./``''\    belfry somewhere

    Message: 69828
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Apro Poet
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 08:21:39

    I can't believe that the Apro Poet is THE old Apro Poet that use to log on
    here. He never said anything other than posting written material. He was
    never verbal in the least! I think I smell a alias! -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 69829
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon on your posts
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 08:31:21

    Your advertizing post were great and I agree!

    I subscribe to Cable TV and have over 40 channels in which to choose from
    and sometimes, flipping between them, I get the feeling that at least 70% of
    what I pay for are commercials. Especially late at night. I don't see it
    getting any better either. What we need is less commercials. Then we don't
    have to be worried about being educated. Ha ha.

    That's another thing - I always thought that 'Paid TV' was just that - no
    commercials. I pay for Cable! Not so though. Only channel 8 is really 'paid
    TV' and maybe the American Movie Classic channel is another, but that's all.
    Paying for cable is like buying commercials en mass! I'm about ready to
    pitch it! -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 69830
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Warings!
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 08:35:20

    The warning on the ladder is not put there for a moronic public - it's put
    there by the efforts of insurance companies - a little loop-hole they can
    use to not pay you if your hurt. Ditto the warning on the stove oven door to
    not stand on it to reach high places. -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 69831
    Author: $ Alan Hamilton
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Warnings
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 10:01:28

           I was under the impression that the warning existed because quite a
    few numb-brains *had* tumbled off.  Whether they "ought" to know better is
    moot -- they don't.
           And Ann has a point about the insurance, too.  When a jury sees a guy
    who broke both his legs when he fell off his ladder facing a corporate
    lawyer in a $600 suit, the facts of the case aren't going to figure much in
    their decision.

    Message: 69832
    Author: $ Alan Hamilton
    Category: In search of
    Subject: Apro Poet!
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 10:01:59

            Hi!  I'm not here, either!

    Message: 69833
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Ann on Apro
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 10:41:47

            I believe that the person who claims to be Apro Poet is infact the
    real Apro Poet.  In mail, he did tell me his old password .....

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    Message: 69834
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Roger
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 12:45:56

    Sure you can, Roger.  You can do anything you put your mind to.  As long as
    you aren't having fun...

    Message: 69835
    Author: Apro Poet
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Darren#69814
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 17:54:55

    The tape recorder and radio are two separate devices.  I
    doubt the radio would have been designed to filter out that
    recorder's particular motor noise.  I've tried adding a
    transformer in the audio line between the two devices.  That
    had no effect.

    Does anyone know anything about filter design?  I'm about
    ready to try some capaciters & coils, but I don't know what
    values to use for this 14MHz buzz.

    Should I ask a salesman at Radio Shack?  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

                                  Apro Poet

    Message: 69836
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Darren/models
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 18:50:50

    Let me put it as simply as possible.  The fact that it is possible for a
    system to be a model does not in itself make it a model.  In order to be a
    model, it must be defined as an interpretation according to the rules
    previously outlined.

    Message: 69837
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: 69803
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 19:08:29

    The fact that disputes have occured in mathematics in no way changes the
    basic character of mathematics as deductive systems based on clear,
    unambiguous and precise definitions.  The disputes you speak of occured
    *because* the definitions were not clear, unambiguous and precise, and
    because the systems were not rigorously deductive but included elements such
    as argument by synthetic geometric analogy.  Remember, I did not
    say categorically that the history of mathematics is devoid of such
    disputes; I merely characterized it in modern terms.  You have to understand
    that mathematics has undergone a revolution; this revolution occured largely
    in the 19th century and has been called the New Look.  It is a sort of
    formalism.  It is rigorous enough to banish infighting based solely on
    non-formal dogma, yet adaptive and flexible enough to allow for many
    generalizations of old definitions -- within the rules of the system.  That
    such disputes still occur is evidence that the New Look has not yet reached
    all branches of mathematics in a rigorous enough fashion to preclude such
    disputes, and also that not all people can distinguish between formally
    correct mathematics and informal adaptations of formally defined terms.
    This is not to say that mathematicians do not use these informal adaptations
    (though I rather wish they wouldn't), but rather that whereas the
    mathematician, in the back of his head, recognizes it as such, the
    non-mathematician generally does not make this distinction.

    Message: 69838
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Steve/69804
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 19:16:23

    The negation of a sentence does not always yield the contradictory of the
    original proposition.  It may also yield its contrary.   Contradictories may
    not both be false, but contraries may both be false.

    Message: 69839
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: 69815
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 19:20:18

    MIU is neither a perfect model of reality nor an imperfect model of reality.
     It is not a model of reality at all.  "MIU=perfect model" and
    "MIU=imperfect model" are contraries, not contradictories.  Both are false.

    Message: 69840
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: MIU
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 19:39:27

    I am just here to check in.  I intend to post several messages on MIU, and
    on the use of the terms we have been arguing.  In the mean time, I would
    like to point out a couple of things:

    Hofstadter is not a mathematician, or was not at the time "Godel..." was
    published.  The biographical blurb on the dust jacket says that he is (was)
    an assistant professor of computer science at Indiana University.
    He does not refer to MI as a postulate, nor does he refer to what we have
    called axioms I-IV as "axioms."  He calls MI an axiom (yes, axiom and
    postulate can be synonomous, but the fact remains that he does not call MI a
    postulate), and he calls I-IV both "rules of production" and "rules of
    inference."  He claims that his MIU system is based on the work of Emil Post
    and calls it a "Post Production System," but Post's terms, in the main,
    differ substantially, and he does not refer to strings as axioms and
    theorems.  This may be irrelevant, however, because I am going to do my best
    to show that Hofstadter's use of the terms *is* formally correct.  This may
    not be possible, however.  "Godel..." is a work of general non-fiction,
    dealing primarily with philosophy of logic, and while it certainly is
    charming, entertaining, and often quite informative, it is not by any means
    intended as a formal work.  Unfortunately, he sometimes seems to use
    formally defined terms in an innacurate manner.
    Nowhere in his book does Hofstadter refer to MIU as a model.

    Be seeing you in a while.

    Message: 69841
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 19:41:00

    I'll read your posts offline.  Glancing at them, they appear to be your
    usual, insightful stuff.

    Message: 69842
    Author: Platypus Dundee
    Category: Entertainment/Movies
    Subject: Gordon Little
    Date: 09/22/90  Time: 20:06:18

    But you don't mention the GREATEST benefit we derive from advertising:
    entertainment!

    Like in the middle of "Merrie Melodies" the other day, they played the
    Honey-Nut Cheerios comrcial with the Roadrunner and Coyote in it.  (You
    know -- the one where Wylie holds up the sign saying, "Did you say honey AND
    nuts?"

    And how about the one with the romantic setting, asking whether some women
    have a beauty secret, and the good-looking guy knocks the table over, but it
    didn't ruin the carpet because of the beauty secret, which was some kind of
    stain guard?

    Face it.  Some commercials are more entertaining than many programs.  But I
    DO tune away when Tex Ernhart comes on.

    G'day, mates!

    Message: 69843
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Ann on Rod
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 00:03:45

       I will believe that Rod is a true atheist when he comes to terms with his
    own unbelief and gives it a break. I restate my opinion that a true atheist
    would not waste his/her time with childish ranting about the God he/she
    claims to deny.
       When Rod hears the name Yahweh, smiles quietly to himself, and continues
    on with his life as if nothing had been said, then I'll believe him.

    Message: 69844
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Beau on NT
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 00:06:41

       Please clarify yourself. I'm not quite sure I'm understanding where
    you're coming from.

    Message: 69845
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Adverts/Ann
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 03:41:02

    I didn't read Gordon's through thorougly (only got .5 hrs,) but the
    insurance argument also holds true for TV/Appliances "Remove only by
    qualified service personnel."  TVs can, however, give you a 25,000 Volt
    Jolt, so it's justified there.  However, unplug your washer/dryer/etc. and
    there isn't any voltage there to hurt you (just mechanical traps.)
    -----Darren
    P.S. - That 25,000 Volt blast can hit you even with the TV unplugged, so
    a statement of disclaimer:  I do not personally advocate ANY non-qualified
    person tinkering with any such device as listed above.  (Being a
    TV/Appliance repairman I could get sued over such if it isn't in there.)
    Covering my (ahems),
    ---DRE

    Message: 69846
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: AP Buzz again
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 03:46:19

    Actually, the Shack does publish a series of books, and if I remember right
    does have one on filters.  I can whomp up a circuit if you require it, but
    it'll take a lot of time (I have 4 references to sort through to insure I
    get the garbage I need.)
    -----Darren
    P.S.:  Most hi-fi (how seventies!) tape units DO have a filter to cut motor
    hum interference, but obviously if you've got one it ain't working right
    anyhow.)
    ---DRE

    Message: 69847
    Author: Darren Erickson
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Jeff/models
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 03:48:05

    OK, but the overriding theory I was taught that anything systematically
    stated DOES have a referent, it just needs to be stated.  And although
    joking Politics does seem to fit.
    -----Darren

    Message: 69848
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: filters
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 03:54:13

    Let me know if this works.  I got it from a handbook of electronic tables
    and formulae.  Can't say I have any experience in this sort of thing at all.
    This is for a band-reject filter: it will pass all frequencies except those
    within a certain band.  Do your own conversions into smaller units of
    capacitance and inductance; I'm too lazy.  Use small tolerance components.
    I hope the graphics come out OK for you.

    o-----L1------------L1-----o
        |    |   |   |    |
        |    |   |   |    |                 L1=[(f2-f1)*Z0]/(2*pi*f1*f2)
        --C1--   |   --C1--                 L2=Z0/[4*pi*(f2-f1)]
                 |                          C1=2/[4*pi*(f2-f1)*Z0]
                 |                          C2=(f2-f1)/(pi*f1*f2*Z0)
                L2
                 |              L1&L2 are coil inductances in henries
                 |              C1&C2 are capacitances of caps in farads
                 |              f1&f2 are frequencies at edge of passband in Hz
                C2              Z0 is line impedance in ohms
                 |
                 |
                 |
                 |
    o--------------------------o

    Message: 69849
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Darren
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 03:59:14

    It's sort of like this: every man can marry.  That doesn't make them all
    married.  MIU might be a model, but in itself it is not a model, and it has
    not thus far been shown to be a model, either of a real or an abstract
    system.

    Message: 69850
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: one last thing...
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 04:23:34

    ...before I go again.  Steve, you say that MIU is not a model *of* anything
    and then you say it is a model *of* formal systems.  Ignoring this
    inconsistency, let's deal with your second assertion.  A model can either be
    an interpretation I of a set of wffs such that each member of the set is
    true in I, or an interpretation of a formal system such that the primitive
    terms of the formal system to be interpreted are assigned by a function to a
    set of entities in the domain of the model, where these satisfy the axioms
    of the formal system being modeled, or an intepretation of a real
    system.

    You say that MIU is a model of formal systems.  Please demonstrate how the
    class of formal systems is a formal system.  Please define its symbols
    (logical constants/nonlogical vocabulary symbols), its rules of formation,
    its rules of transformation, and its axioms: then interpret its primitive
    expressions so that each one is assigned a single value in the domain of the
    MIU model, and demonstrate that the entities of MIU have the properties of
    the axioms in the class of formal systems system.

    Take note of the example I gave of a model of a formal system (the set of
    integers under the operation of addition being a model of the abstract
    group).  If you can demonstrate that MIU is a model of the class of formal
    systems system, the way I demonstrated that the set of integers under the
    operation of addition is a model of the abstract group, then I'll agree.

    Message: 69851
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Apro
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 06:12:33

    A 14 mhz buzz?  If you can hear that, you are no doubt receiving Voice of
    America in your head as well.

    A 60hz buzz is common enough, due to the A.C. motor.  A filter would have to
    be designed taking into consideration the impedence of the devices you are
    conncecting.  I would guess that there is an impedence mismatch --- the
    output of the radio at the earphone jack is probably a very high impedence,
    and the microphone input is probably low impedence.  What is probably of
    more concern is a level mismatch.  A mike input is a very low level input
    --- you are likely overloading it by using the earphone output.  Doesn't the
    tape recorder have a line level input?  If not, you can buy an attenuating
    patch cord at Radio Shack.  First, try using a shielded cable and grounding
    the shields to the chassis of the recorder and radio.  That may stop the
    hum.

    Message: 69852
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Platypus on commer.
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 09:00:15

    My favorite commercial is the one where the little squirrel jumps out of the
    plane and lands by these people eating in their yard. Lots of little
    squirrels!

    I take it from you posts that you are from Australia??? -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 69853
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Darren
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 09:09:16

    I believe in warnings on appliances only to a degree. Not the one about
    standing on the over door. That's idiotic. But to show that you could get
    one heck of a shock from a TV is another. If the guy goes ahead and fools
    with it anyway and is shocked, he shouldn't be able to sue at all.
    What gets me is all the 'no no's' on a bottle of insecticide - all in such
    fine print it can't be read with out a magnifying glass. You can't even
    hardly find the instructions there are so many warnings! It used to be when
    something was poison, it had a simple scull and crossbones on the label in
    big print with maybe what to do if it is drank by a child, etc.  We ought to
    use that again. It was highly effective. -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 69854
    Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
    Category: The SYSOP Speaks
    Subject: ((SHIELDS))
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 19:02:53

            Holly Cow!   Sandy Sysop was on the system at 12:25 today and some
    how she (accidently) set the ((SHIELDS)) to 120% locking out all but Sysops.

            Grrrrrrr, sorry about that guys...  Now leave all your 'nasty' mail
    to Sandy Sysop.  I am innocent!

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    Message: 69855
    Author: Wombat Dundee
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Australia
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 19:14:39

    No -- the only one in the family from Australia is my uncle.  The rest of us
    are from somewhere else.  I forget where.  New Zealand I think it was.  Or
    New Mexico maybe.  It was so long ago.

    G'day, mates!

    Message: 69856
    Author: Apro Poet
    Category: Tales & Tall Stories
    Subject: The Jeely Piece Song
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 19:46:09

      To fling a "piece," a slice of bread and jam, from a
    window down to a child in the street below has been a
    recognised custom in Glasgow's tenement housing....

                        THE JEELY PIECE SONG
                         by Adam McNaughton

    I'm a skyscraper wean, I live on the nineteenth flair,
    On' I'm no' gaun oot tae play ony mair,
    For since we moved tae oor new hoose I'm wastin' away,
    'Cos I'm gettin' wan less meal ev'ry day,

                              Refrain

    Oh, ye canny fling pieces oot a twenty-storey flat,
    Seven hundred hungry weans will testify tae that,
    If it's butter, cheese or jeely, if the breid is plain or pan,
    The odds against it reachin' us is ninety-nine tae wan.

    We've wrote away tae Oxfam tae try an' get some aid,
    We've a' joined thegither an' formed a "piece" brigade,
    We're gonny march tae London tae demand oor Civil Rights,
    Like "Nae mair hooses ower piece flingin' heights."

    Message: 69857
    Author: Apro Poet
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Clogged Filters
    Date: 09/23/90  Time: 19:49:09

    Thanks Darren, Jeff and Nick.  I'll take all your advice.
    This is getting interesting.
                        Apro Poet

    *=* End of the Universe Bulletin Board entered *=*

    Message: 1509
    Author: $ Jeff Beck
    Category: Shut Up Already!
    Subject: The REAL Rod
    Date: 09/16/90  Time: 21:16:45

    Yessir...don't let that battered old brown dirty overcoat fool you, Mrs.
    Columbo, he's a rude, shrewd, tricky etude.

    Now the question is, me fine, feathered friend, be ye Mycroft or be ye
    Moran?

    Message: 1510
    Author: $ James Hawley
    Category: T & A
    Subject: Rod/Tower
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 00:32:27

    Actually the tower was on the Valley Bank building most of the time, wasn't
    it?  Liar!

    Message: 1511
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Different Girls
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 01:04:25

       Thanks to all who commented on my posts, and especially to Melissa
    for provoking me to write them. I had started to write down some of
    what I thought about women as art once before, but seemed to lose the
    focus of what I was doing after about one sentence. Her questions
    were a big help in getting it expressed.
       Being married hasn't killed my attraction for my wife. I still
    find her interesting physically after sixteen years, but it is
    naturally a little different than it was when I was just learning all
    those curves for the first time.
       There is more too, in that we don't have to hide anything from
    each other. Being honest with each other, even about things that
    would break a weaker relationship, has been a habit for a long time.
    There has never been another girl that I didn't feel I had to hide
    from, at least a little bit. We married for life, and keeping nothing
    secret from each other is how we expect to keep that pledge. People
    have told me that that wouldn't work for them, I don't know. It just
    seems to me that couples I have known who broke up usually did it
    because there were things they didn't know about each other, and when
    they did find out it was too much to handle.
       Am I a pig to still savor every nuance of the opposite gender,
    when I have the perfect mate for me already? Maybe so, by other
    people's standards. As long as it's out in the open and nobody's
    being hurt, my standards say it's not only okay, it's a damn good
    reason to keep getting up in the morning.

    Message: 1512
    Author: $ Melissa Dee
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Dean/Last
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 08:00:21

    Wow.  You're neat.
    I think it takes life experience for a man to finally get to where you are.
    For some, I am sure, they never get close.

    Message: 1513
    Author: $ Dean Hathaway
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Last
    Date: 09/18/90  Time: 17:24:45

      Thanks! I am tempted to say that my stated outlook is just a hoax to
    impress you, but that's only about half true.
       See You Later,
          Dean H.

    Message: 1514
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Dean
    Date: 09/19/90  Time: 07:46:59

    I will say that you are really something - a rare man in this day and age.
    Your wife is one lucky girl to have gotten you for a life time mate.
                             -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 1515
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Dean on women
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:23:51

    I've been rather busy for a time and on vacation and other things, so I'm
    trying to get caught up here.  But I will add my voice to say how much I
    enjoyed Dean's posts on women.  Even if they are over a week old now, they
    haven't lost a bit of their freshness.  There was a marvelous and poetic
    contrast with the conventional ways of appreciating women that we guys are
    *supposedly* limited to.  I suggest that some of these guys who go around
    grunting things like "Great boobies, babe!" might take a lesson or two from
    Dean in how to express themselves.

    What I especially enjoyed was the air of utter euphoria about them.  It's a
    great change to see someone expressing sheer joy on a BBS.

    Speaking of contrasts, I used to have a neatly contrasted pair of quotations
    from song lyrics posted on a cork board outside my office about ten years
    ago.  Their theme was also male appreciation of the opposite sex.
    Unfortunately I can't remember one of them now (I think it was from a
    Lennon-McCartney song), but the other one still sticks in my mind.  Still, I
    can fake it in the next post.

    Message: 1516
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Appreciating women
    Date: 09/20/90  Time: 01:24:56

    Styles in song lyrics have changed a bit over the years.  In 1958 the Everly
    Brothers sang "Whenever I want you, all I have to do is dream".  They went
    on to sing "I need you so, that I could die..."

    By the mid-60s, the Beatles were sounding a little more positive and goal-
    oriented when they sang "GOT to get you into my life!"  There's a lot to be
    said for the assertive approach, compared with sitting around and mooning
    over nonexistent love.

    A decade later, the group Kiss combined both sentiments in their song
    "Christine Sixteen" with the words "I gotta have her, can't live without
    her..."  Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.  So far.

    Unfortunately Kiss had already blown their chances in the previous line,
    where they expressed their joyful appreciation of the beloved in their own
    way: "She's been around...  but she's young and clean!"

    *=* Journey to a SIG *=*

    Mail from Jeff Beck
    Date: 09/16/90  Time: 21:23:35

    Thanks for the dope on the ASU computer.  I didn't know that such a service
    was available to the public.  I will try it out sometimes soon.

    BTW, I have an old U.S. Armed Forces film made for the consumption of our
    troops stationed in Germany just after WW II.  It's called "Your Job In
    Germany" and was written by Dr. Seuss (using his real name -- I forget what
    that is) and directed by Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life, et al.)
    I think you might get a kick out of it.  Actually, it's pretty good. (It's
    also short...about 15 minutes, I think.)

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