perm filename F85.OUT[LET,JMC] blob
sn#807020 filedate 1985-12-31 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ⊗ VALID 00285 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00028 00002 ∂01-Oct-85 0140 JMC
C00030 00003 ∂01-Oct-85 1127 JMC re: Renaissance Thanksgiving dinner...
C00031 00004 ∂01-Oct-85 1602 JMC
C00032 00005 ∂01-Oct-85 1708 JMC re: Your account
C00033 00006 ∂01-Oct-85 2229 JMC re: Want to talk?
C00034 00007 ∂02-Oct-85 0851 JMC re: CSD Computer Facilities meeting
C00035 00008 ∂02-Oct-85 0852 JMC re: Want to talk?
C00036 00009 ∂02-Oct-85 0921 JMC re: reference?
C00037 00010 ∂02-Oct-85 1037 JMC Can you send me this book?
C00038 00011 ∂02-Oct-85 1042 JMC library books
C00039 00012 ∂02-Oct-85 1414 JMC
C00040 00013 ∂02-Oct-85 1502 JMC re: Robotics Search Committee
C00041 00014 ∂02-Oct-85 1626 JMC re: talking
C00042 00015 ∂02-Oct-85 2307 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00043 00016 ∂02-Oct-85 2315 JMC re: consumer reports, March 1981 (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00045 00017 ∂03-Oct-85 0933 JMC
C00046 00018 ∂03-Oct-85 1018 JMC
C00047 00019 ∂03-Oct-85 1049 JMC re: talking
C00049 00020 ∂03-Oct-85 1121 JMC
C00050 00021 ∂03-Oct-85 1121 JMC
C00051 00022 ∂03-Oct-85 1140 JMC
C00052 00023 ∂03-Oct-85 1500 JMC news from Taiwan
C00056 00024 ∂03-Oct-85 1509 JMC re: newspaper proposal. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00057 00025 ∂03-Oct-85 1515 JMC re: people
C00058 00026 ∂03-Oct-85 1531 JMC for announcement
C00059 00027 ∂03-Oct-85 1748 JMC re: German newspapers (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00060 00028 ∂03-Oct-85 1757 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00062 00029 ∂03-Oct-85 1810 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00065 00030 ∂03-Oct-85 1819 JMC re: japanese
C00067 00031 ∂03-Oct-85 1822 JMC re: mcc
C00068 00032 ∂04-Oct-85 0910 JMC re: Hotel reservations
C00069 00033 ∂04-Oct-85 1323 JMC
C00070 00034 ∂04-Oct-85 1517 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00072 00035 ∂04-Oct-85 1607 JMC
C00073 00036 ∂04-Oct-85 1634 Mailer failed mail returned
C00074 00037 ∂04-Oct-85 1717 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00077 00038 ∂04-Oct-85 1721 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00078 00039 ∂04-Oct-85 1726 JMC re: private (not for BBoards)
C00079 00040 ∂04-Oct-85 1804 JMC re: Mosher
C00082 00041 ∂04-Oct-85 1911 JMC re: respect
C00084 00042 ∂05-Oct-85 0004 JMC
C00085 00043 ∂05-Oct-85 0133 JMC your circumscription
C00086 00044 ∂05-Oct-85 2255 JMC re: your circumscription
C00087 00045 ∂06-Oct-85 0808 JMC
C00088 00046 ∂06-Oct-85 0934 JMC re: communism & democracy -- how do they differ? (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00090 00047 ∂06-Oct-85 1523 JMC re: Capitalism or Democracy vs. Communism .. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00093 00048 ∂07-Oct-85 1440 JMC minimality criterion of circumscription
C00099 00049 ∂07-Oct-85 1440 JMC re: minimality criterion of circumscription
C00101 00050 ∂07-Oct-85 1453 JMC re: Reading is Believing? (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00103 00051 ∂07-Oct-85 1521 JMC for distribution
C00108 00052 ∂07-Oct-85 1533 JMC missing paper
C00109 00053 ∂08-Oct-85 0822 JMC re: RISKS-1.19
C00110 00054 ∂08-Oct-85 0828 JMC re: Cable Co-op wins and so will you! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00111 00055 ∂08-Oct-85 1435 JMC reference
C00112 00056 ∂08-Oct-85 1442 JMC
C00114 00057 ∂08-Oct-85 1446 JMC re: PLANLUNCH mailing list
C00115 00058 ∂08-Oct-85 2319 JMC
C00116 00059 ∂09-Oct-85 1055 JMC comparers
C00117 00060 ∂09-Oct-85 1141 JMC my draft
C00120 00061 ∂09-Oct-85 1328 JMC selective bboard reading
C00121 00062 ∂09-Oct-85 1347 JMC
C00123 00063 ∂09-Oct-85 1347 JMC reply to message
C00124 00064 ∂09-Oct-85 1630 JMC logic programming candidate
C00125 00065 ∂10-Oct-85 1132 JMC Meeting with Nils
C00127 00066 ∂10-Oct-85 1132 JMC re: Meeting with Nils
C00128 00067 ∂10-Oct-85 1149 JMC re: another information overload solution (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00131 00068 ∂10-Oct-85 1704 JMC your first sentence
C00132 00069 ∂10-Oct-85 1805 JMC the letter
C00134 00070 ∂10-Oct-85 1824 JMC
C00135 00071 ∂11-Oct-85 1049 JMC re: another information overload solution (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00136 00072 ∂11-Oct-85 1609 JMC re: campus life (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00138 00073 ∂11-Oct-85 1743 JMC visiting student request
C00142 00074 ∂12-Oct-85 0003 JMC re: campus life (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00143 00075 ∂12-Oct-85 2258 JMC
C00144 00076 ∂13-Oct-85 1114 JMC re: DEC and Big Blue (IBM) (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00147 00077 ∂13-Oct-85 1250 JMC re: Genesereth Draft Letter
C00148 00078 ∂13-Oct-85 1300 JMC re: Genesereth Draft Letter
C00149 00079 ∂13-Oct-85 1305 JMC re: Proposed Course
C00150 00080 ∂13-Oct-85 1842 JMC Eleanor message
C00151 00081 ∂13-Oct-85 1858 JMC re: Eleanor message
C00152 00082 ∂13-Oct-85 2043 JMC re: Operating systems debate (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00153 00083 ∂14-Oct-85 1039 JMC office hours for TA's
C00155 00084 ∂14-Oct-85 1048 JMC last thought
C00156 00085 ∂14-Oct-85 1107 JMC re: Yuri Gurevich
C00157 00086 ∂14-Oct-85 1118 JMC
C00158 00087 ∂14-Oct-85 1309 JMC re: Thursday trips
C00159 00088 ∂14-Oct-85 1335 JMC re: Interception of Alleged Terrorists (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00162 00089 ∂14-Oct-85 1531 JMC re: the woman
C00163 00090 ∂14-Oct-85 1654 JMC re: Helpless Children (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00164 00091 ∂15-Oct-85 0003 JMC letter
C00165 00092 ∂15-Oct-85 1108 JMC lunch
C00166 00093 ∂15-Oct-85 1141 JMC re: lunch
C00167 00094 ∂15-Oct-85 1151 JMC
C00168 00095 ∂15-Oct-85 1443 JMC re: people
C00169 00096 ∂15-Oct-85 1444 Mailer failed mail returned
C00170 00097 ∂15-Oct-85 1449 JMC reply to message
C00171 00098 ∂15-Oct-85 1508 JMC re: History Question
C00174 00099 ∂15-Oct-85 1513 JMC re: History Question
C00175 00100 ∂15-Oct-85 1517 JMC re: DARPA
C00176 00101 ∂15-Oct-85 1844 JMC cs350
C00178 00102 ∂22-Oct-85 2223 JMC re: CS:306 notes and test-taking conditios
C00179 00103 ∂23-Oct-85 0919 JMC re: Greg Bledsoe, RIP
C00180 00104 ∂23-Oct-85 0949 JMC Greg Bledsoe, RIP
C00181 00105 ∂23-Oct-85 1057 JMC
C00182 00106 ∂23-Oct-85 1213 JMC re: Mailboxes
C00183 00107 ∂24-Oct-85 0915 JMC re: New Tutorial Chair
C00184 00108 ∂24-Oct-85 1158 JMC mcc bill
C00185 00109 ∂24-Oct-85 1525 JMC Industry lecturers
C00187 00110 ∂24-Oct-85 1537 JMC re: Jussi Ketonen
C00188 00111 ∂24-Oct-85 1545 JMC re: New syntax for abnormality
C00189 00112 ∂24-Oct-85 1545 JMC re: leave early
C00190 00113 ∂24-Oct-85 1617 JMC re: Programming in C on Sushi (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00191 00114 ∂24-Oct-85 1646 JMC re: PLANLUNCH RESUMES MONDAY....
C00192 00115 ∂24-Oct-85 1716 JMC re: Student Unix machine (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00193 00116 ∂24-Oct-85 1733 JMC
C00194 00117 ∂24-Oct-85 2242 JMC re: la brea (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00195 00118 ∂24-Oct-85 2244 JMC la brea
C00197 00119 ∂24-Oct-85 2343 JMC re: Additional coastline considerations... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00198 00120 ∂25-Oct-85 1043 JMC re: robotics
C00199 00121 ∂25-Oct-85 1051 JMC re: robotics
C00200 00122 ∂25-Oct-85 1135 JMC Nicaragua learns from the Soviet model
C00203 00123 ∂25-Oct-85 1351 JMC
C00204 00124 ∂25-Oct-85 1526 JMC re: recommendation for Genesereth
C00205 00125 ∂25-Oct-85 1645 JMC re: Cheap ET Material Mission
C00206 00126 ∂25-Oct-85 1646 JMC Class Lists
C00207 00127 ∂25-Oct-85 2255 JMC re: playing with one piece short
C00208 00128 ∂26-Oct-85 1615 JMC
C00209 00129 ∂26-Oct-85 1742 JMC
C00210 00130 ∂26-Oct-85 1807 JMC My position paper
C00219 00131 ∂27-Oct-85 1036 JMC More on the Sierra Club
C00223 00132 ∂27-Oct-85 1531 JMC re: meeting
C00224 00133 ∂27-Oct-85 1532 JMC re: Student names
C00225 00134 ∂27-Oct-85 1536 JMC re: More on the Sierra Club (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00226 00135 ∂27-Oct-85 1845 JMC American Academy of Arts and Sciences
C00230 00136 ∂27-Oct-85 2158 JMC information request
C00231 00137 ∂28-Oct-85 0847 JMC reply to message
C00232 00138 ∂28-Oct-85 0859 JMC
C00235 00139 ∂28-Oct-85 0901 JMC re: XGP fonts to the DOVER
C00236 00140 ∂28-Oct-85 0907 JMC re: Sierra Club
C00237 00141 ∂28-Oct-85 0908 JMC re: Sarah's birthday
C00238 00142 ∂28-Oct-85 1035 JMC
C00239 00143 ∂28-Oct-85 1051 JMC Martin
C00240 00144 ∂28-Oct-85 1122 JMC re: Sierra and hara-kiri and democracy and Taiwan and... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00241 00145 ∂28-Oct-85 1223 JMC re: Sierra and hara-kiri and democracy and Taiwan and... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00243 00146 ∂28-Oct-85 1432 JMC re: More on the Sierra Club
C00245 00147 ∂28-Oct-85 1545 JMC re: Kurt Ceel, future student
C00246 00148 ∂28-Oct-85 1607 JMC re: The Wall Street Journal, Steven Mosher, and the University (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00249 00149 ∂28-Oct-85 1711 JMC
C00250 00150 ∂30-Oct-85 1007 JMC re: The talk
C00251 00151 ∂30-Oct-85 1552 JMC
C00252 00152 ∂30-Oct-85 1553 JMC
C00253 00153 ∂30-Oct-85 1554 JMC
C00254 00154 ∂30-Oct-85 2359 JMC re: Nicaragua learns from the Soviet model (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00255 00155 ∂31-Oct-85 0941 JMC re: Spinach (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00256 00156 ∂31-Oct-85 1007 JMC new policy on LaBrea
C00257 00157 ∂31-Oct-85 1145 JMC Near West Campus
C00258 00158 ∂31-Oct-85 1442 JMC
C00259 00159 ∂31-Oct-85 1520 JMC re: Democracy and War (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00261 00160 ∂01-Nov-85 0014 JMC re: There's a hole in the roof... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00262 00161 ∂01-Nov-85 0934 JMC re: Vet school application fee.
C00263 00162 ∂01-Nov-85 1016 JMC re: two practical questions
C00264 00163 ∂01-Nov-85 1240 JMC re: How does one READ SERVIC.DOC on SAIL...
C00265 00164 ∂01-Nov-85 1241 JMC
C00266 00165 ∂01-Nov-85 1244 JMC message from Brian Reid
C00267 00166 ∂01-Nov-85 1513 JMC
C00268 00167 ∂01-Nov-85 1627 JMC
C00273 00168 ∂01-Nov-85 1710 JMC ebos
C00274 00169 ∂02-Nov-85 1251 JMC Might you be interested in the UCB lecture?
C00275 00170 ∂04-Nov-85 0944 JMC
C00276 00171 ∂04-Nov-85 1113 JMC
C00277 00172 ∂04-Nov-85 1116 JMC
C00278 00173 ∂04-Nov-85 1436 JMC Our Qlisp proposal
C00279 00174 ∂04-Nov-85 1500 JMC re: message from Brian Reid
C00280 00175 ∂04-Nov-85 1850 JMC re: Using ttyloc or ttyini?? (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00281 00176 ∂04-Nov-85 2016 JMC re: SUNs running EMACS.
C00282 00177 ∂05-Nov-85 1141 JMC re: CS306 problems
C00283 00178 ∂05-Nov-85 1217 JMC
C00284 00179 ∂05-Nov-85 1438 JMC Please decide what to do.
C00289 00180 ∂05-Nov-85 1442 JMC
C00290 00181 ∂05-Nov-85 1751 JMC talk title
C00291 00182 ∂05-Nov-85 1757 JMC re: Colourless green ideas... Again pls?
C00292 00183 ∂05-Nov-85 1924 JMC sorry
C00293 00184 ∂05-Nov-85 2222 JMC re: Thanks
C00294 00185 ∂05-Nov-85 2225 JMC
C00295 00186 ∂06-Nov-85 0042 JMC re: SIGLUNCH, Nov. 15
C00296 00187 ∂06-Nov-85 1024 JMC
C00297 00188 ∂06-Nov-85 1553 JMC
C00298 00189 ∂06-Nov-85 1556 JMC
C00299 00190 ∂08-Nov-85 1749 JMC re: Good S.F. restaurant needed
C00300 00191 ∂08-Nov-85 1751 JMC re: (probably not the final word) (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00301 00192 ∂09-Nov-85 1219 JMC Kasparov wins
C00304 00193 ∂09-Nov-85 2150 JMC re: AP
C00305 00194 ∂10-Nov-85 1331 JMC
C00306 00195 ∂10-Nov-85 1345 JMC
C00307 00196 ∂10-Nov-85 1718 JMC
C00308 00197 ∂10-Nov-85 1757 JMC
C00309 00198 ∂10-Nov-85 1942 JMC re: Rain ? - I should explain..... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00310 00199 ∂11-Nov-85 0417 JMC
C00311 00200 ∂11-Nov-85 0439 JMC
C00312 00201 ∂11-Nov-85 0440 JMC
C00313 00202 ∂11-Nov-85 0720 JMC
C00314 00203 ∂11-Nov-85 2339 JMC re: Congratulations!
C00315 00204 ∂12-Nov-85 1109 JMC re: flaunt vs. flout (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00316 00205 ∂12-Nov-85 1446 JMC ekl proofs
C00317 00206 ∂12-Nov-85 1843 JMC re: inviting Reiter
C00318 00207 ∂12-Nov-85 1850 JMC militant moralism
C00319 00208 ∂12-Nov-85 2336 JMC re: Good news
C00320 00209 ∂13-Nov-85 1004 JMC smoking and militant moralism
C00323 00210 ∂13-Nov-85 1052 JMC noise and smoking
C00325 00211 ∂13-Nov-85 1602 JMC re: Herb Grosch
C00326 00212 ∂13-Nov-85 1622 JMC noise and smoking
C00328 00213 ∂13-Nov-85 1837 JMC re: Herb Grosch
C00329 00214 ∂13-Nov-85 2058 JMC
C00330 00215 ∂14-Nov-85 0659 JMC re: The ultimate bboard flame. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00332 00216 ∂14-Nov-85 1055 JMC
C00333 00217 ∂14-Nov-85 1352 JMC collaboration
C00334 00218 ∂15-Nov-85 1048 JMC
C00335 00219 ∂15-Nov-85 1338 JMC re: autos and pollution (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00337 00220 ∂15-Nov-85 1528 JMC
C00338 00221 ∂15-Nov-85 1539 JMC re: siglunch
C00340 00222 ∂16-Nov-85 1601 JMC Selective civil rights.
C00345 00223 ∂16-Nov-85 1710 JMC returned message
C00346 00224 ∂17-Nov-85 1159 JMC re: Mosher case
C00350 00225 ∂17-Nov-85 1213 JMC re: Courtesy Accounts
C00353 00226 ∂17-Nov-85 1229 Mailer failed mail returned
C00356 00227 ∂17-Nov-85 1248 JMC jjw thesis
C00358 00228 ∂17-Nov-85 1434 JMC re: judgment
C00362 00229 ∂17-Nov-85 1656 JMC banquet speech
C00363 00230 ∂17-Nov-85 1747 JMC
C00364 00231 ∂17-Nov-85 1803 JMC
C00365 00232 ∂17-Nov-85 1850 JMC parking
C00366 00233 ∂17-Nov-85 1853 JMC
C00367 00234 ∂18-Nov-85 1045 JMC re: parking
C00368 00235 ∂18-Nov-85 1319 JMC chess computer
C00377 00236 ∂18-Nov-85 1356 JMC re: thanks --
C00378 00237 ∂18-Nov-85 1438 JMC
C00379 00238 ∂18-Nov-85 1442 JMC Shapiro
C00380 00239 ∂18-Nov-85 1458 JMC re: a reminder
C00381 00240 ∂18-Nov-85 1709 JMC Parnas
C00384 00241 ∂19-Nov-85 0057 JMC con.grat.u.la.shions
C00386 00242 ∂19-Nov-85 1016 JMC re: Russia's computing
C00388 00243 ∂19-Nov-85 1019 JMC re: Hi!
C00389 00244 ∂19-Nov-85 1021 JMC Congratulations
C00391 00245 ∂19-Nov-85 1141 JMC Subject: Found! list of proof methodologies (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00392 00246 ∂19-Nov-85 1157 JMC reply to message
C00393 00247 ∂19-Nov-85 1522 JMC your memo to Gibbons
C00394 00248 ∂19-Nov-85 1651 JMC fields of computer science
C00395 00249 ∂20-Nov-85 2045 JMC re: Schlipf paper
C00396 00250 ∂20-Nov-85 2245 JMC removal
C00397 00251 ∂21-Nov-85 1307 JMC re: Schlipf paper
C00398 00252 ∂21-Nov-85 1625 JMC Subject: Barefoot and Pregnant (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00399 00253 ∂21-Nov-85 1637 JMC re: British ABC's (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00400 00254 ∂21-Nov-85 1641 JMC re: death by dinosaur dung (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00401 00255 ∂21-Nov-85 1705 JMC
C00402 00256 ∂22-Nov-85 0030 JMC re: Furrin Pronunciation (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00405 00257 ∂22-Nov-85 1711 JMC re: seminar
C00406 00258 ∂22-Nov-85 1741 JMC re: Romanji (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00408 00259 ∂23-Nov-85 1100 JMC need to avoid misprints
C00409 00260 ∂23-Nov-85 1111 JMC
C00410 00261 ∂23-Nov-85 1229 JMC things
C00412 00262 ∂23-Nov-85 2228 JMC some interesting opportunities for questions and education
C00414 00263 ∂24-Nov-85 1226 JMC $1 an hour
C00415 00264 ∂24-Nov-85 1851 JMC Mosher
C00430 00265 ∂24-Nov-85 2325 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00433 00266 ∂25-Nov-85 0742 JMC re: The night of Dec 3
C00434 00267 ∂25-Nov-85 0756 JMC re: JMC and the Mosher Case (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00435 00268 ∂25-Nov-85 1202 JMC People's democracy vs. democracy
C00444 00269 ∂25-Nov-85 1440 JMC
C00445 00270 ∂25-Nov-85 1712 JMC
C00446 00271 ∂25-Nov-85 1722 JMC re: trip to Michigan
C00447 00272 ∂25-Nov-85 1732 JMC continuity by rewrite
C00449 00273 ∂25-Nov-85 1739 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00451 00274 ∂25-Nov-85 1836 JMC consulting opportunity
C00452 00275 ∂25-Nov-85 2012 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00455 00276 ∂25-Nov-85 2204 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00457 00277 ∂26-Nov-85 1038 JMC re: JMC and the Mosher Case (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00458 00278 ∂26-Nov-85 1444 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00459 00279 ∂26-Nov-85 1645 JMC your example
C00461 00280 ∂26-Nov-85 1849 JMC re: More Mosher! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
C00465 00281 ∂27-Nov-85 1050 JMC re: Qual syllabus
C00466 00282 ∂28-Nov-85 1705 JMC other approach
C00467 00283 ∂29-Nov-85 1400 JMC Ian Mason will lecture on Tuesday and Carolyn Talcott on Thursday.
C00468 00284 ∂29-Nov-85 1702 JMC re: Planning workshop
C00469 00285 ∂29-Nov-85 1723 JMC reply to message
C00471 ENDMK
C⊗;
∂01-Oct-85 0140 JMC
To: "@TA.306[F85,JMC]"@SU-AI.ARPA
Please reproduce proble[f85,jmc] for class today.
∂01-Oct-85 1127 JMC re: Renaissance Thanksgiving dinner...
To: Lerner@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 1 Oct 85 11:08:23-PDT.]
I'm afraid you'll have to include me out.
∂01-Oct-85 1602 JMC
To: VAL
∂18-Sep-85 1440 spar!hayes@decwrl.ARPA
∂01-Oct-85 1708 JMC re: Your account
To: S.STEUBER@LOTS-C
[In reply to message sent Tue 1 Oct 85 17:10:04-PDT.]
Thanks for activating the account.
∂01-Oct-85 2229 JMC re: Want to talk?
To: Rich.Thomason@C.CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Thu 26 Sep 85 08:37:51-EDT.]
It turns out that I have to be in Austin on the 18th and 19th. I
hadn't entered it in my calendar. Could we talk on Sunday the
20th or even the evening of the 19th?
∂02-Oct-85 0851 JMC re: CSD Computer Facilities meeting
To: cheriton@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 2 Oct 85 00:20:55 pdt.]
Oct. 9 at 4p is ok for me.
∂02-Oct-85 0852 JMC re: Want to talk?
To: Rich.Thomason@C.CS.CMU.EDU
[In reply to message sent Wed 2 Oct 85 05:26:00-EDT.]
How about 11am with the same arrangements as before?
∂02-Oct-85 0921 JMC re: reference?
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Oct-85 08:48-PT.]
The reference should be "to appear in Artificial Intelligence"; it has
been accepted.
∂02-Oct-85 1037 JMC Can you send me this book?
To: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
1.1) Cherry, George William, PARALLEL PROGRAMMING IN ANSI STANDARD ADA (Reston,
Va. : c1984.)
LOCATION: QA76.6.C444 1984: Math & Comp Sci
∂02-Oct-85 1042 JMC library books
To: RA
If you get a proxy card from the library for me to sign, when you
get a book for me, I will be responsible for it not you. Also I
will be able to keep it for up to the academic year, and no fines
will be incurred.
∂02-Oct-85 1414 JMC
To: CLT
Cate called about IRT properties. Let's decide soon.
∂02-Oct-85 1502 JMC re: Robotics Search Committee
To: RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 2 Oct 85 14:46:06-PDT.]
I got it.
∂02-Oct-85 1626 JMC re: talking
To: PHayes@SRI-KL.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 2 Oct 85 15:55:15-PDT.]
How about Friday at 1:30? I'm going to SIGLUNCH to hear Mike Genesereth
talk about introspection. If you come here at 11:45 we can go over
together and get seats.
∂02-Oct-85 2307 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I trust MRC is also criticizing the State Department for failing to
coerce the Chinese communists into permitting freedom of speech. There is
not one known dissident out of jail in Mainland China.
∂02-Oct-85 2315 JMC re: consumer reports, March 1981 (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Consumer Reports' irrationality about microwave ovens was far
worse in the early 1970s. I figure they killed several hundred
children by this if you ascribe the slower market penetration of
microwave ovens in the U.S. compared to Japan to CU and Ralph Nader
and make some assumptions about what fraction of fire deaths from
cooking and heating listed in Statistical Abstracts of the U.S.
would have been avoided by using microwaves instead of conventional
stoves. Wanted: someone to make accurate calculations from available
statistics.
∂03-Oct-85 0933 JMC
To: RA
scarle.5
∂03-Oct-85 1018 JMC
To: CLT
Call it biojmc.tex[1,jmc].
∂03-Oct-85 1049 JMC re: talking
To: tajnai@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Here's some electronic mail from Pat Hayes with a return path. My guess
is that spar stands for Schlumberger Palo Alto Research.
∂03-Oct-85 1045 spar!hayes@decwrl.ARPA re: talking
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Date: Thu, 3 Oct 85 09:40:27 bst
From: Patrick Hayes <spar!hayes@decwrl.ARPA>
Message-Id: <8510031640.AA07018@spar-cas-krazykat>
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: re: talking
see you.
pat
∂03-Oct-85 1121 JMC
To: DC
Rover is non-functional beyond knowledge of 3rd floor.
∂03-Oct-85 1121 JMC
To: RA
huskey.1 when we have the photograph
∂03-Oct-85 1140 JMC
To: DC
Rover is working again.
∂03-Oct-85 1500 JMC news from Taiwan
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc -
Bill Poser - "Isn't his a red herring? Limitations ... in China ... hardly
justify them in Taiwan ... but the U.S. has more influence in Taiwan than
in China".
No, it's not quite a red herring, even though the remarks about influence
are correct. It is a good thing for the State Department to apply its
influence where it may be effective, e.g. Taiwan. It is another to take
the position that because we can complain about lack of free speech in
Taiwan, we should abandon it to the tender mercies of Communist China.
For that a comparison of freedom in the two places is relevant. Unfortunately,
the intent of many of the complainers about lack of freedom in Taiwan
isn't to increase freedom in Taiwan, it's to help Mainland China take
it over, which would greatly decrease freedom in Taiwan. MRC, who
started the current Taiwan BBOARD flap was a fan of Communist China
and used to leave its propaganda in the CS lounge. He doesn't do
that any more, so maybe he now recognizes that Taiwan has more
freedom than Communist China and merely wants to improve Taiwan.
What about it MRC?
Let me also remark that ever since Nixon's visit to China, the American
press and public has tended to fawn on Communist China to the point
of obsequiousness. The Maoist propaganda that the cultural revolution
was universally approved in China was swallowed whole, and now the
reforms are swallowed whole. Symptomatic is the immediate adoption
of the Communists reform in writing Chinese names in Latin letters.
This made these names much harder to pronounce for Americans who
haven't studied the system, e.g. most people don't know that X is
used for one variety of SH, and Q is used for what we pronounce CH.
What is convenient for one country to use internally for romanization
is not generally convenient for others to use in pronouncing other
languages. The adoption of the Chinese reform is unique; we don't
use the Japanese Romaji for writing Japanese words, because it
misleads Americans even further from the Japanese pronunciation.
That's why I consider the American adoption of the Chinese "reform"
as an example of obsequiousness.
∂03-Oct-85 1509 JMC re: newspaper proposal. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - The Economist is ok, and I might help share a subscription, but
the New Scientist is rather irrationally anti-American and leftist.
∂03-Oct-85 1515 JMC re: people
To: GENESERETH@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 3 Oct 85 15:02:58-PDT.]
The list of comparees is fine, now for your proposals as to comparers.
∂03-Oct-85 1531 JMC for announcement
To: VAL
John McCarthy will begin the seminar by discussing some of the problems
that have arisen in using abnormality to formalize common sense
knowledge about the effects of actions using circumscription. His
paper Applications of Circumscription to Formalizing Commmon Sense
Knowledge is available from Rutie Adler 358MJH. This paper was given
in the Non-monotonic Workshop, and the present version, which is to
be published in Artificial Intelligence, is not greatly different.
The problems in question relate to trying to use the formalism of
that paper.
∂03-Oct-85 1748 JMC re: German newspapers (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Ed Schaefer's "I realized only then how much power of censorship
the U.S. govt has over our newspapers" is an example of American
automatic anti-American attitudes (presuming Schaefer is an American).
Let's see some evidence that the govt has any censorship power.
∂03-Oct-85 1757 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 3 Oct 85 13:09:58-PDT.]
In replying to your above message in bboard I had to move yours to the
SAIL bboard. This is because your reply was to OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI,
and this causes the message to be sent to all other bboards except
SAIL's. The reason for the OTHER ... is that reading the bulletin
board in SAIL is done with the editor on BBOARD file itself, and a
user replies to a message by adding his comment after it. Anyway
when you reply to a message from the SAIL bboard, change the
OTHER-SU-BBOARDS to SU-BBOARDS. Better yet mail to SU-BBOARDS on
your own computer.
∂03-Oct-85 1810 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - MRC's latest confirms my conjecture that his objective isn't
primarily to increase freedom of speech in Taiwan. Needless to say,
I don't accept his characterization of Taiwan or his perhaps racist
excuse for lack of freedom in Communist China on the grounds that
they have a "culture and social system different from our own".
Of course, to the extent that this excuse would apply, it would
apply to Taiwan also. My point about Pinyin concerned mainly
the rush with which it was adopted by the media here in contrast
to their ignoring other countries' changes in orthography.
I hope one of the Chinese participants in the discussion will
provide us with a detailed comparison of the relative freedom
in Taiwan and the Mainland. My own opinion of Taiwan is that
it can tolerate a lot more opposition including even pro-communist
propaganda without endangering its security. Indeed it could
greatly improve its position by proposing to Communist Chinese
that each govt be allowed to publish a newspaper circulated in
the territory controlled by the other. While Taiwan probably
censors and occasionally suppresses opposition newspapers, in
communist China there are none at all, and the people who
persistently put up posters on Democrary Wall got 15 year
gulag sentences.
∂03-Oct-85 1819 JMC re: japanese
To: WINSLETT@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 3 Oct 85 17:58:13-PDT.]
Indeed Japanese is easy to pronounce for someone who knows either
system. The Romaji system corresponds to hiragana, and anyone who
knows hiragana will know that ti is pronounced as English speakers
pronounce chi. The mathematician Takeuti has his name pronounced
that way although many Japanese with the same name spell it
with the Hepburn romanization as Takeuchi which results in a
pronunciation closely approximating the Japanese. The best romanization
for speakers of a different language is different from that best
for natives. The situation is even more complex with Russian,
where English speakers, French speakers and German speakers all
use different romanizations. Actually two different systems are
justified for American use, one that approximates the pronunciation
and another that permits accurately recreating the Russian orthography.
The Library of Congress uses the latter as does the American Mathematical
Society, etc. Newspapers correctly use the former.
∂03-Oct-85 1822 JMC re: mcc
To: AI.BOYER@MCC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu, 3 Oct 1985 20:17 CDT.]
I still plan to come for those days, and a dinner will be fine.
∂04-Oct-85 0910 JMC re: Hotel reservations
To: AI.ELLIE@MCC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 4 Oct 85 10:33:56-CDT.]
Thanks, those reservations are what I need.
∂04-Oct-85 1323 JMC
To: genesereth@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Put VAL@SAIL in Siglunch Announcement list.
∂04-Oct-85 1517 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I'm glad that quite a number of Chinese students, presumably mostly
from Taiwan, have chosen to defend the Republic of China. It will be
interesting if the BBOARD readers from the mainland have something to add
to the discussion. Let me encourage them to say what they think
individually rather than organize a group response. This may be difficult
for people from a communist country, where (I have come to believe)
ordinary people regard politics as like the weather, determined by forces
over which they have no control and little knowledge. Signed messages
would be best, but some may consider an unsigned message safer, and I
believe they should be accepted in this case. One way to do it is to
telnet to SAIL or use a SAIL terminal and then type MAIL SU-BBOARDS
without first logging in. SAIL will ask for a name but a pseudonym will
be accepted. I trust that no-one who doesn't consider himself in some
genuine danger will use this method of communication.
∂04-Oct-85 1607 JMC
To: vardi@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
Hmm. The situation is more complicated than I thought. I
checked my memory with the following and thought it conclusive.
∂04-Oct-85 1510 100 (from: anonymous on TTY74, at TV-140)
test
∂04-Oct-85 1634 Mailer failed mail returned
To: JMC
In processing the following command:
MAIL Kathy O'Toole Oakland Tribune
The following message was aborted because of a command error,
namely, nonexistent recipient(s):
Kathy
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
∂04-Oct-85 1634 JMC
O'Toole Oakland Tribune
------- End undelivered message -------
∂04-Oct-85 1717 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Some added points
- In response to MRC
I don't know whether the KMT would win a truly free election
in all of China, but it might. Most likely, however, freedom of
political organization and free elections would result in some
new force whose members experienced life under the communists
but would want something different.
- In response to Greg Stevens.
I don't understand your use of quotation marks.
None of the phrases "loyalty", "communist propagandizer" or "political
leanings" cited in your message occur in my previous messages. Let
me again defend the relevance of my remark that MRC "was a fan of
Communist China". It was in response to a comment from someone else
that my previous request that he compare freedom in communist China
with Taiwan was irrelevant. I surmise, and it seems to me that MRC
confirmed, that he was not merely interested in improving Taiwan
but favored its being taken over by the communists. Of course, it
was also necessary to express an opinion on the state of freedom
in Taiwan itself. My further opinion is that anyone may criticize
anyone else for anything. It doesn't count as an attempt to
"destroy the academic careers" unless a proposal is made for
action, e.g. as in the Anthropology Department's destruction of
the academic career of Stephen Mosher.
∂04-Oct-85 1721 JMC re: news from Taiwan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It appears that anonymous mail via SAIL only works from a
hardwired terminal.
∂04-Oct-85 1726 JMC re: private (not for BBoards)
To: Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 4 Oct 85 17:09:20-PDT.]
I suppose that anyone who feels the need for anonymity and wants
to use it will do so without further invitation. However, if you
think the point needs to be made explicit, and by me, I'll do it.
As to asylum, I suppose I'd refer either to the proper authorities,
i.e. the Immigration Service. Presumably, I'm more likely to be
asked for such advice by someone who fears a communist government.
∂04-Oct-85 1804 JMC re: Mosher
To: Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 4 Oct 85 17:33:57-PDT.]
I read only part of the charges. The ones I read didn't amount to
much in the sense that the violation of Chinese regulations would be
considered trivial in a journalist. I did read Mosher's two books,
however, and also the book by the journalist Fox Butterfield. It
seemed to me that Mosher found out much more about what rural China
is like that any journalist has done and much more than anyone has
been able to find out about the Soviet Union. This is entirely apart
from the forced abortion matter. I can understand that perhaps anthropologists
have a different attitude to co-operating with governments than
journalists, although, as far as I can recall, American anthropologists
have defended their colleagues accused of improper activities by
right wing Latin American governments. The fact that the chairman
of the Anthropology department at Stanford is a prominent supporter
of left wing causes doesn't only arouses my rightist suspicions.
Which of the charges against Mosher strikes you as the most serious.
I was somewhat surprised that Kennedy brought up his changing his
thesis topic without permission as a charge. This seems like scraping
the bottom of the barrel, since any anthropology student suddenly
getting a chance to work in the mainland would be inclined to change
his topic - at least eventually.
∂04-Oct-85 1911 JMC re: respect
To: KUO@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 4 Oct 85 17:45:50-PDT.]
Thanks for your kind words. On a related matter, I note some recent
remarks by Tai Jin on BBOARD with which I (and presumably you) will find
considerable to disagree. I hope that my next remark will strike you as
superfluous and maybe even somewhat insulting, but I really don't know
anything much about the form that political disagremeent takes among
Chinese in the U.S.A. Anyway I hope that any expressions of disagreement
with Tai Jin will take an entirely verbal form. Otherwise, MRC will win
the argument. In fact I suggest that verbal disagreements be expressed in
extremely polite language.
∂05-Oct-85 0004 JMC
To: pmf@S1-A.ARPA
Was that you logged in to SAIL just before midnight Oct 4?
∂05-Oct-85 0133 JMC your circumscription
To: VAL
Is it an example of a more general form wherein we allow individuals
as well as predicates to be included among the parameters?
∂05-Oct-85 2255 JMC re: your circumscription
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 05-Oct-85 22:53-PT.]
Thanks. I'll ponder this. Have a good trip.
∂06-Oct-85 0808 JMC
To: LES
SAIL says Rodger Cliff's birthday is today.
∂06-Oct-85 0934 JMC re: communism & democracy -- how do they differ? (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It is in principle possible to have communist democracies. However,
Indian states or Italian cities with communist governments are not examples,
because what these communist governments can do is limited by the national
governments of which they are parts. The aren't allowed to set up gulags
or even to nationalize property. The closest approximation to a communist
democracy is an Israeli kibbutz, since property is held in common there.
However, the worst it can do to a member is expel him.
∂06-Oct-85 1523 JMC re: Capitalism or Democracy vs. Communism .. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - This comment by FAT.KANAK cites many of the appeals of communism
in one message. Communism indeed promises all that FAT.KANAK mentions,
but we have 68 years of experience in the Soviet Union, 40 in Eastern
Europe, 36 in China, 26 in Cuba, and 10 in Vietnam to tell us that it
doesn't deliver on its promises. Maybe Nicaragua will be different from
all the others. However, there are always "political
pilgrims" (see book of that title by Paul Holland) to tell us about
new communist regimes that they have performed miracles or are about
to. This may be because new communist regimes have young enthusiasts
who brag a lot. The worst of these enthusiasts usually gain supreme
power by pushing aside and often imprisoning the others and then hold
it till they die of old age. When they're old they are less attractive
to the pilgrims, but on the other hand they are less inclined to mass
murder. People whose relatives have been declared "bad elements" and
killed by the communists often have irrational hatred for them.
As for coexisting with the communists, we have been doing so. What
more do you want in that direction?
∂07-Oct-85 1440 JMC minimality criterion of circumscription
To: VAL
∂07-Oct-85 1406 @SU-SCORE.ARPA:SHOHAM@YALE.ARPA minimality criterion of circumscription
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 7 Oct 85 14:06:00 PDT
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Message-Id: <8510072016.AA00765@YALE-BULLDOG.YALE.ARPA>
Received: from YALE-RING by YALE-RES via CHAOS; Mon, 7 Oct 85 15:58:37 EDT
Subject: minimality criterion of circumscription
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 85 15:58:38 EDT
From: Yoav Shoham <Shoham@YALE.ARPA>
To: JMC@SU-SCORE
Dear Prof. McCarthy,
Greetings from New Haven, where the weather is foul and all the
squirrels good looking. I wonder if you'd care to comment on the
following.
Recently I've been helping a friend who is struggling to apply
circumscription to temporal reasoning. It became apparent that
the model theoretic criterion of minimality (i.e., set inclusion)
was not appropriate for our purposes, nor could things be rectified
by using either prioritized circ. or joint circ.
I won't bore you with the details of the problem. Suffice it
to say that the models intuitively prefered were those where P(x)
held for
*as early x's as possible* rather than *as few x's as possible*.
Furthermore this preference criterion could not be obtained by
applying the usual set-inclusion criterion to some other
predicate in the theory.
One natural solution is to generalize circumscription by
parameterizing the minimality criterion. Have you or any of
your associates thought about such a possibility? It of course
would require rethinking the proof theory.
Another possibility is reducing any minimality criterion to the
existing one of set inclusion. For example, consider what could be
called the class of lexicographic criteria, where M1<M2 (wrt P)
if for a1<a2<... ai<... P(aj) is true in both models M1 and M2
for j=1..n, and P(a n+1) is true in M1 but not in M2.
In this case we could define a *new* predicate, say VIOLATE, as
follows:
VIOLATE(x,y) <=> P(x) ↑ -P(y) ↑ x<y.
Now by using prioritized circumscription on P *and* VIOLATE it
seems that we could achieve the desired effect.
However, it remains to be shown what needs to be done for more
complex criteria of minimality. I'm sure that you have more
insight into it than me, and would be interested in your comments.
Regards,
Yoav.
-------
Replying-To: Shoham@YALE.ARPA
Reply-Subject: re: minimality criterion of circumscription
Reply-Text:
[In reply to message sent Mon, 7 Oct 85 15:58:38 EDT.]
Vladimir Lifschitz VAL@SU-AI found some difficulties that may be similar
those your friend (who?) found in applying my axioms about moving and
painting in the blocks world. This led him to a new version of
circumscription that is presently specialized to the situation calculus.
However, I think it needs to be generalized, although I don't
understand it fully yet. Unfortunately, he is on vacation until the
end of October. I will think about your message some more, and if
I have further comments, I'll write again.
∂07-Oct-85 1440 JMC re: minimality criterion of circumscription
To: Shoham@YALE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 7 Oct 85 15:58:38 EDT.]
Vladimir Lifschitz VAL@SU-AI found some difficulties that may be similar
those your friend (who?) found in applying my axioms about moving and
painting in the blocks world. This led him to a new version of
circumscription that is presently specialized to the situation calculus.
However, I think it needs to be generalized, although I don't
understand it fully yet. Unfortunately, he is on vacation until the
end of October. I will think about your message some more, and if
I have further comments, I'll write again.
∂07-Oct-85 1453 JMC re: Reading is Believing? (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - to Schaefer and Rosenblum: Try again on U.S. govt censorship.
Indeed the press was not told in advance about the Grenada invasion and
were kept off the island for all of two days. If that's the best you can
do, censorship here is trivial. Under no definition of censorship, does
getting publicity for your own point of view count. Schaefer ascribed to
censorship stories about Central America that he saw in the German press
but not in the U.S. press. In order to prove his case, he must give some
examples of stories, and we'll see if anyone can remember their occurring
in the U.S. press. If it is agreed that they did not occur, we can then
inquire why not. This year, as every year, there are about 30 journalists
in residence at Stanford, and we can ask them if their stories are
censored. Perhaps Schaefer has in mind some unobvious definition of
censorship.
∂07-Oct-85 1521 JMC for distribution
To: CLT
∂03-Oct-85 1712 VAL Seminar Announcement
To: "@CS.DST[1,VAL]"@SU-AI.ARPA
A series of seminars on
COMMON SENSE AND NON-MONOTONIC REASONING
will explore the problem of formalizing commonsense knowledge and reasoning,
with the emphasis on their non-monotonic aspects.
It is important to be able to formalize reasoning about physical objects
and mental attitudes, about events and actions on the basis of predicate logic,
as it can be done with reasoning about numbers, figures, sets and probabilities.
Such formalizations may lead to the creation of AI systems which can use logic
to operate with general facts, which can deduce consequences from what they know
and what they are told and determine in this way what actions should be taken.
Attempts to formalize commonsense knowledge have been so far only
partially successful. One major difficulty is that commonsense reasoning often
appears to be non-monotonic, in the sense that getting additional information
may force us to retract some of the conclusions made before. This is in sharp
contrast to what happens in mathematics, where adding new axioms to a theory
can only make the set of theorems bigger.
Circumscription, a transformation of logical formulas proposed by John
McCarthy, makes it possible to formalize non-monotonic reasoning in classical
predicate logic. A circumscriptive theory involves, in addition to an axiom set,
the description of a circumscription to be applied to the axioms. Our goal is
to investigate how commonsense knowledge can be represented in the form of
circumscriptive theories.
John McCarthy will begin the seminar by discussing some of the problems
that have arisen in using abnormality to formalize common sense knowledge about
the effects of actions using circumscription. His paper Applications of
Circumscription to Formalizing Commmon Sense Knowledge is available from Rutie
Adler 358MJH. This paper was given in the Non-monotonic Workshop, and the
present version, which is to be published in Artificial Intelligence, is not
greatly different. The problems in question relate to trying to use the formalism
of that paper.
The seminar will replace the circumscription seminar we had last year.
If you were on the mailing list for that seminar then you will be automatically
included in the new mailing list. If you would like to be added to the mailing
list (or removed from it) send a message to Vladimir Lifschitz (VAL@SAIL).
The first meeting is in 252MJH on Wednesday, October 30, at 2pm.
∂07-Oct-85 1533 JMC missing paper
To: minker@MIMSY.UMD.EDU
I received a cover letter "Enclosed is a copy ... Logic Programming Journal,
but no paper.
∂08-Oct-85 0822 JMC re: RISKS-1.19
To: RISKS@SRI-CSL.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 7 Oct 85 23:58:57-PDT.]
Please drop me from the RISKS mailing list.
∂08-Oct-85 0828 JMC re: Cable Co-op wins and so will you! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - The one contact I have had with the people organizing Cabke Co-op
leads me to fear that they will be enthusiastic about using it to promote
public education on the "issues" and that this education will often amount
to somewhat leftist political propaganda. Perhaps my fears can be relieved
by someone telling me of provisions that have been made for access by
people who are "die-hard free-enterprisers".
∂08-Oct-85 1435 JMC reference
To: SJG
{\bf McCarthy, John (1979)}:
``Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines'' in {\it Philosophical Perspectives
in Artificial Intelligence}, Ringle, Martin (ed.), Harvester Press, July 1979.
% .<<aim 326, MENTAL[F76,JMC]>>
∂08-Oct-85 1442 JMC
To: MTL
\startex If /g\// is undirected then
$/complement/[/g\//]$ returns a graph $g↓1$ with vertices the same as /g/, but
vertices /v/ and /w/ are joined by an edge in $g↓1$ if and only if they are not
joined by an edge in /g/.
\startex For any graph /g/, $/reachable/[/u/,/v/,/g\//]$
is true if and only if there is a
sequence of vertices $u↓1, u↓2,\ldots,u↓n$ in $g$ with $u = v$,
$v = u↓n$ and
$isnext[u↓i,u↓{i+1},g]$ for $1≤i≤n\minus 1$.
\startex For any graph /g/,
$/conn/[/g\//]$
is true if and only if the directed graph /g\// is connected in the sense
that every vertex is reachable from every other vertex.
\item{}
NB: Graphs may have cycles, so when you are processing a graph
you need to keep track of where you have been in order to avoid an endlessly
looping program.
∂08-Oct-85 1446 JMC re: PLANLUNCH mailing list
To: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 8 Oct 85 14:02:13-PDT.]
I don't know what lists I'm on, but I want to continue getting
planlunch notices.
∂08-Oct-85 2319 JMC
To: RWW@SU-AI.ARPA, CLT@SU-AI.ARPA, g.gorin@LOTS-A
FORWAR[F85,JMC] contains technical specifications.
∂09-Oct-85 1055 JMC comparers
To: genesereth@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
We still don't have your list. They should include some senior people who
know of your work. It would be unfortunate if too many of the comparers
we came up with gave evasive replies on the grounds of not knowing your
work.
∂09-Oct-85 1141 JMC my draft
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Dear -
The Stanford University Computer Science Department is considering
recommending Michael Genesereth for promotion to tenure. In order that
the Department can make its recommendation in time for it to be considered
by the relevant University authorities, we need replies by the beginning
of December to our outside inquiries.
Stanford University makes tenure appointments only to the
most outstanding scholars available. University policies require
comparison with the best scholars in the world in the candidates
field. The following list includes both people suggested by the
candidate and members of the Department, but if you think we have
omitted some people with whom the candidate should be compared,
please mention them. In particular, Stanford welcomes mention of
possible women and minority candidates.
We keep these letters confidential, but you may wish to refer
to comparees by the numbers attached to their names.
Enclosed are a biography and bibliography of the candidate
and copies of three of his papers.
Besides comparisons with the work of other people, discussion
of the place of Genesereth's papers and other work in recent AI
research would be important.
In addition to his research work, Stanford takes into account
teaching and supervision of graduate students.
We welcome any information you can supply on this.
Sincerely,
∂09-Oct-85 1328 JMC selective bboard reading
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
I repeat that SAIL's NS program has most of the features people have
asked for in reading mail, including selective notification and a
headline mode that permits seeing a screenful of subjects from which
the desired messages can be selected.
∂09-Oct-85 1347 JMC
To: aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
∂09-Oct-85 1338 HALPERN@IBM-SJ.ARPA
Received: from IBM-SJ.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Oct 85 13:38:08 PDT
Date: 9 Oct 85 13:35:33 PDT
From: HALPERN@IBM-SJ.ARPA
To: jmc@su-ai
John, a while ago you mentioned I could have an extra $5000 for
the knowledge conference. Would it be all right if I contacted
Claudia Mazetti now for the money? -- Joe
Replying-To: HALPERN@IBM-SJ.ARPA
Reply-Subject: reply to message
Reply-Text:
[In reply to message sent 9 Oct 85 13:35:33 PDT.]
OK, but in that case I'd like a postmortem report on what you did with it.
∂09-Oct-85 1347 JMC reply to message
To: HALPERN@IBM-SJ.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 9 Oct 85 13:35:33 PDT.]
OK, but in that case I'd like a postmortem report on what you did with it.
∂09-Oct-85 1630 JMC logic programming candidate
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Sarah is bringing your a copy of a letter and vita from John Louis Lassez.
Keith Clark ccnsiders him a stronger candidate than Lloyd.
∂10-Oct-85 1132 JMC Meeting with Nils
To: LES
∂10-Oct-85 1056 cheriton@su-pescadero.arpa Meeting with Nils
Received: from SU-PESCADERO.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 10 Oct 85 10:55:10 PDT
Received: by su-pescadero.arpa with Sendmail; Thu, 10 Oct 85 10:53:08 pdt
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 85 10:53:08 pdt
From: David Cheriton <cheriton@su-pescadero.arpa>
Subject: Meeting with Nils
To: jmc@su-ai
You suggested that you and I meet with Nils sometime soon.
Could we try for Friday afternoon, say 4:00 pm, just before the TGIF.
I am free earlier in the afternoon as well, after 2:30 pm.
Replying-To: cheriton@su-pescadero.arpa
Reply-Subject: re: Meeting with Nils
Reply-Text:
[In reply to message sent Thu, 10 Oct 85 10:53:08 pdt.]
Good. Let's try it. I'd like to bring Les if you don't object.
Getting a document about the responsibilities of CSD-CF and keeping
it under control will require more than sporadic administrative
attention, and he may turn out to be the person to do it.
∂10-Oct-85 1132 JMC re: Meeting with Nils
To: cheriton@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu, 10 Oct 85 10:53:08 pdt.]
Good. Let's try it. I'd like to bring Les if you don't object.
Getting a document about the responsibilities of CSD-CF and keeping
it under control will require more than sporadic administrative
attention, and he may turn out to be the person to do it.
∂10-Oct-85 1149 JMC re: another information overload solution (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - As a high-ranker in Lynch's statistics, I felt mildly embarrassed,
but as most of you probably noticed, not enough to stop. I think
political discussion is desirable and have often received encouraging
notes from people who agree with me on some issue but never take part
themselves. I suppose flamers on other sides, have received similar
notes from people who agree with them. As stated, the original purpose
of BBOARDS did include controversy, but I see that controversy bothers
some people much more than announcements of objects for sale, even
when the number of messages is larger and the fraction of people
interested in any particular object is low. I don't actually understand
why this is so and would like an explanation. I am certainly agreeable
to some technological solution that separates different categories
of BBOARD messages more effectively, but I'm not willing to work on
implementing one. I tried Don Woods's BBGUN and BBSKIM macros today,
and they work well but are only available on the better operating
system. A volunteer to adapt NS to various systems would solve the
problem, and it would make an excellent programming project.
Finally, I suppose I would find it irritating to see an announcement
of a demonstration in which the announcement contains implicit propaganda,
e.g. the implication that all right-thinking people agree with its
purpose, and be restrained from commenting on it on the same BBOARD,
but I could live with it.
∂10-Oct-85 1704 JMC your first sentence
To: SJG
"Counterfactuals are a form of commonsense non-monotonic inference ...".
I don't see that counterfactuals are a form of inference at all, since
one doesn't infer the conclusion of the counterfactual. In the next
paragraph you say, "A counterfactual is a statement such that ... ",
and I agree with that. As to "non-monotonic", I'm doubtful, but perhaps
I'll see the relation later on. I looked for the reference to my
cartesian counterfactuals, but all I've found so far is the mention
of approximate theories. Is that all there is?
∂10-Oct-85 1805 JMC the letter
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Julie Who doesn't mention the following consideration. If the letter
is too much like a questionnaire, the recipient is likely to find one
or more of the questions problematical, he feels he would need to
think longer or inquire or maybe he thinks it's ill-formulated.
The effect of such a question on me is that I delay answering the
letter --- sometimes long enough that it becomes irrelevant. Therefore,
I suggest that if you include specific questions, you include them
in a long paragraph, that you keep their number down and you make
sure the recipient won't find them ambiguous.
∂10-Oct-85 1824 JMC
To: SJG
Ignore previous message; there will be a more comprehensive message.
∂11-Oct-85 1049 JMC re: another information overload solution (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: WILKINS@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 11 Oct 85 09:17:21-PDT.]
These macros, usable only in SAIL's editor E, are described on page 20
of the file EINIT.CMD[1,3].
∂11-Oct-85 1609 JMC re: campus life (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - "For all the flaming on the bboards, why does this campus have the
atmosphere of a suburban shopping mall?!?" - Richard Levenson.
I'd like to see Richard Levenson develop this idea further. Is the point
that suburban shopping malls are too peaceful? In my view, the
atmosphere of a suburban shopping mall is in many respects close to
optimal and certainly much better than that of most of the world including
the campuses with more activists. People are peacefully minding their
own business, and it doesn't bother me that their business is mostly
shopping for items of dubious necessity.
∂11-Oct-85 1743 JMC visiting student request
To: CLT, VAL
What do you think of this?
∂11-Oct-85 1318 elkan@GVAX.CS.CORNELL.EDU visiting student request
Received: from CU-ARPA.CS.CORNELL.EDU by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 11 Oct 85 13:17:48 PDT
Received: from gvax.cs.cornell.edu by CU-ARPA.CS.CORNELL.EDU (5.5/4.30)
id AA11296; Fri, 11 Oct 85 16:19:20 EDT
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 85 16:18:56 edt
From: elkan@GVAX.CS.CORNELL.EDU (Charles Elkan)
Message-Id: <8510112018.AA21605@gvax.cs.cornell.edu>
Received: by gvax.cs.cornell.edu (4.30/4.30)
id AA21605; Fri, 11 Oct 85 16:18:56 edt
To: jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: visiting student request
This message is addressed to you because of your presidential
address to the AAAI on the need for basic research into the logical
foundations of AI. I would like to spend the winter and spring
quarters of next year working in this area as a visiting graduate
student at Stanford.
I am now a second year PhD student here at Cornell. My
thesis topic will probably be in logic programming. Specifically I
want to investigate how to incorporate second-order properties such as
meta-level control of inference into first-order languages. The
concrete problem is how to allow "assert" and "cut" operators while
preserving properties such as soundness and some sort of completeness.
This research direction has connections with work in
logic and AI on default reasoning and circumscription, and my
principal aim at Stanford would be to learn about logic-based AI
research. This semester I am taking a course on automated theorem
proving from Richard Platek and one on constructive logic and type
theory from Bob Constable, so my background should be sufficient.
I hope it can be arranged for me to visit Stanford. Last June
I passed all my qualifying examinations in CS here, so I am free to
spend the winter and spring quarters away from Cornell. Financial
support should not be a problem since I have an unconditional
fellowship which is tenable at Stanford under the so-called "Exchange
Scholar Program".
Thank you for your time and trouble. Charles Elkan.
∂12-Oct-85 0003 JMC re: campus life (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I forgot about the muzak.
∂12-Oct-85 2258 JMC
To: smc@SU-SCORE.ARPA
horse.ns[1,jmc] may interest you. Print and delete.
∂13-Oct-85 1114 JMC re: DEC and Big Blue (IBM) (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - One can always win on software reliability in a limited application
system with a fixed target date for system completion and a complement
of available I-O devices fixed at system design time. The DEC-10s and
20s were designed before the wide variety of networks became available
and before displays became the major I-O device. They have had to keep
up with a wide variety of changes in usage style. Perhaps their biggest
fault is that the operating systems weren't designed for the number of
users they presently have. One of SAIL's bigget faults is that when the
E editor was designed no-one thought about making it efficient for 500
page files. The IBM operating systems for the 370 are descendants of
early 60s systems that preceded time-sharing and show it in many ways.
The most obvious fault is the lack of full duplex, and I suppose VM
still has relics of not having a machine-wide file naming system.
An operating system and a machine architecture meet more severe tests
when they are ten or fifteen years old and their users with large
software investments need to update them to accomodate new hardware
and software. A successful general purpose system seems to live for 20 to
30 years, and designers should try to adapt to that fact. However, this
does not apply to the smaller business systems which can be thrown away
after five years.
∂13-Oct-85 1250 JMC re: Genesereth Draft Letter
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 13 Oct 85 12:45:26-PDT.]
The letter seems good enough to me. The list of recipients also
seems good enough; is it what Mike supplied? I didn't get a list
from him.
∂13-Oct-85 1300 JMC re: Genesereth Draft Letter
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 13 Oct 85 12:52:02-PDT.]
If worst comes to worst we can extract the list from him on-line. I can
imagine indecision about who knows him and what they might think.
∂13-Oct-85 1305 JMC re: Proposed Course
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 13 Oct 85 12:59:47-PDT.]
I'm not convinced it's not just a "Stats for AIers course". One might
consult Brad Efron about what the Statistics Department offers. I'm
not a great Cheeseman enthusiast.
∂13-Oct-85 1842 JMC Eleanor message
To: CLT
I assume she reached you with the invitation to dinner Oct 31 in Monterey
at the Doubletree (Hotel or Motel).
∂13-Oct-85 1858 JMC re: Eleanor message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 13-Oct-85 18:53-PT.]
Yes, 6ish will be ok assuming leaving after my class ends at 2:30 will get us
there on time.
∂13-Oct-85 2043 JMC re: Operating systems debate (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Perhaps the teachers of operating system courses are misguided
in their emphasis on "file system design, interprocess communication,
newtork support" etc. and ignoring the command interpreter.
∂14-Oct-85 1039 JMC office hours for TA's
To: "@TA.306[F85,JMC]"@SU-AI.ARPA
∂14-Oct-85 1033 BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA office hours for TA's
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Oct 85 10:32:56 PDT
Date: Mon 14 Oct 85 10:12:51-PDT
From: Kathy Berg <BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: office hours for TA's
To: w.welsh%LOTS-B@SU-SCORE.ARPA, herman@SU-SCORE.ARPA, reges@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
floyd@SU-SCORE.ARPA, reid@SU-GLACIER.ARPA, dahlquist@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
cheriton@SU-SCORE.ARPA, lantz@SU-SCORE.ARPA, broder@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
ullman@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA, jmc@SU-AI.ARPA, oliger@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
anderson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
cc: berg@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Stanford-Phone: (415) 497-4776
Message-ID: <12151086714.13.BERG@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
There are still some hours free in 004 and 006 for your TAs to
use for office hours. Please tell them to come to my office
(256 MJH) if they wish to use either of those offices for student
conferences for an hour or two a week.
Kathy
-------
∂14-Oct-85 1048 JMC last thought
To: JK
On coming back: Give us as much advance warning as you can about the
precise time of your return so we can be sure about office space.
∂14-Oct-85 1107 JMC re: Yuri Gurevich
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Oct-85 11:05-PT.]
Tell him yes, that I received his ARPAnet message and his letter, and
I'll ARPAnet him an abstract shortly.
∂14-Oct-85 1118 JMC
To: RA
The title for Gurevich is ``Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge and Reasoning''.
∂14-Oct-85 1309 JMC re: Thursday trips
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Oct-85 11:43-PT.]
I'll take the American leaving at 4:52.
∂14-Oct-85 1335 JMC re: Interception of Alleged Terrorists (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - As far as most people and organizations are concerned, including
Jewish organizations, the bombing in L.A. was indeed terrorist in
character. I don't see that it was ignored by the media. At least
A.P. had several stories on it, when it first occurred, and later when
the victim was identified. If there is more motion on the case, e.g.
if suspects are identified or some group takes responsibility, there
will be more stories. I think that even if no more clues turn up, it
will rate some kind of wrap-up story. Also statements by various
organizations, including statements that it is being ignored, will
rate stories.
Sumit Ghosh's proposal that a World Court decide about Palestine is
unrealistic in the present world for several reasons. First no country
has committed force to enforce the decisions of such court - independent
of what the decisions may be, and no world police exist. Second the
representative of many world countries in the UN and the present World
Court are representatives and their decisions are determined by the
alliances of their countries. For example, you either have to try to
exclude the Soviet Union from any court or accept the fact that the
Soviet vote is for sale. Neither is presently feasible.
∂14-Oct-85 1531 JMC re: the woman
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Oct-85 15:26-PT.]
My car starts promptly, and anyway I hardly ever notice what women are
actually wearing.
∂14-Oct-85 1654 JMC re: Helpless Children (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Alas, the message to which Moshe's is a reply was probably sent to
OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SAIL. Perhaps I'll never know what riled Moshe.
∂15-Oct-85 0003 JMC letter
To: RA
To: Dr. B. Oliver, H-P Laboratories
Dear Barney:
Are you still using my copy of Melzak's book?
Best Regards,
∂15-Oct-85 1108 JMC lunch
To: clancey@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
How about lunch tomorrow (Wednesday) or Monday or Wednesday of next week?
∂15-Oct-85 1141 JMC re: lunch
To: CLANCEY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 15 Oct 85 11:41:12-PDT.]
See you at Welch Road at noon Monday.
∂15-Oct-85 1151 JMC
To: CLT
I will put the Cadillac in the usual late comers' lot.
∂15-Oct-85 1443 JMC re: people
To: GENESERETH@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 15 Oct 85 14:35:19-PDT.]
The list of comparers did not arrive. Rick Hayes-Roth as an additional
comparer did arrive.
∂15-Oct-85 1444 Mailer failed mail returned
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
In processing the following command:
MAIL
The following message was aborted because of a command error,
namely, nonexistent recipient(s):
Fawwaz
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
∂15-Oct-85 1444 JMC ←Ulaby@UMich-MTS.Mailnet
To: Bernard←Galler%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
reply to message
[In reply to message from Bernard←Galler%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA sent Tue, 15 Oct 85 12:14:28 EDT.]
Unfortunately, I already have commitments for those dates.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂15-Oct-85 1449 JMC reply to message
To: Bernard←Galler%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue, 15 Oct 85 12:14:28 EDT.]
Unfortunately, I already have commitments for those dates.
∂15-Oct-85 1508 JMC re: History Question
To: RPG
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Oct-85 14:55-PT.]
The first time-sharing system with displays as the primary terminal
was a 12 terminal system using displays that Philco built to our specs.
I was originator and PI of the time-sharing project supported by NSF.
However, Suppes CAI project put up half the money and got half the
terminals and built an extension to Pine Hall. The computer was a PDP-1.
When we got the PDP-6 associated with the expansion of the AI Lab
that moved us to Arastradero Road, we sold our share of the PDP-1 to
Suppes, and the system was subsequently given to the Indian Institute
of Technology at Kanpur which used it for about ten years.
When we got the PDP-6 in 1966 we also wanted to make it display-based and
ordered 6 displays from III. Both the Philco and III displays were
vector based. The Datadisc displays were developed independently of
Stanford by the company of that name and were raster based. We were
the first customer to buy a 32 channel system and Les designed the
video switch that permitted us to have the first time-sharing system
in the world based on having a display in each office. The displays
were working in 1971.
Les noted that you didn't acknowledge DARPA support in the M.I.T.
Press version of the Lisp comparisons. Was this accidental?
∂15-Oct-85 1513 JMC re: History Question
To: RPG
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Oct-85 14:55-PT.]
As to the editor itself, there surely was a display editor in the
PDP-1 system, but I don't remember when it was finished. At SAIL
we used Stopgap, then SOS (Son of Stopgap), later renamed ED by
D.E.C. until E was working. Les might remember more.
∂15-Oct-85 1517 JMC re: DARPA
To: RPG
[In reply to message rcvd 15-Oct-85 15:13-PT.]
DARPA actually doesn't worry about non-acknowledgment. NSF on the other
hand only allows you to count as accomplishments in applications for
further grants reports and papers that acknowledge their support.
∂15-Oct-85 1844 JMC cs350
To: reges@SU-SCORE.ARPA, nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: berg@SU-SCORE.ARPA, CLT@SU-AI.ARPA
1. It will indeed be quite different from what John Williams is likely to
teach, i.e. the Backus notion of functional programming on which he has
written papers.
2. It was agreed last year by Nils at the request of Bob McGinn of VTS
that CSD would count my teaching a VTS course as though it were a
computer science course. Apparently this is what VTS customarily
succeeds in arranging when someone not regularly in VTS teaches
a course there.
3. I had discussed with Nils the prospect that CS350 would not be given
and supposed that that is what had been decided. However, here it is
in the catalog, and I think that Carolyn will teach an excellent course
based on the material described in the syllabus she has submitted.
∂22-Oct-85 2223 JMC re: CS:306 notes and test-taking conditios
To: SCHULZ@SU-SUSHI.ARPA, CLT@SU-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 22 Oct 85 12:46:41-PDT.]
We may be able to print the first three chapters somewhat darker
and possibly with greater line spacing. We won't be able to
do anything with chapters 5 and beyond which were done on the
PUB document compiler that doesn't produce output for any
presently functional printer.
Yes, I agree to the arrangements you propose for exams.
∂23-Oct-85 0919 JMC re: Greg Bledsoe, RIP
To: AI.BOYER@MCC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 23 Oct 1985 10:58 CDT.]
Carolyn and I are very sorry to hear that news. Can you MAIL us the Bledsoes'
home address.
∂23-Oct-85 0949 JMC Greg Bledsoe, RIP
To: minsky&oz@MIT-MC.ARPA
∂23-Oct-85 0900 AI.BOYER@MCC.ARPA Greg Bledsoe, RIP
Received: from MCC.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Oct 85 09:00:04 PDT
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1985 10:58 CDT
Message-ID: <AI.BOYER.12153432503.BABYL@MCC.ARPA>
From: AI.BOYER@MCC.ARPA
To: cl.moore@r20, cmp.good@r20, jmc@su-ai
Subject: Greg Bledsoe, RIP
Woody's oldest son died in a car accident in Del Rio, Texas yesterday.
∂23-Oct-85 1057 JMC
To: RA
Please make a Genesereth letter to Bledsoe at MCC addressed to Professor Bledsoe.
∂23-Oct-85 1213 JMC re: Mailboxes
To: CONTRERAS@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 23 Oct 85 11:27:52-PDT.]
The continual re-arrangements of mail boxes are annoying.
∂24-Oct-85 0915 JMC re: New Tutorial Chair
To: AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 24 Oct 85 08:45:05-PDT.]
I vote for Stefik. - John McCarthy
∂24-Oct-85 1158 JMC mcc bill
To: RA
Oct 18 and 19
Besides air fare and parking
round trip to SJ
$12 taxi
$20 meals
∂24-Oct-85 1525 JMC Industry lecturers
To: reges@SU-SCORE.ARPA
I just got a call from John Williams, who will be industry lecturer
in Winter asking about various thing about which I referred him to you.
It occurs to me that there is a general solution. Each year, after
the industry lecturers have been selected for the following year,
you should arrange for there to be a letter, either from you or
from Nils, welcoming them and informing them of various facts
and referring them to you for detailed arrangements. The Spring
industry lecturer will be a Xerox PARC group for whom Daniel Bobrow
is the spokesman. Let me suggest that you call him well in advance
about arrangements. Their course is an AI languages course, and it
was agreed in principle between them, Nils and CSLI that CSLI
Dandetigers would be used, so I suppose that more specific arrangements
will have to be made at some time.
∂24-Oct-85 1537 JMC re: Jussi Ketonen
To: RA, JK
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Oct-85 14:09-PT.]
Sunday at 3pm will be fine for meeting with Jussi. At the moment, however,
Lucid isn't answering their phone number, which is 329-8400 (not 239-8400).
∂24-Oct-85 1545 JMC re: New syntax for abnormality
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Oct-85 15:42-PT.]
Looks good if the corresponding semantics works out.
∂24-Oct-85 1545 JMC re: leave early
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Oct-85 15:39-PT.]
ok
∂24-Oct-85 1617 JMC re: Programming in C on Sushi (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It doesn't seem to me that Vaughan's question contains an implicit
"Let's get rid of Sushi". However, it seems to me that it does contain
an implicit "The wave of the future isn't only single user work stations.
Doesn't it?"
∂24-Oct-85 1646 JMC re: PLANLUNCH RESUMES MONDAY....
To: LANSKY@SRI-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 24 Oct 85 16:16:31-PDT.]
Could you change my name on the Planlunch list to JMC-LISTS@SU-AI?
∂24-Oct-85 1716 JMC re: Student Unix machine (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - re Jeff Mogul's remark. We already have 4 gigabytes of disk on La Brea.
∂24-Oct-85 1733 JMC
To: CLT
esp is up
∂24-Oct-85 2242 JMC re: la brea (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Who uses LaBrea indeed? CSD used some of our DARPA equipment
grant to buy a computer to provide large amounts of economical
file storage. It began with 4 gigabytes and has been available for
a year. I don't recall, however, that CSDCF has bothered to announce
and explain its availability and how it might be used. File storage
on LaBrea is free, however.
∂24-Oct-85 2244 JMC la brea
To: wade@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
CC: bosack@SU-SCORE.ARPA
∂24-Oct-85 WADE@SU-SUSHI.ARPA 24-Oct-85 JMC la brea
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 Oct 85 19:45:28 PDT
Date: Thu 24 Oct 85 19:47:02-PDT
From: Wade Hennessey <WADE@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: la brea
To: su-bboards@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12153812678.42.WADE@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Who uses La Brea? I'd never heard of it before JMC mentioned it.
-------
jmc - Who uses LaBrea indeed? CSD used some of our DARPA equipment
grant to buy a computer to provide large amounts of economical
file storage. It began with 4 gigabytes and has been available for
a year. I don't recall, however, that CSDCF has bothered to announce
and explain its availability and how it might be used. File storage
on LaBrea is free, however.
[JMC - Forwarded to OTHER-SU-BBOARDS from line 12]
∂24-Oct-85 2343 JMC re: Additional coastline considerations... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Highly selected "facts" provided by the Sierra Club. There are in
fact vastly many more sea otters than there were 50 years ago. My
opinion is that the Sierra Club has become an irrational bundle
of fanaticisms, especially starting in 1975 when it abandoned favoring
nuclear energy, which might obviate some of the need for oil. Because
of their "blind opposition to progress" they are making likely
an energy crisis of such severity that all their gains will be lost.
∂25-Oct-85 1043 JMC re: robotics
To: STAN@SRI-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 25 Oct 85 10:11:28-PDT.]
Late afternoon will be fine. 4 or 5, your choice.
∂25-Oct-85 1051 JMC re: robotics
To: STAN@SRI-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 25 Oct 85 10:50:00-PDT.]
5 it is.
∂25-Oct-85 1135 JMC Nicaragua learns from the Soviet model
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
a083 0950 25 Oct 85
PM-Sandinista Specs,0189
Nicaraguan President Goes on $3,500 Eyeglass Spree
NEW YORK (AP) - The president of Nicaragua and his wife, here for
the U.N. anniversary session, bought $3,500 worth of fashion
eyeglasses from an East Side optician and covered the splurge with a
Diner's Club card, the shop manager says.
With the Secret Service telephoning in advance, President Daniel
Ortega Saavedra pulled up Wednesday in a 17-car motorcade at Cohen's
Fashion Opticals on Lexington Avenue and 60th Street, said Jeff
Kirsch.
''They were here an hour. He was easygoing; he took whatever his
wife said. She was very picky,'' said Kirsch.
Mrs. Ortega ordered three Gucci frames for herself and three
Fioruccis for her daughter.
Ortega bought six Silhouette frames with polycarbonate lenses, the
sturdy plastic used for bulletproof shields in taxicabs. His
eyeglasses were $300 each.
He had another set of the plastic lenses put into a frames he
already owned, said Kirsch.
Silhouette and Gucci frames start at about $180 each, said Kirsch,
and Fioruccis run about $50 less.
The Ortegas' charge card came from the Nicaraguan U.N. Mission.
**** Hint for leftists. The best defense is offense. $25 for
the neatest way of changing the subject. Points will be awarded
for authentic style and chutzpah.
∂25-Oct-85 1351 JMC
To: CLT
mowing[f85,jmc] is for dates and times of lawn mowing.
∂25-Oct-85 1526 JMC re: recommendation for Genesereth
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 25-Oct-85 14:25-PT.]
That will be fine.
∂25-Oct-85 1645 JMC re: Cheap ET Material Mission
To: CLIFF@USC-ISI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 25 Oct 1985 12:38:14 EDT.]
Your mesage was much delayed because you sent it to a wrong address.
Anyway I'll be around tomorrow and Sunday. My home phone is 857-0672
and my office phone is 497-4430. I'll be out tonight and tomorrow
night. My net address is JMC@SU-AI.ARPA.
∂25-Oct-85 1646 JMC Class Lists
To: RA
Please get mine for cs306 and make a duplicate for the TAs.
∂25-Oct-85 1559 MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA Class Lists
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Oct 85 15:57:43 PDT
Date: Fri 25 Oct 85 15:58:22-PDT
From: Gina Modica <MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Class Lists
To: instructors@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <12154033196.35.MODICA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Class Lists are still here and eagerly waiting to be picked up.
See you soon,
Gina (MJH room 251)
-------
∂25-Oct-85 2255 JMC re: playing with one piece short
To: RESTIVO@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 25 Oct 85 20:02:20-PDT.]
The problem is by Raymond Smullyan, although I didn't know that when
I gave it to Bob Filman. You can copy the board position out of
my copy of his thesis.
∂26-Oct-85 1615 JMC
To: cliff@USC-ISI.ARPA
Drexler, Eric 364-8609, 86 Renato Court, 10, Redwood City 94061
∂26-Oct-85 1742 JMC
To: RA
I don't have a regular class schedule for this quarter - only the TV sched.
∂26-Oct-85 1807 JMC My position paper
To: yorick%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
follows. Please acknowledge its receipt, since I'm uncertain about
net function. Occurrences of {\it ...} mean that the enclosed
text is to be in italics, i.e. they are TEXisms.
AI Reasoning Should be Logic with Extensions
by John McCarthy, Stanford University
Leibniz, Boole and Frege all considered that the purpose of
mathematical logic was to embody the ``laws of thought'' as Boole called
his book. If their efforts had been completely successful, AI would
have been achieved long ago. Nevertheless, mathematical logic does
embody a good part of the laws of thought, and the approach to AI
that I have been following since the late 1950s is to use it to
formalize common sense knowledge and to extend it where necessary.
I still think that this approach is likely to succeed sooner than
the others I know about, although I think there are still major
conceptual difficulties to be overcome.
The difficulties are of several kinds.
1. We aren't good at expressing common sense knowledge as
logical theories. Indeed much commmon sense knowledge isn't expressed
in natural language either. To repeat an example I have often used,
a person's knowledge of what to expect when a coffee cup spills
isn't expressible by him in natural language. When two people agree
on the correctness of a verbal argument that involves knowledge
of such physical phenomena, part of the argument involves appeal to such
currently unformalized and unverbalized facts. I don't take the
fact that they are unexpressed in natural as evidence that they
cannot be expressed in either logic or natural language. Both
natural language and logic have developed over time abilities
to express kinds of facts that previously weren't expressed.
2. Logical deduction is always monotonic, and much
human reasoning is non-monotonic. I and others have been using
the circumscription formalism for doing non-monotonic reasoning
to express common sense facts and also working to improve the
formalism.
3. We don't yet have adequate ways of expressing the
facts necessary to control reasoning. It is supposed that some
people believed that general purpose theorem proving strategies
were adequate for programs that reasoned from facts to a plan
for achieving a goal. I'm not sure who believed this, but it wasn't
me. Anyway the result of inadequate means of specifying control is
combinatorial explosion. The control needs to include domain specific
facts.
4. We need to combine logical reasoning with other
kinds of computation using other data structures. In order to do this
while keeping the logic on top, we need to be able to describe in logic
what other kinds of computation and data structures do, so that the
logical ``boss'' of the system can decide how to use the other forms of
computation.
Relations with philosophy
Many of the problems of representing and using common sense
knowledge that AI faces have also been treated by philosophers.
It seems to me that success in AI, and very likely also in philosophy,
requires a different approach than philosophers have heretofore wsed.
There is an alternative to looking at phenomena like knowledge and
consciousness as though they were definite concepts only needing to be
understood and explained. Instead one can build small theories that
cover only certain cases of these phenomena. These theories will be
adequate for intelligent behavior in limited domains and will be
capable of extension. The philosophers' habit of regarding such
phenomena as {\it natural kinds} leads to considering exotic cases,
where it seems that the philosopher is inventing the extension rather
than discovering it. Anyway building theories of limited scope is
what AI has to do in order to get programs working before all the
problems of philosophy have been solved. Formalized non-monotonic
reasoning is essential here, because it allows us to express theories
that cover the simple cases but don't have to be contradicted when
extended to be more general.
Where does AI in logic go from here?
The largest single need is to formalize more domains of
common sense knowledge in epistemologically adequate, ambiguity
tolerant, elaboration tolerant, and heuristically adequate ways.
In the oral presentation, I'll discuss what this means.
Almost all AI systems formalize common sense concepts in overly
specialized ways.
On the heuristic side, the main need is better ways of
expressing declaratively the control of reasoning.
I am presently exploring two other ideas for improving
the use of logic in AI. The first is called the {\it mental
situation calculus}. It applies the ideas of the situation
calculus to formalizing mental situations with mental actions
like deduction, observation and circumscription, and mental
goals like coming to know or to understand.
The second idea involves formalization of the notion
of context. This formalization involves trade-off axioms
that allow generalizing the context at the cost of elaborating
the sentences or simplifying the sentences at the cost of
specializing the context.
∂27-Oct-85 1036 JMC More on the Sierra Club
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
CC: henning@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
When I characterized the Sierra Club as a ``blind opponent of
progress'' I was aware of their slogan to the contrary. It seems to me that
before 1975 the slogan may have been mostly accurate even though I
disagreed with their judgment about some issues. Since then fanaticism
has become more and more dominant as its membership and financial
supporters increased mainly among people who were interested in its
political activities rather than its outdoor activities per se.
Take nuclear power. In my view, our failure to develop nuclear
power adequately will cause another energy crisis. There has never been a
plausible ``alternative energy'' scenario, and after 12 years of
world-wide attempts, the situation hasn't improved. This energy crisis
will generate the political will for crash programs that may break many
environmental eggs. Somewhat less likely, a CO2 crisis may hit us first.
The Sierra Club in its publications propagates many lies about
nuclear power including the one about waste disposal being an unsolved
problem. It may be, as Albert Henning says, that the official Sierra Club
position doesn't actually oppose nuclear power in principle, but only
refuses to accept evidence that its basic environmental problems are small
and long since solved. However, so much of its political energy comes
from anti-nuclear and anti-corporate fanaticism that I would doubt that
even the most hedged statement that nuclear power would be ok if X, Y and
Z were done could be issued by the Club. The fanatics would try to tear
the organization apart before they would permit even a small intellectual
concession to the ``enemy'', and those people in the leadership who would
privately claim to be rational on the issue prize their political unity
and alliances and their financial support more than anything else. It is
much more intellectually and emotionally salient than the welfare of the
country.
I see Sierra Club publications mainly in doctors' offices, and I
haven't been sick lately. However, I would be surprised if objective and
critical discussion of the positions the Club has taken are ever
published.
∂27-Oct-85 1531 JMC re: meeting
To: JK
[In reply to message rcvd 27-Oct-85 15:09-PT.]
Sorry. I lost track of time in the library. Tuesday will be fine.
How about either 11am or 3pm. My only actual commitments are the
class from 1:15 to 2:30 and an exam at 4:15 to (I suppose) 6pm.
I was going to propose your teaching the class Thursday and the
following Tuesday anyway, because I want to spend another day on
EKL myself anyway.
∂27-Oct-85 1532 JMC re: Student names
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 27 Oct 85 14:19:58-PST.]
Indeed the policy seems extreme.
∂27-Oct-85 1536 JMC re: More on the Sierra Club (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Since the previous message I have read the five most recent issues
of Sierra and I have detected no support for progress of any sort
except regulatory and no hint of criticism of Sierra Club policy -
only self-righteousness.
∂27-Oct-85 1845 JMC American Academy of Arts and Sciences
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Are you a member or would you like to be a member?
In case you don't know about it, here are some facts. It was formed
about 1790 by a group including John Adams. It is less prestigious
than the National Academy of Sciences but broader in scope. It
costs about $30 per year, and you have to be recommended and voted
in but I would anticipate no problem in your case. Its journal is
Daedalus, edited in Cambridge, Mass. Each issue of the journal
has a collection of articles on a single subject. Frankly, the
journal is rather dull in spite of the fact that the authors are
usually quite distinguished. Its western headquarters used to be
at CASBS, but it moved to Irvine, so probably there will be fewer
luncheons here than formerly.
What set me off is that they had an issue on "the future of science"
wherein physics was discussed by Victor Weisskopf and AI by a classicist
who wrote a grumbling book called "Turing's Man". I complained to
the editor and got back a letter rejecting my complaint about their
getting a classicist to write about AI. However, in further retaliation,
I just got a letter from him telling me that they were about to
do a whole issue on AI and would I like to be a member of the
editorial committee. I'm about to accept this, but the members
of the committee he mentioned in the letter are Daniel Dennett,
Hilary Putnam, Gian-Carlo Rota and Emilio Bizzi. Dennett and
Putnam are quite smart philosophers and Rota is a well known
mathematician and I don't know Bizzi, but none of them are in AI.
Anyway when I thought about reinforcements, your name came immediately
to mind. I don't recall what computer people they already have,
although perhaps Bob Floyd is a member. Fernando Corbato has
several times asked me to suggest new members in the computer
field, but I didn't previously get around to doing it.
∂27-Oct-85 2158 JMC information request
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
Which Bay Area newspapers printed the AP story about Ortega buying the
glasses frames?
∂28-Oct-85 0847 JMC reply to message
To: JK
[In reply to message rcvd 28-Oct-85 07:56-PT.]
3pm Tuesday it is.
∂28-Oct-85 0859 JMC
To: LES
Les, can you twist an arm in the right place?
∂28-Oct-85 0820 ALS XGP fonts to the DOVER
This is a copy of a note that I sent you last week an which you may not
have received.
I have written and debugged a program (FNtoGF) that reads font.FNT files and
generates font.GF files. Using FSCALE to scale from 200 to 384, then
FNtoGF and finally GFtoDO (which I wrote some time ago), I can now provide
the necessary files to load XGP fonts onto DOVER.
There are a couple of hitches. Firstly, I need to know exactly how PUB has
been modified to drive the DOVER. Bosack told me that a suitable driver
had been written but I have been quite unable to get a reply out of him as
to either the details or the name of someone who knows. Can you supply te
information?
The second problem, not so urgent, is that FSCALE does not do a very good
job, although it does work and could be used to start. I am currently
attempting to modify FSCALE but it isn't an easy job. FSCALE does a
reasonable job for horizontal and vertical strokes but the diagonal
strokes and curves are handled poorly.
One possible course of action would be to magnify by 400/200 rather than
384/200, which can be done rather simply. This would mean that the
outputs would be slightly enlarged, reducing the margins but still giving
a reasonable copy. Do you object to this?
∂28-Oct-85 0901 JMC re: XGP fonts to the DOVER
To: ALS
[In reply to message rcvd 28-Oct-85 08:20-PT.]
I don't know any of the relevant facts, but I have asked Les, who
is now chairman of the Facilities Committee, to twist an arm in
the right place to get answers.
∂28-Oct-85 0907 JMC re: Sierra Club
To: HENNING@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 27 Oct 85 22:20:18-PST.]
I'll be back to you later, because I need to straighten out what I want
to say. However, I have no exotic source of information, and I suppose
we will disagree strongly about interpretation. However, you may not
have encountered many people whose experience and reaction to it leads
them to sympathize with the bumper sticker I saw in Alaska, "Sierra
Club, kiss my ass".
∂28-Oct-85 0908 JMC re: Sarah's birthday
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 28-Oct-85 09:05-PT.]
1960 June 1
∂28-Oct-85 1035 JMC
To: RA
Did I write to Paul Martin at Harvard, probably in January?
∂28-Oct-85 1051 JMC Martin
To: RA
Yes, I found that letter martin.1[let,jmc], but it isn't in finished
TEX form, so I'm wondering if it was actually sent. At that time,
you were copying letters into your own area.
∂28-Oct-85 1122 JMC re: Sierra and hara-kiri and democracy and Taiwan and... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Clearly Helen operates in a world in which it is obvious who
are the bad guys.
∂28-Oct-85 1223 JMC re: Sierra and hara-kiri and democracy and Taiwan and... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Sorry for sending the original message without including this afterthought.
Helen Cunningham says,
"Now, let's say that some guy is running for governor of California, and
it just so happens that he openly hates minorities and intellectuals."
Who is it that "openly hates minorities and intellectuals", and what counts
as evidence that this is so? Perhaps Helen Cunningham inhabits a circle
in which such statements can be made without challenge, but the BBOARD
community isn't it.
∂28-Oct-85 1432 JMC re: More on the Sierra Club
To: RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
CC: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA, henning@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
[In reply to message from RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA sent Mon 28 Oct 85 14:19:07-PST.]
Any of the proposed solutions to the nuclear waste problem will work well
enough to keep the long term hazard well below that imposed by other human
activities. All the haggling is over micro-risks. The proposals include
encapsulating it in glass and storing it in old salt mines or in granite,
keeping it in double walled tanks, probably dumping it in the sea, putting
it back in the uranium mine which will be less radioactive after 500 years
than it was in the first place and shooting it into space to end up in the
sun. I used to doubt that the last would work, because the rocket might
fail, but they had thought of that; the waste was to be encapsulated well
enough so that if the rocket failed the container would be retrieved
intact. The Chinese have the right idea, since they are negotiating
to take Germany's waste for a price suitably inflated by the level
of panic and stupidity in Germany. The U.S. dithering is promoted by
deliberate panic-mongering by the Sierra Club and other organizations.
∂28-Oct-85 1545 JMC re: Kurt Ceel, future student
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 28-Oct-85 15:06-PT.]
I expect to be here then but don't absolutely promise. Put it on
my calendar.
∂28-Oct-85 1607 JMC re: The Wall Street Journal, Steven Mosher, and the University (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - President Kennedy's statement confirmed to me my suspicion
that the Stanford administration and faculty have a very selective
view of academic freedom; judging from all the recent cases
I know about, academic freedom can only be violated when
rightists attack leftists. The other cases I have in mind
concern Stanford's refusal to let Shockley teach a graduate
special ten years ago and the recent attacks on Hoover.
Returning to the Mosher case specifically, it seems that
Stanford has concocted a substantially new set of charges
to confirm a decision earlier made on different grounds.
Some of the charges are entirely trivial. The Computer Science
Department never has and never would regard it as a disciplinary
manner for a student to change the topic of his thesis without
consultation. Of course, the student would risk the possibility
that the Department wouldn't find the resulting thesis adequate,
but this isn't the issue here, since Mosher wasn't allowed to
submit a thesis. Second it is hard to believe that the Anthropology
Department didn't know that Mosher was in China or that they
didn't think it likely that a year in China would result in
a change of thesis topic.
Ever since the Mosher issue arose, it has been on my conscience as
a faculty member that neither I nor any other faculty member or student
has seen fit to raise any issue on his behalf. The secrecy didn't
help, but still that's not a good enough reason. My reason was
being too busy with other activities.
∂28-Oct-85 1711 JMC
To: RA
scienc.3
∂30-Oct-85 1007 JMC re: The talk
To: yg%eecs.umich.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue, 29 Oct 85 10:45:33 est.]
The title is ``Formalizing Common Sense Knowledge and Reasoning''.
∂30-Oct-85 1552 JMC
To: RA
martin.2
∂30-Oct-85 1553 JMC
To: genesereth@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Today I wrote about you to Paul Martin.
∂30-Oct-85 1554 JMC
To: RA
martin letter should go out today.
∂30-Oct-85 2359 JMC re: Nicaragua learns from the Soviet model (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Report on the Ortega eyeglass competition.
The $25 prize is divided between Mark Crispin - $15 and Allen van Gelder $10.
Crispin's effort is judged more sincere.
Payment will be in untracable small bills. I don't want to get on any
junk mail lists by having a check endorsed to the Sierra Club or other
organization operating according to the principle, wherever that came
from, there must be more.
∂31-Oct-85 0941 JMC re: Spinach (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It's either the Florentines or the Rockefellers who put the spinach
in the lasagna - the latter being more suspect these days. True to my
image, I like spinach in the lasagna.
∂31-Oct-85 1007 JMC new policy on LaBrea
To: bosack@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: LES@SU-AI.ARPA
I think you should announce a new policy TODAY, 1985 Oct 31.
If it isn't perfect, you can change it later.
∂31-Oct-85 1145 JMC Near West Campus
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
During the lifetime of these buildings, it will become possible
for an instructor at a desk to display text on a whole wall.
Therefore, class and lecture rooms should be designed with
unobstructed visibility of a high front wall from the whole room.
Many existing rooms have it, but many don't.
∂31-Oct-85 1442 JMC
To: RA
Did I have you take a report on a PhD oral to the graduate office?
∂31-Oct-85 1520 JMC re: Democracy and War (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Donald Henager's desire for symmetry between the democracies and
the totalitarian states has led him to neglect the fact that the
totalitarian states often war with each other. Even communist states
war with each other. Examples of the latter include Vietnam and China,
the Soviet Union's military action in East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956)
and Czechoslovakia, the border clashes between the Soviet Union and
China and the short war between China and Vietnam. Expanding to
non-communist totalitarian countries, we have Hitler's attack on
the Soviet Union.
∂01-Nov-85 0014 JMC re: There's a hole in the roof... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - According to the book sold in connection with Sgt. Pepper:
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go
etc.
There is no hint in the printed words that the hole is in the head.
∂01-Nov-85 0934 JMC re: Vet school application fee.
To: SMC
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Nov-85 08:20-PT.]
It is on the safe.
∂01-Nov-85 1016 JMC re: two practical questions
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Nov-85 09:32-PT.]
1. I don't think we should pay for Marek's ticket, since the trip wasn't
at our initiative. However, let's pay an honorarium. $200 seems the
right amount to me, but you should inquire of Betty Scott whether the
Department has a definite policy.
2. I don't think we should cancel the pre-Thanksgiving seminar.
∂01-Nov-85 1240 JMC re: How does one READ SERVIC.DOC on SAIL...
To: OWEN@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 1 Nov 85 12:29:31-PST.]
I didn't even succeed in reading it with an account.
∂01-Nov-85 1241 JMC
To: gotelli@SU-SCORE.ARPA
I'd like a LaBrea account.
∂01-Nov-85 1244 JMC message from Brian Reid
To: bosack@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: LES@SU-AI.ARPA
Please look at his latest BBOARD message. He tells how to use LaBrea
conveniently from Unix systems but then takes it away by telling that
his method may prevent the file from being backed up. Maybe there's
a better way, and in any case you should announce (promptly) the LaBrea
backup policy.
∂01-Nov-85 1513 JMC
To: SMC
Call Susie. Martha is in Oakland Kaiser with appendicitis.
∂01-Nov-85 1627 JMC
To: LES
I only made the one trivial change.
∂01-Nov-85 1624 LES Editor-based Operating System
Responding to your October 23 note to Nils Nilsson, John McCarthy and I
are interested in getting an IBM UNIX-based workstation for use in exploring
the development of an experimental editor-based operating system. We expect to
find some funding elsewhere to support the necessary programming effort.
The main premise of the project is that the proper environment
for the interactive user of a computer is a display editor. This provides
the ability to re-edit both previous input and new output in
order to generate new input and also to file the output as desired.
Various other improvements in editors and operating systems are planned.
Thus the goals of the project include the following.
1. The shell and interactive programs will be normally
operated out of a new advanced display editor. Programs for which
this is not suitable will be able to control the interaction themselves.
3. We will explore the possibility of writing the editor and our
other programs in Common Lisp. The full facilities of Common Lisp would
then be available for macros for controlling the editor itself, the
operating system and user programs. Our experience has shown us that if
the editor provides good enough interactive facilities, then many user
programs can rely on them thus allowing simpler programming of interactive
programs.
4. The editor and the operating system will be kept fully
programmable. Thus anything a person can do interactively, he will
be able to write programs to do. This means that all output seeable
by a user must also be readable by programs. Interactive programs
that use the display in a non-standard way will be able to violate
this condition. System status information will be maintained in editable
files.
5. The editor and file system will accomodate arbitrary
character sets. This advance is easy to make in the editor itself and in
bit map displays and modern printers, but keyboards present a problem for
which we intend to provide and explore a variety of solutions.
6. Our planned solution to the arbitrary character set problem
will allow both for standard keyboards and for keyboards adapted
to special tasks, e.g. the use of mathematics, APL or foreign
languages. Thus a special character can appear on the screen
either because the user has pressed a key on a special keyboard
or because he has pressed a suitable sequence of keys on an
ordinary keyboard. The same sequence of bytes will inhabit the
file in either case.
The pace of the project will depend on how soon we can get funding
and interest students in the project after it gets started. We should
have something working within a year of the time we get people,
computer, and funds.
∂01-Nov-85 1710 JMC ebos
To: LES
It occurs to me that some babble about doing ebos as a unix shell
might help avoid arousing anxiety among the IBMers that there might
be competition with decisions they have made. By the way is the
IBMer to whom Eustis talked local?
∂02-Nov-85 1251 JMC Might you be interested in the UCB lecture?
To: CLT
Wednesday, November 6 4:15 60 Evans
MSRI-EVANS WEDNESDAY LECTURES
Hendrik Lenstra "Applied Number Theory"
∂04-Nov-85 0944 JMC
To: RA
brodie.1
∂04-Nov-85 1113 JMC
To: RA
You again made a new copy rather than putting the TEX in brodie.1.
∂04-Nov-85 1116 JMC
To: RA
bibel.re1 Please put the tex in the file itself.
∂04-Nov-85 1436 JMC Our Qlisp proposal
To: amarel@USC-ISI.ARPA
CC: LES@SU-AI.ARPA
If there are any questions about it or about why I'm getting back
into Lisp activity after all these years, I'll be glad to
phone.
∂04-Nov-85 1500 JMC re: message from Brian Reid
To: BOSACK@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 1 Nov 85 21:20:36-PST.]
It would be politic to put even this uncertain message on BBOARD with
cc to Brian Reid.
∂04-Nov-85 1850 JMC re: Using ttyloc or ttyini?? (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I suppose Jack Snoeyink has a good reason for wanting to use
the SUN's keyboard with EMACS, and it supports my view that present
workstation systems are inadequate in spite of vast amounts of
work and money spent on them.
∂04-Nov-85 2016 JMC re: SUNs running EMACS.
To: SNOEYINK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 4 Nov 85 20:07:43-PST.]
My intent was to criticize the SUNs and work stations generally -
not to criticize you. My remark that you had good reason was
not intended ironically. This is part of a running battle with
those who regard the time-shared machines as dinosaurs.
∂05-Nov-85 1141 JMC re: CS306 problems
To: SCHULMAN@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 5 Nov 85 09:31:07-PST.]
Thanks for your advice. It isn't my intention to "weed people out", and
I will take whatever time is required to explain the concepts.
∂05-Nov-85 1217 JMC
To: genesereth@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Please phone 497-4430 as soon as possible.
∂05-Nov-85 1438 JMC Please decide what to do.
To: LES
∂05-Nov-85 1309 ALS Font conversion progress report
Progress report as of November 5, 1985. A. L. Samuel
My new FNTtoGF program is now working correctly, I believe, and all the
mechanics are in place to make DOVER fonts from XGP fonts. Unfortunately,
the 384 pixel versions are quite unsatisfactory because of limitations of
th FSCALE program. FSCALE makes somewhat better 400/200 copies (as
compared with 384/200) of the old XGP fonts if these are worth having.
These fonts are better than one might expect but they are far from being
really good. It is questionable as to whether the potential users would be
satisfied with them for very long.
I have come to the reluctant conclusion that it is not reasonable for me
to try to develop a much better FSCALE program because of the size of the
task. Jonathan Gordon is fixing up a copy of PUB so as to be able to use
existing (non XGP) Dover fonts and perhaps the better course is to settle
for using these fonts. If there are a very few XGP fonts of especial
interest, I could undertake the task of hand tuning these, but this is a
tedious task, at best, and my artistry might not satisfy some people.
One possible project for me to undertake might be that of producing a
version of PUB that would use GF fonts. This could probably be done
without to much effort, but only after one thoroughly understood the
existing PUB program. I would want to look into the problem a bit before
agreeing to take it on. Such a program would enable one to use PUB with
the IMAGEN printer. It would lengthen the life of PUB beyond the useful
life of the existing DOVER and ROVER printers but it would not salvage the
XGP fonts.
Returning to the question of salvaging the old XGP fonts, the problem of
increasing the resolution is difficult because there is no simple way to
separate artifacts introduced to compensate for poor resolution from the
essential features of a glyph design. A good solution must involve an
analysis of the different strokes that make up a glyph. Then sometimes,
one wants to soften the transition between strokes as the resolution is
increased while there are other times when one wants to sharpen the
transition. The situation will usually be obvious to a person who knows
something about fonts in general and about the distinguishing features of
the particular font, but it is hard to codify this knowledge.
Several techniques are described in the literature. An IBM developed
method, that must have involved several man years of effort, does a fair
job, but strangely enough, the results for complicated magnifications, of
the order of 2 to 1, do not seem to be all that much better than what is
produced by FSCALE at 400/200 magnification.
∂05-Nov-85 1442 JMC
To: LES
memo.pub[let,jmc]
∂05-Nov-85 1751 JMC talk title
To: HALPERN@IBM-SJ.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 5 Nov 85 17:37:07 PST.]
"Mental Situation Calculus" will be the title of the talk, although,
as we discussed, the written material will include other matters
as well.
∂05-Nov-85 1757 JMC re: Colourless green ideas... Again pls?
To: BIL@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 5 Nov 85 13:57:15-PST.]
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is the example - perhaps from 1950s.
∂05-Nov-85 1924 JMC sorry
To: CLT
Sorry if I gave the impression that I was insisting on your cooking.
You had only to say you were too tired. If you remain too tired until
after Cadwallader, I will still understand. However, it would be best
if you would say what you want as soon as you can. Then if you don't
want to eat at home or go out together I can make a different arrangement
- for which it is now too late.
∂05-Nov-85 2222 JMC re: Thanks
To: enea!liuida!liuida!jwg@SEISMO.CSS.GOV
[In reply to message sent 4 Nov 1985 1635.]
I'm not sure this address will work for our mail system, so please
acknowledge. Yours arrived at 1985 Nov 5 19:09.
∂05-Nov-85 2225 JMC
To: RA
Please mail the map coloring report and Szeredi letter to Jim Goodwin
at Computer Science Dept., Linkoping University, Linkoping, Sweden.
∂06-Nov-85 0042 JMC re: SIGLUNCH, Nov. 15
To: FFL
[In reply to message rcvd 04-Nov-85 15:28-PT.]
Common sense: 100 million rules or 100 thousand facts?
How much information is contained in common sense knowledge
depends on the power of the formalisms available for representing
the knowledge. Examples will be proposed that require strong
formalisms.
∂06-Nov-85 1024 JMC
To: CLT
Nafeh will be here at 11:15.
∂06-Nov-85 1553 JMC
To: avg@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
tak.lsp[e78,jmc]
(DEFUN TAK (X Y Z)
(COND ((LESSP Y X)
(TAK (TAK (SUB1 X) Y Z)
(TAK (SUB1 Y) Z X)
(TAK (SUB1 Z) X Y)))
(T Y)))
∂06-Nov-85 1556 JMC
To: avg@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
f(x) = if x = 1 then 1 else if even x then f(x/2) else f(3x+1)
∂08-Nov-85 1749 JMC re: Good S.F. restaurant needed
To: NARUM@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 8 Nov 85 11:50:59-PST.]
Try Jack's at Sacramento and Montgomery.
∂08-Nov-85 1751 JMC re: (probably not the final word) (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Perhaps JCL could be added as a Unix shell.
∂09-Nov-85 1219 JMC Kasparov wins
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
a208 1106 09 Nov 85
BC-Kasparov Wins,0032
BULLETIN
MOSCOW (AP) - Garri Kasparov ended fellow Soviet Anatoly Karpov's
10-year reign as World Chess king Saturday, winning the 24th and
final game of the World Chess Championship.
AP-NY-11-09-85 1405EST
- - - - - -
a210 1110 09 Nov 85
BC-Kasparov Wins, 1st Add, a208,0022
URGENT
MOSCOW: Chess Championship
Kasparov, who at 22 becomes the world's youngest-ever champion, took
the title when Karpov resigned.
AP-NY-11-09-85 1409EST
- - - - - -
a211 1111 09 Nov 85
BC-Kasparov Wins, 2nd Add, a210,0049
URGENT
MOSCOW: Karpov resigned
Karpov resigned after Kasparov's 42nd move in the 24th game of the
marathon series. Kasparov's victory gave him a 13-11 defeat of the
34-year-old former world champion.
The audience in Tchaikovsky Hall stamped their feet and broke out
shouting ''Garri! ''Garri!''
AP-NY-11-09-85 1410EST
- - - - - -
a214 1129 09 Nov 85
BC-Kasparov Wins, 3rd Add, a211,0142
URGENT
MOSCOW: Garri! Garri!''
Karpov, under FIDE rules, can demand a rematch within six months.
The players shook hands when it was over and both left the stage
immediately.
Hundreds of chess fans were mobbed outside the hall, where Kasparov
got into a waiting black Volga.
''How do you feel?'' he was asked by an Associated Press reporter.
''Excellent,'' he replied in Russian, his hands raised above his
head and a huge smile across his face. He and his top aides hugged
each other in sheer joy in the rear seat of the car as it sped off
with a police escort.
The final game was the 72nd the players waged for the title. They
played a record-shattering 48 games in 5 1/2 months in what came to be
known as the ''first round'' championship match.
AP-NY-11-09-85 1428EST
***************
∂09-Nov-85 2150 JMC re: AP
To: gluck@SU-PSYCH.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sat, 9 Nov 85 17:24:26 pst.]
SAIL subscribes to the A.P. A wire, and there is a SAIL program called
NS (for news service) written about 1972 by Martin Frost that reads
the stories and creates a concordance of each day's news. Another
program part of NS is used to read the news. This was part of
an old project aimed at studying services that would be useful
for home computer terminals. Formerly we had the New York Times
wire also, but they gave a commercial outfit a monopoly on this
kind of use and cancelled our subscription.
∂10-Nov-85 1331 JMC
To: "@BABY.DIS[F85,JMC]"@SU-AI.ARPA
baby[f85,jmc] Announcement of Timothy aka Cadwallader
Carolyn Talcott (McCarthy) and John McCarthy announce the birth
of Timothy Talcott McCarthy on November 9, 1985 at 0022. He
weighed five pounds nine ounces. All are well.
∂10-Nov-85 1345 JMC
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
baby
Carolyn Talcott (McCarthy) and John McCarthy announce the birth
of Timothy Talcott McCarthy on November 9, 1985 at 0022. He
weighed five pounds nine ounces. All are well.
∂10-Nov-85 1718 JMC
To: "@BABY.DIS[F85,JMC]"@SU-AI.ARPA
baby
Carolyn Talcott (McCarthy) and John McCarthy announce the birth
of Timothy Talcott McCarthy on November 9, 1985 at 0022. He
weighed five pounds nine ounces. All are well.
∂10-Nov-85 1757 JMC
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
baby
Carolyn Talcott (McCarthy) and John McCarthy announce the birth
of Timothy Talcott McCarthy on November 9, 1985 at 0022. He
weighed five pounds nine ounces. All are well.
∂10-Nov-85 1942 JMC re: Rain ? - I should explain..... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - That's not the only superstition about the U.S. in general and
California in particular prevalent in Britain.
∂11-Nov-85 0417 JMC
To: "@BABY.DIS[F85,JMC]"@SU-AI.ARPA
baby
Carolyn Talcott (McCarthy) and John McCarthy announce the birth
of Timothy Talcott McCarthy on November 9, 1985 at 0022. He
weighed five pounds nine ounces. All are well.
∂11-Nov-85 0439 JMC
To: "@BABY.DIS[F85,JMC]"@SU-AI.ARPA
baby
Carolyn Talcott (McCarthy) and John McCarthy announce the birth
of Timothy Talcott McCarthy on November 9, 1985 at 0022. He
weighed five pounds nine ounces. All are well.
∂11-Nov-85 0440 JMC
To: halpern@IBM-SJ.ARPA
How do I send mail to Yorktown now?
∂11-Nov-85 0720 JMC
To: RA
I'm in L.A. today; be back this evening.
∂11-Nov-85 2339 JMC re: Congratulations!
To: LLW@S1-A.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 11 Nov 85 2249 PST.]
And why not to Timothy?
∂12-Nov-85 1109 JMC re: flaunt vs. flout (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - First of all it's "it's" not "its". Second the Random House dictionary
is what the name suggests. There are two meanings, and English will be
a better communication medium if people adhere to the meaning of "flout"
as "ostentatiously disdain or disobey" and "flaunt" as "ostentatiously display".
∂12-Nov-85 1446 JMC ekl proofs
To: JMC
1.1,1.2,2.1,4.1 due tues. nov 26
∂12-Nov-85 1843 JMC re: inviting Reiter
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 12-Nov-85 17:18-PT.]
Ask Les about the money situation. If we can afford the transportation,
I'd like to invite him.
∂12-Nov-85 1850 JMC militant moralism
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
The militant moralism shown by the BBOARD flamers on smoking with no
moderating voice is potentially far more dangerous to your health
than smoking.
∂12-Nov-85 2336 JMC re: Good news
To: Victor.Kuo%UPenn-GradEd%upenn.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 12 Nov 1985 18:33-EST.]
Thanks for your message. It came at the optimal time to send you
our good news. Timothy Talcott McCarthy was born on last Saturday.
He weighed five pounds, nine ounces. He and Carolyn are doing fine
and come home Thursday. Please give my regards to Ruzena Bajcsy.
∂13-Nov-85 1004 JMC smoking and militant moralism
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
1. I don't smoke and never have.
2. My worry about "militant moralism" is not mainly
about MRC's fights with smokers on particular occasions
and analogous events involving other people. These will
be resolved one way or another without serious harm.
3. Rather I worry about making anti-smoking into a political
cause with the goal of making smoking in public legally
analogous to exposing one's genitals in public. Bullying,
in good causes, of course, is a social vice, i.e. it involves
groups of people rather than just individuals. In the past
it has led to massacres as well as to repressive societies.
4. I don't imagine that anti-smoking will by itself make our
society repressive again. However, combined other repressive
causes such as anti-pornography it might grow into something
similar to the nineteenth century anti-vice cause that gave
us prohibition and literary censorship.
5. Once groups of people become hooked on the joys of successfully
bullying others, the causes on whose behalf the bullying is taking
place can rapidly expand.
6. By the way it's the Cafe Maroc not Moroc - the spelling is French.
The atmosphere which it tries to achieve with its belly dancers, decor,
etc. is one of Arab African vice. Water pipes would fit in if they
were legal. Taking a militant anti-smoking campaign there is somewhat
incongruous. There are plenty of other restaurants.
7. My opinion is that the anti-smoking restaurant laws are already
too strong in certain respects and should be relaxed for what one
might call "atmosphere restaurants". For example, if a restaurateur
wished to create the atmosphere of Humphrey Bogart's Casablanca,
forbidding smoking would spoil it.
∂13-Nov-85 1052 JMC noise and smoking
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
The anti-smoking campaign is well established, and its adherents
know what laws and regulations to support. However,
smoke doesn't bother me personally nearly as much as noise.
It bothers my wife even more than it bothers me. We often
have to give up on a restaurant if loud music is playing,
and she won't go into the Stanford Coffee House. She can't
even stand the tapes that are always playing there. I go in
when alone, because the tapes only bother me occasionally,
but am quickly driven out if a band is playing.
The Stanford Coffee House is the only place on campus where
Espresso is available. So far as I know I have no legal
rights according to present law, but I can imagine an
anti-noise crusade that would result in a law requiring
them to maintain a noise free area. We could require that
no band play in the main public area of a restaurant but rather
in a sound-proof room with the restaurant providing ear phones
for people who wanted to listen.
Will the anti-smokers tell me what my rights are in this matter?
∂13-Nov-85 1602 JMC re: Herb Grosch
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 13 Nov 85 11:41:34-PST.]
In my opinionated opinion, Herb Grosch is merely an opiniated windbag.
∂13-Nov-85 1622 JMC noise and smoking
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
I see I didn't make myself perfectly clear again. I think no-smoking
sections in most restaurants and airplanes are a good idea. However, I
think the anti-smoker crusaders are going to far and should be somewhat
accomodating to others tastes and vices just as those of us annoyed by
noise have to be. Provided there are a reasonable number of restaurants
available with adequate separation of non-smokers, that should suffice.
I cannot help feeling that there is a certain element of reformist zeal
in MRC in addition to his desire to protect his wife.
My wife and I have also discussed the possibility of having sections
in restaurants in which discussion of microcomputers and pc software
is forbidden.
Let me elaborate my question about noise. What laws about quiet
in restaurants should there be? The question is specifically addressed
to MRC and RPG. Are we entitled to as much protection as those
annoyed by smoking or somewhat less and why? I'd settle for
considerably less protection than the smoke haters have.
∂13-Nov-85 1837 JMC re: Herb Grosch
To: coraki!pratt@SU-NAVAJO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 13 Nov 85 13:07:05 pst.]
Reminds me of the proposal some years ago that Bruce Franklin go to the
Hoover Institution which foundered on a minor dispute about his role there.
Franklin had in mind a Chair of Revolutionary Studies and Glenn Campbell
had in mind a display case in the lobby.
∂13-Nov-85 2058 JMC
To: ME
How about deleting Sprite from bboards? It isn't receiving mail.
∂14-Nov-85 0659 JMC re: The ultimate bboard flame. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I am deeply touched by Mr. Maslen's concept, new to my conscious
mind, that I would quietly vanish without flaming. I didn't realize
that people considered me so devoted to this duty. However, if anything
would do it, it would be carrying out Lee Altenberg's suggestion. A
good solid proof that MRC and I say the same thing would have a profound
effect on me and probably on MRC also. I await your efforts with fear
mixed with a certain bravado - ``your'' referring to you-all. If
no-one has the literary ability to do better than those who responded
to my prize contest for a Marxist reply to the story about Ortega's
$3,500 sunglass spree, MRC and I are pretty safe.
∂14-Nov-85 1055 JMC
To: VAL
Ernst Mayr is German.
∂14-Nov-85 1352 JMC collaboration
To: givan@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
CC: RA@SU-AI.ARPA
I was asked and said it was ok. I suppose I'd prefer that collaborations
identify themselves.
∂15-Nov-85 1048 JMC
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
MCC 512 343-0860, 9430 Research Blvd.,Echelon Bldg. #1,Austin,TX 78759-6509
∂15-Nov-85 1338 JMC re: autos and pollution (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - David Smith wants us to feel guilty every time we step into our
cars. What he expects this to accomplish isn't obvious. No likely amount
of guilt feelings will solve the air pollution problem or even define the
problem precisely. Perhaps telling people that they should feel guilty
makes David Smith feel better, and I suppose that's something. My opinion
is that the aluminum-air battery provides a real possibility of a
non-polluting car of performance equal to that of present cars, but the
enormous amount of R and D required to realize its possibilities isn't
being done. Realizing them would require overcoming the irrational
campaign against nuclear energy, since conversion of automobiles to
electricity requires new sources. In my opinion, mobilizing guilt
feelings merely puts political power in the hands of people good at doing
so. Once they have power, they abuse it and accomplish nothing of
importance. E.g. when Governor Brown (junior) appointed (Claire?)
Dietrich of the Sierra Club to be in charge of energy for the State, no
good came of it.
∂15-Nov-85 1528 JMC
To: swenson@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
1.1,1.2,2.1,4.1 of problems already done on paper
∂15-Nov-85 1539 JMC re: siglunch
To: PHayes@SRI-KL.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri, 15 Nov 85 13:38:14 gmt.]
You can ftp siglun[f85,jmc]. Unfortunately, it is weak precisely in the
area you are asking questions about. The most important single example
was the concept of a sterile container - all the bacteria in it are dead.
This information is used "theoretically" to rationalize sterilization by
heat. By theoretically I meant that it isn't used by substituting known
individuals for the variables. I had expected to have more, but Timothy
Talcott McCarthy arrived last Saturday morning, and Carolyn just got
back from the hospital yesterday. We can get together some time.
∂16-Nov-85 1601 JMC Selective civil rights.
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
Here is another illustration that what minorities are protected
is a matter of fashion. The Mosher case is another.
a295 2107 15 Nov 85
AM-Smoke Ban,0364
Town Police Contract Bans Smoking
HOLDEN, Mass. (AP) - A new contract adopted by the local police
union will bar new officers from smoking, either on or off the job,
according to the town's labor negotiator.
With the contract, the central Massachusetts town joins a growing
number of U.S. communities that have vowed to hire only non-smoking
public safety officers.
But the contract may mark the first time such a ban has been adopted
by a police union, Holden's labor negotiator, Demitrios M. Moschos,
said Thursday.
The 13 full-time officers now on the force will be exempt from the
ban, but any new officers caught smoking will be subject to
disciplinary action, Moschos said.
Until last month, only two of Holden's full-time officers smoked, he
said. They have since quit smoking.
The head of the state's civil liberties union said the town could be
sued for firing an officer who smoked, but it could probably not be
sued for hiring a non-smoker.
''Employers do have wide discretion in hiring people, and it isn't a
discrimination issue. They (smokers) are not a class protected by
law,'' said John Roberts, executive director of the Civil Liberties
Union of Massachusetts.
Roberts said the contract probably was legal. ''As a civil liberties
principle, we aren't happy with it, but we don't have the tools to do
much about it,'' he said.
Similar rules have been adopted in Iowa City, Iowa; Manteca, Calif.;
and Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington counties in Virginia.
Moschos said the town proposed the smoking ban to the union to
reduce pension costs and improve officers' health.
Under the law in Massachusetts and many other states, police who
have heart and lung disabilities are automatically awarded
job-related disability pensions. The tax-free pensions in
Massachusetts provide the disabled with 72 percent of full pay for
life.
The Legislature is reviewing a proposal that would shift the burden
to the police officer to prove the lung or heart disability was
caused by working conditions and not by smoking.
''It doesn't deprive anyone of their job, but if they smoke, they
are going to pay for it,'' said John Dunlop, chairman of the
Governor's Task Force on Disability Pensions.
AP-NY-11-16-85 0005EST
***************
∂16-Nov-85 1710 JMC returned message
To: yorick%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
The address was correct, but our computer was down for several days.
∂17-Nov-85 1159 JMC re: Mosher case
To: reid@SU-GLACIER.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sat, 16 Nov 85 22:02:46 pst.]
My previous opinion has been reinforced by your message. The key phrase
from my point of view is "the enormous fraud he was perpetrating on the
Chinese government". Your friend, the Anthropology Department,
Stanford University and the State Department have all been substantially
co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party. I don't mean this in any
conspiratorial sense, but they have all come to believe that the release
of information embarrassing to the Chinese government is bad, that good
relations with that government has a higher priority than telling the
truth. This co-option is something quite natural. Since the leaders
of the Chinese communists seem to be attempting something good, one
is inclined to help them. It becomes bad when a person or institution
loses his intellectual independence. This has happened many times with
respect to China. There was the wartime belief propagated by many American
journalists, diplomats and military officers that the Chinese communists
were merely agrarian reformers and not totalitarians. There was the
refusal to believe in 1960 that the Great Leap Forward had caused the
worst famine in world history when 20 million died (according to
information released by the Chinese government in 1979), there
was the sympathy with the Cultural Revolution - not recognizing its
totalitarian and disastrous character. Finally, there is the present
tendency to consider China more liberal than the Soviet Union, when
there is not a single known dissident out of jail in China.
Basically, what you and Stanford object to is Mosher's exercise of
academic freedom (or do you call it academic license) in publishing
his two books. These books contain more information than expert
journalists such as Fox Butterfield were able to obtain. If Stanford
wants to examine Mosher's performance as an academic, they should
read his books. The actual charges are trivial. I assume you have
not read his books, which are on sale in the Bookstore or I can lend
them to you. In general Mosher's critics are inhibited from reading
them, because they fear being offended by views that conflict with
the romantic ideas about China to which they are committed.
I would be grateful if you would put a bowdlerized version of your
message on BBOARD to which this would be an appropriate response.
∂17-Nov-85 1213 JMC re: Courtesy Accounts
To: JPBion@SU-SUSHI.ARPA, facil@SU-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message from JPBion@SU-SUSHI.ARPA sent Sun 17 Nov 85 11:14:08-PST.]
I strongly favor courtesy accounts. Flushing old mail every few months
either automatically or by the action of a CSD-CF secretary will keep
their cost down. Perhaps a person who doesn't intend to log in regularly
would even prefer an account that would reject mail. Even better might
be an option that would cause an account to reject mail if there hasn't
been a login in n months. Most likely a small adjustment of the
pricing formula can reduce the cost of courtesy accounts for very
occasional users to something that corresponds to the minimal burden
they put on the system. Requiring their renewal creates an administrative
cost that is likely to far outweigh the cost of keeping the accounts
for ten years or so.
I think we can probably devise an arrangement that will permit courtesy
accounts for former Master's students at minimal cost.
I'm neutral on whether the Department needs a book quality printer.
If members of the Department want to prepare book manuscripts completely,
then we need one, and the proposed arrangement reduces costs. However,
if Knuth's group no longer intends to maintain software for the APT,
then we need to be realistic about whether it will be done some other
way.
∂17-Nov-85 1229 Mailer failed mail returned
To: JMC
In processing the following command:
MAIL
The following message was unsent because of a command error:
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
∂17-Nov-85 1229 JMC re: My thesis
To: JJW, RPG, CLT
[In reply to message from JJW rcvd 17-Nov-85 11:48-PT.]
1. I approve of the direction you are going.
2. We may have a multi-processor in time. You can also arrange to
use the Berkeley Sequent machine now. Call Fateman.
3. You haven't really said enough about what you intend to do for
us to judge whether you will produce a satisfactory thesis if you
do what you are trying to do. In my opinion, if you come up with
reasonably solid answers to the following questions you'll have a
thesis.
a. Is the Qlisp/Multilisp style of programming adequate
to express the parallelism involved in some substantial class
of symbolic computation problems?
b. Is it important to have constructs like Qcatch and Qthrow or is
simple and-parallelism enough?
c. Identify problems (if any) for which uniform-access parallelism
is important or essential.
d. Convince the readers of your thesis that they actually can
take advantage of parallel processors.
e. Write and run enough parallel symbolic programs to get good
data on performance.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂17-Nov-85 1248 JMC jjw thesis
To: JJW@SU-AI.ARPA, RPG@SU-AI.ARPA, ullman@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA,
CLT@SU-AI.ARPA
1. I approve of the direction you are going.
2. We may have a multi-processor in time. You can also arrange to
use the Berkeley Sequent machine now. Call Fateman.
3. You haven't really said enough about what you intend to do for
us to judge whether you will produce a satisfactory thesis if you
do what you are trying to do. In my opinion, if you come up with
reasonably solid answers to the following questions you'll have a
thesis.
a. Is the Qlisp/Multilisp style of programming adequate
to express the parallelism involved in some substantial class
of symbolic computation problems?
b. Is it important to have constructs like Qcatch and Qthrow or is
simple and-parallelism enough?
c. Identify problems (if any) for which uniform-access parallelism
is important or essential.
d. Convince the readers of your thesis that they actually can
take advantage of parallel processors.
e. Write and run enough parallel symbolic programs to get good
data on performance.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂17-Nov-85 1434 JMC re: judgment
To: reid@SU-GLACIER.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun, 17 Nov 85 12:36:51 pst.]
A few further remarks.
1. I also haven't had time to read all the documents, although I did
read the books. This lack of time, coupled with some secrecy on
both Stanford's part and Mosher's, has meant that no independent
faculty member has investigated what many believe to be a gross
violation of academic freedom.
2. Your friend's business evidently depends on the good will of the
Chinese government. By telling you the "horror stories" privately,
he may be easing his conscience. However, if believes that Mosher
is also obliged not to rock the boat, he has confused his business
interests with the obligations of an academic to tell the truth.
3. One of the sillier Kennedy new charges is that Mosher changed his
thesis topic without permission and notice. When anthropologist studying
Taiwan villages gets the opportunity to spend a year in a Mainland
village, it should be obvious to the stupidest thesis adviser that
his topic is likely to change and the Stanford Anthropology Department
almost certainly expected him to write about the Mainland. What they
probably expected, however, was something like what another scholar,
whose name I forget, wrote. Namely, this other scholar took entirely
seriously the declared policies of the communist leaders and evaluated
how successfully they were implemented. He didn't take into account
the possibility, confirmed by Mosher and all the emigre writing from
China and the Soviet Union, that such a point of view completely distorts
how a communist society actually works. The slogans are not much
more than tools in feudal struggles for personal power.
4. A last remark. How seriously would you or any Stanford faculty
member take it if the charge against Mosher were that he "perpetrated
an enormous fraud against the U.S. government" without specifics
of what actual non-trivial illegal activity there was.
∂17-Nov-85 1656 JMC banquet speech
To: Udi%Wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
While going through old mail I found your letter inviting me with
a remark that we might discuss it during your forthcoming visit.
Anyway if you haven't lost patience and gotten someone else, I'd like
to do it, and the terms are ok.
∂17-Nov-85 1747 JMC
To: RA
resnic.3
∂17-Nov-85 1803 JMC
To: JMC
13 filing notes
∂17-Nov-85 1850 JMC parking
To: RA
I recently had the bumper replaced on my Mazda and forgot that this caused
the removal of my parking sticker. I didn't notice until I got a parking
ticket on Friday. Please find out what I need to do to get a new sticker
and get the ticket cancelled.
∂17-Nov-85 1853 JMC
To: RA
Please do the filing fairly quickly, since some of it will be needed soon.
∂18-Nov-85 1045 JMC re: parking
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 18-Nov-85 10:44-PT.]
208KCL, 1973 Mazda RX-2, blue
∂18-Nov-85 1319 JMC chess computer
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
It's good to see the machine champion be something that involves
AI sophistication as well as just speed. It would be even better
of Hitech were a program on an ordinary computer.
a217 1211 18 Nov 85
AM-Chess Computer, Bjt,0818
TODAY'S FOCUS: Highest Ranked Manmade Master Boasts Big Byte
By BOB DVORCHAK
Associated Press Writer
PITTSBURGH (AP) - While two Soviet chess masters were playing a
72-match struggle over 14 months for the world championship, a
souped-up chess computer was earning the elite rank of master in just
five months of play and achieving the highest rating ever given a
machine.
The electronic chess whiz is called Hitech, capable of analyzing
175,000 moves per second, which its creators say is 50 percent faster
than any other chess-playing machine. It beats other computers and
holds its own against humans.
''It's both smart and fast. It's very, very strong in tactics and
the ability to calculate sequences,'' said Dr. Hans Berliner, a
computer science professor at Carnegie-Mellon University who helped
create Hitech.
''What sets it apart from other computers is we're able to evaluate
a position with a high degree of sophistication very, very quickly,''
said Berliner. ''I think we have a real chance to penetrate the very
top levels. We'll be in the top 50 players in the country by the end
of next year.''
Hitech, three years in the making, won the first tournament it
played May 25. By mid-October its record was 19-3-3. Berliner said
the defeats came when it was new to competition.
In the grueling championship contest in the Soviet Union, Garri
Kasparov finally defeated Anatoly Karpov earlier this month, making
him the youngest chess champion in history at the age of 22.
On this side of the Atlantic this month, Hitech whipped two human
masters at a local tournament and drew a third. It also established
supremacy over all other machines by winning the North American
Computer Chess Championship in Denver.
The victories earned Hitech the rank of master, based on a numerical
formula that weighs won-lost records and the level of competition.
Hitech's ranking is about 2,250. The best human is near 2,800.
''Hitech is the highest rated computer we ever had,'' said David
Gertler of the U.S. Chess Federation and assistant editor of ''Chess
Life'' magazine.
A computer named Belle was the first machine to earn the master's
rank in 1983, but it has since slipped to expert. Of 30,902 players
rated by the U.S. Chess Federation, only 766 are masters and Hitech
is the lone machine. According to a recent Gallup poll, 20 million
Americans know how to play chess.
Berliner, himself a chess master, was once one of the nation's top
12 players and played former world champion Bobby Fischer four times.
He won the World Correspondence Chess Championship in 1968.
He sensed Hitech was destined for greatness when it tied him
recently.
''I took advantage of some things and got off to a good start. But
according to it, I missed a chance to win. If you ask it, it will
tell you what you should do,'' said Berliner.
''I don't think I'm going to be playing it much anymore. If it's not
better than me now, it will be in half a year,'' he said.
Researchers are continually refining its program, he said.
Berliner, 56, developed his first chess program while working for
International Business Machines Corp. He left IBM 16 years ago to get
his doctorate in computer science at CMU, and stayed to continue work
on the marriage of artificial intelligence and chess.
Hitech is actually a series of parallel computers. Each of the 64
squares on a chess board is governed by a microchip that is a
computer in itself.
Each microchip, containing the equivalent of thousands of
transistors, identifies every move that can bring a chess piece onto
its square, and a central arbiter evaluates each move and picks the
best one.
A move is judged on whether it captures an opposing piece, if it
puts a friendly piece in jeopardy and if it improves the control of
the board.
''It's more than just speed. We're applying intelligence on many
different levels,'' said Berliner.
At most, a human considers about 200 possible chess moves based on
experience and intuition. Hitech doggedly scans every possible move,
even ones that might be ridiculous.
''We're looking at an awful lot of trash. It looks at 30 million
positions in about three minutes. But what if only 1 percent is
worthwhile? That's still 300,000 moves,'' said Berliner.
Berliner said it would be 10 years before computers can compete with
the likes of Kasparov.
But the machine doesn't suffer from fatigue, or pout or display
other eccentricities, said Berliner.
On the practical side, Berliner said Hitech's programs could probe
the makeup of molecules. Atoms have certain rules for connecting just
as chess has rules governing the moves of the pieces, and the
computer could make millions of calculations in a few minutes.
''It's a valuable research tool with a tremendous power of search,''
he said. ''The interesting thing about science is you never know what
you're going to find.''
AP-NY-11-18-85 1513EST
***************
∂18-Nov-85 1356 JMC re: thanks --
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 18-Nov-85 13:15-PT.]
Thanks for the kind words, but I felt rather unprepared. I had hoped to
be able to be much more concrete. I don't remember your reification question.
Please ask it again. Dinner will be fine, although probably I'll be eating
at home more often. Why not Cafe Maroc? The few times I've been there,
I haven't been bothered by smokers, although admittedly I'm less sensitive
than many other non-smokers.
∂18-Nov-85 1438 JMC
To: bosack@SU-SCORE.ARPA
What is the telephone number to get machine status?
∂18-Nov-85 1442 JMC Shapiro
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
He sent a c.v. and wants to know where it stands. As I recall, we had
said a visiting appointment next Fall was feasible. Should it be on
the agenda of the next Faculty or Senior Faculty meeting?
He is"Udi%Wisdom.bitnet"@WISCVM.ARPA.
∂18-Nov-85 1458 JMC re: a reminder
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 18-Nov-85 11:11-PT.]
Please call Perry to accept the dinner invitation.
∂18-Nov-85 1709 JMC Parnas
To: llw@S1-A.ARPA
It belatedly occurs to me that you may be interested in this.
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 85 07:28:56 pdt
From: vax-populi!dparnas@nrl-css (Dave Parnas)
To: nrl-css!Neumann@SRI-CSLA.ARPA
Subject: Joseph Weizenbaum's comments <JOSEPH@MIT-XX.ARPA>: sdi]
Although there is a great deal of truth and wisdom in Weizenbaum's
message, I believe that he overlooks the reason that SDI would be
destabilizing and another step in the Arms race. It is not because
of the stated goals of the program (Reagan's March 1983 speech) but because
those goals are not achievable. There would be nothing wrong with rendering
ICBMs and other weapons obsolete. On the contrary, everyone should want to
see every country, city, and town protected by an impenetrable shield that
would free it from the fear of the indiscriminate horror that rained down on
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It is because the SDIO efforts will not lead to
technology of that sort, that SDI is the things that Weizenbaum says it is.
I agree with Weizenbaum that we need to seek non-technological
solutions. Technology is not likely to provide solutions in a situation
where we oppose a power with equally sophisticated technology.
I believe that SDI is one issue where both disarmament and armament
supporters could agree. Both sides seek peace through different mechanisms,
but neither will find their goals advanced by an untrustworthy "shield".
Dave
∂19-Nov-85 0057 JMC con.grat.u.la.shions
To: CLT
∂19-Nov-85 0034 PHayes@SRI-KL.ARPA con.grat.u.la.shions
Received: from SRI-KL.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Nov 85 00:34:39 PST
Received: By spar-cas-max (from spar-cas-krazykat (krazykat.ARPA)) id AA14585; Mon, 18 Nov 85 16:47:30 pst
Return-Path: <hayes>
Received: By spar-cas-krazykat id AA19496; Mon, 18 Nov 85 16:42:55 gmt
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 85 16:42:55 gmt
From: Patrick Hayes <PHayes@SRI-KL>
Message-Id: <8511190042.AA19496@spar-cas-krazykat>
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: con.grat.u.la.shions
..and best wishes to Carolyn and Timothy! I hadnt heard before, please
give Carolyn my heartfelt congratulations.
I will get coments to you when Ive been able to read the file then
we can perhaps make a date.
Would you and Carolyn ( and Timothy ) like to come over some evening or
perhaps weekend afternoon for a meal/drink/talk and see what life is
like in a tiny Eichler ( and see some of our clocks ) ? Life is
complex just after a birth, I know, but consider it a standing invitation
in any case.
Pat
∂19-Nov-85 1016 JMC re: Russia's computing
To: PKANERVA@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 19 Nov 85 08:57:59-PST.]
When I made my first visit in 1965 they were already giving high priority
to computing and had decided to make an imitation IBM 360 as the major
collaborative project of COMECON (their economic collaboration with their
satellites). There is something about computing that requires a greater
decentralization initiative than their system readily tolerates. For
example, recognizing that software was important and then putting elderly
mathematicians in charge of producing it didn't work very well.
∂19-Nov-85 1019 JMC re: Hi!
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 19 Nov 85 09:14:53-PST.]
I would be surprised if an Israeli would bring any research support with
him. I think we'll have to put together a complete package ourselves.
By the way I believe the proposal we discussed was for him to come
for one quarter, perhaps Fall.
∂19-Nov-85 1021 JMC Congratulations
To: CLT
∂19-Nov-85 0902 nttlab!NTT-20!Goto@su-shasta.arpa Congratulations
Received: from SU-SHASTA.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Nov 85 09:00:52 PST
Received: by su-shasta.arpa with TCP; Mon, 18 Nov 85 16:41:45 pst
Received: by ntt.junet (4.12/4.7JC-4) via CHAOS with CHAOS-MAIL
id AA24487; Mon, 18 Nov 85 20:30:14 jst
Message-Id: <8511181130.AA24487@ntt.junet>
Date: 18 Nov 1985 2028
From: Shigeki Goto <nttlab!NTT-20!Goto@su-shasta.arpa>
Subject: Congratulations
To: nttlab!Shasta!jmc@su-ai, nttlab!Shasta!clt@su-ai
Cc: hplabs!utah-cs!jmc@su-ai.ARPA, hplabs!utah-cs!clt@su-ai.ARPA,
nttlab!NTT-20!goto@su-shasta.arpa
Congratulations!!!
I have learned with delight that you had a baby boy.
-- Shigeki Goto
Email addresses (1) "hplabs!kddlab!nttlab!ntt20!goto"@utah-cs.ARPA
and (2) "nttlab!ntt20!goto"@Shasta
P.S. The <return-path> may not indicate my exact address mentioned above.
The route via hplabs (1) is long but reliable. I am trying to establish
a new route to Shasta (2). Fortunately, I got an international account
from NTT. I still need a right modem to call Shasta successfully.
-------
∂19-Nov-85 1141 JMC Subject: Found! list of proof methodologies (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Dana Angluin is in the Computer Science Department at Yale. However,
I suspect this was done while she was a graduate student at UCB.
∂19-Nov-85 1157 JMC reply to message
To: BOSACK@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 19 Nov 85 11:54:42-PST.]
My question was about the number that automatically gives the temperature,
etc. in the machine room. You told it to me some months ago, but I mislaid
it.
∂19-Nov-85 1522 JMC your memo to Gibbons
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
In the -1 paragraph on page 1 you mention "two specific requests". It isn't
clear where the first leaves off and the second begins. If we were
interested in logic programming, under whose quota would it fit. More
generally, dividing things up this way seems to make for having to take
back billets if you want to spend any of them on subjects that none
of the existing groups regards as its business. For example, I'm not
sure I'd want to spend an AI billet on logic programming per se.
∂19-Nov-85 1651 JMC fields of computer science
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
An alternative is to define the branches of computer science with phrases
like "includes list processing, logic programming and databases) attached
to systems.
∂20-Nov-85 2045 JMC re: Schlipf paper
To: BARWISE@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 20 Nov 85 17:38:38-PST.]
I don't think I have seen the Schlipf paper and would like a copy.
∂20-Nov-85 2245 JMC removal
To: risks@SRI-CSL.ARPA
Again I request removing my name from the distribution list. In my
opinion the Anderson contribution is at least as political as the
one you rejected from me. Note that this is sent to RISKS and not
just to RISKS-REQUEST.
∂21-Nov-85 1307 JMC re: Schlipf paper
To: BARWISE@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 20 Nov 85 17:38:38-PST.]
I should have waited. Schlipf's paper arrived here also.
∂21-Nov-85 1625 JMC Subject: Barefoot and Pregnant (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
There is the further possibility that some women (and men) will
conclude that what Reagan and Gorbachev said about Afghanistan and
human rights is included in what each of them has previously said
about these topics. What Mrs. Reagan and Mrs. Gorbachev said to each
other might be new even if (by necessity of their positions) insubstantial.
∂21-Nov-85 1637 JMC re: British ABC's (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
This isn't British English or American English, it's official air
traffic control international English. One of the consequences of having
English be the international air traffic control language is that all
these foreigners get a say on how it is supposed to be pronounced.
∂21-Nov-85 1641 JMC re: death by dinosaur dung (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Not by a factor of 15 or so. Dinosaurs died out around the
time of the Cretaceous-Tertiary transition about 65 million years
ago, and nothing that anyone calls human is more than 4 million
years old. If I remember correctly the oldest primates are less
than 20 million years old.
∂21-Nov-85 1705 JMC
To: RA
fagin.re1
∂22-Nov-85 0030 JMC re: Furrin Pronunciation (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
It isn't the Chinese government's fault that American newspapers and
scholars followed their revised spellings. The Chinese are entitled to
use the Latin alphabet in any way that is convenient for representing the
sounds of their language. For example, they find it convenient to use the
letter Q to represent the sound for which English uses CH, because they
have no other use for the letter. Nor was it customary for English media
to follow foreign changes in the use of the Latin alphabet. For example,
when the Japanese adopted the Romaji system of representing Japanese
words, we didn't follow. Following the Chinese represents a monumental
exercise in ass-kissing on the part of American scholars, including those
at Stanford, and American media. Moreover, the new system will lead to
American pronunciation of Chinese proper names and place names in ways
that are even farther from Chinese pronunciation than the old system,
because very few people will trouble to learn the way the Chinese use the
letters. In general there is no way of representing the sounds of
a language in Latin letters that is convenient both for natives of
the country and natives of other countries.
∂22-Nov-85 1711 JMC re: seminar
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 22-Nov-85 15:42-PT.]
I will be out of town that week.
∂22-Nov-85 1741 JMC re: Romanji (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
For example: In the Hepburn romanization there is the proper name
Takeuchi, which corresponds to its pronunciation reasonably well. In the
romaji (not romanji I believe), the name is spelled Takeuti, because in
the Japanese Kana syllabary, there is the sequence (ta ti tu te to), where
ti is pronounced chi (as any Japanese knows) and tu is pronounced tsu,
while the others follow the standard consonant vowel sequence. The romaji
is regularly related to the Japanese writing, while the Hepburn gives an
English speaker a reasonable approximation of Japanese pronunciation.
Recently most Japanese have used the Hepburn way of writing their names
when they write English, presumably preferring foreigners to pronounce
them more recognizably.
∂23-Nov-85 1100 JMC need to avoid misprints
To: RA
When I did "find srinivasan in librar", I got one hit, because the
other entry was filed under "srinvasan". I fixed it.
∂23-Nov-85 1111 JMC
To: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
I'd like to renew Andrews, Theory of Partitions
∂23-Nov-85 1229 JMC things
To: RA@SU-AI.ARPA, nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: genesereth@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Rutie, please send the letter inquiring about Genesereth to Lesser and Reiter.
∂23-Nov-85 1211 GENESERETH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA things
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 Nov 85 12:11:42 PST
Date: Sat 23 Nov 85 12:11:39-PST
From: Michael Genesereth <GENESERETH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: things
To: jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12161605022.22.GENESERETH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
John,
I just got back from my trip East.
(1) Vic Lesser tells me he didn't get a letter from you. Since he
is the only one on the list familiar with my work on cooperative
ps, it might be good to get some feedback from him.
(2) I think it might be appropriate to write to Ray Reiter as well.
(3) I just heard about the new kid on the block. Congratulations.
mrg
-------
∂23-Nov-85 2228 JMC some interesting opportunities for questions and education
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
a269 1744 23 Nov 85
AM-BRF--Gorbachev Petition,0135
Stanford Students Want Gorbachev Commencement Speech
STANFORD, Calif. (AP) - Petitions signed by 500 Stanford University
students in the 1986 graduating class say they want Soviet Premier
Mikhail Gorbachev to deliver their commencement speech.
The petitions delivered to the school president Friday represent
about a third of the members of the class. Petitions will be
circulated through Thanksgiving.
Normal university procedures call for a list of recommended
commencement speakers to submitted by a nominating committee of
students, faculty and administrators to President Donald Kennedy in
early December.
''We talked to the Department of Protocol and Ceremony at the State
Department and got the logistics on sending a formal invitation,''
said Mark Fleischauer, one of the drive's organizers.
A representative at the Soviet Embassy was ''quite excited about the
idea'' when contacted by students, Fleischauer added.
AP-NY-11-23-85 2043EST
***************
∂24-Nov-85 1226 JMC $1 an hour
To: shoham@YALE.ARPA
When I finally got around to trying to read your letter, I found I forgot
your formalism. Which of your papers contains the formalism needed?
∂24-Nov-85 1851 JMC Mosher
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
I have been slow in responding to the bboard justification
of Mosher's expulsion partly because CKSUM (for some unknown reason)
didn't turn up the relevant bboard items but mostly because I had
hoped to have time to read the reports, etc. Unfortunately, I
didn't have time and have to make do with my sketchy reading.
Bill Poser asks if I have evidence that Stanford is
persecuting Mosher for his political opinions. It is in the
nature of the case that there won't be evidence of motive.
My opinion is based on the weakness of the charges against
Mosher. They are almost all the kind of third party injuries
that were explicitly rejected as a reason for University
action agaist radicals in the 1970s with Stanford taking the
position that if the police wished to take action that is their
business. Come to think of it we have the current example of
Stanford refusing to take any action of its own against the
students who blocked the trustees' cars.
Some of the charges are downright silly, e.g. the one that
he changed the subject of his thesis.
Poser builds up a straw man in hypothecating that Mosher's
book constitutes a draft of his thesis. Maybe Mosher intends it as
such and maybe he doesn't, but a thesis can't be rejected before
it is submitted. My own hope is that Mosher will publish a
scholarly paper discussing what seems to me to be a fundamental
difference in methodology between him and the tradition of scholarly
writing about China and other communist countries. Namely, other
scholars take seriously the announced policies of the central
committees, poltibureaus and maximal leaders and evaluate how
successfully they have been carried out. Mosher, along with
dissident Soviet writing, takes the announced policies as merely
an indication of power struggles among the autocrats and as tools
in these struggles. In my view this approach is worth considering.
Returning to the Anthropology Department's options, they
took the most aggressive possible course in expelling him.
I'm not even sure it has previously been used for getting rid of
a graduate student. All they actually had to do was to deny
further assistantships, let his adviser resign, find a thesis
inadequate, and let the the clock run out. I don't know whether
a student at Stanford can submit a thesis except through an
adviser. I can only assume that they chose to act as they did
because they welcomed the publicity. The most plausible reason
for that was to kowtow to the Chinese.
Without having looked into the matter carefully, I
doubt the existence of a published "anthropologist's code"
that specifies an anthropologist's duty to obey every
post facto interpretation of every regulation of the
country in which he works. I suspect that
the reactions of the Anthropology Department and its
Chairman would have been considerably different if the
protests about his violating regulations had come from
the government of Taiwan.
Finally, I shall reproduce the Wall Street Journal
editorial on the subject in order to answer Eric Berglund's
characterization of me as a "right wing fanatic". If so
I have respectable company.
Stanford Gets Its Man
Stanford University has finally and officially kicked Sinologist
Steven Mosher out of its doctoral program, and Stanford President
Donald Kennedy has released a 40-page letter, with 35-page appendix,
giving its reasons.
Mr. Mosher has been an academic cause celebre since Stanford's
anthropology department shunned him in 1983. He came to prominence
when he reported that the Chinese government had been carrying out a
population-control based in part on forced abortions, sometimes as
late as the last trimester of pregnancy. He further reported that
strict limitations on family size, coupled with traditional Chinese
desires to produce male offspring, had created perverse incentives
resulting in acts of female infanticide.
It should be pointed out that no-one has ever raised
significant objections to the veracity of Mr. Mosher's revelations
on this subject. Indeed, his revelations have been confirmed in an
astoundin three-part series thi past January by the Washington Post's
former China correspondent Michael Weisskopf.
The revelations were bound to upset Mr. Mosher's Chinese hosts,
of course, and the Chinese attacked him with allegations of
unacceptable behavior. Following a Stanford faculty investigation,
the anthropology department dismissed him from its doctoral
program. Though it previously had refused to release the report
explaining its reasons, Stanford has denied throughout that its
actions had anything to do with China's threats to deny access
for future U.S. researchers.
Mr. Kennedy's letter finally explaining the reasons is a
remarkable document - on its face reflecting fidelity to academic
procedure but never dispelling the impression that Mr. Mosher's
real sin was too aggressively pursuing the truth.
What then did Steven Mosher do? Explicitly divorcing his
decision from the content of Mr. Mosher's work in China (subsequently
published in a well-reviewed book "Broken Earth"), Mr. Kennedy
cites "the erosion of the necessary relationship of trust
between faculty and student ..." Mr. Kennedy writes that "some
of the most important aspects" for this erosion consist primarily
of "conflicting stories" Mr. Mosher told the faculty regarding the
official status of his research assistant in China, the details
of his customs inspections, the intended use in China of a van
he purchased, the number of documents he collected, his failure
to report an arrest incident to hi advisers "until directly asked",
his payment for publication of an article about China's abortion
policies, and his unannounced decision to switch his thesis topic
to China ("your advisors were expecting to receive a demographic
comparison between a fishing village and a farming community
in Taiwan").
Stanford's case, however, reaches an evidential apogee
in an appendix summarizing "new material received" during President
Kennedy's review. This centers, at length, on a dispute over Mr.
Mosher's purchase of a Nikon camera, whether it was a Nikon FE or
a Nikon F2, and whether the camera rightfully belonged to Mr.
Mosher or the Stanford anthropology department. To resolve this,
Stanford hired a Hong Kong detective agency called Fact Finders
to "get additional evidence on various aspects of the purchase".
Stanford also made a meticulous comparison of Mr. Mosher's submitted
receipts against camera and lens prices published by a store
advertising the the Dec. 2, 1979 New York Times and by Sharp Photo
in the April 1980 Modern Photography ("page 170"). The receipts
were also submitted to experts in handwriting analysis.
Arriving at the end of this extraordinary in-house indictment,
a reader is hard put to resist President Kennedy's conclusion
that Mr. Mosher and Stanford have a problem about "the trust and
confidence necessary to graduate education". Mr. Mosher is a bit
more like Indiana Jones than like your average university
anthropologist. Mr. Kennedy has no real authority over the
anthropology faculty, but he does have the responsibility to
defend its actions against Mr. Mosher's likely lawsuit, for
which he has hired Melvin Belli.
In important respects, though, Mr. Kennedy's letter adds to,
rather than dispels, doubts about what goes on these days in
American universities. He quotes the faculty's 1983 report,
which chastises Mr. Mosher for traveling in China "without such
permission being specified in writing on his travel permit", thereby
"testing the limits of the Chinese security system," an unacceptable
act by "an exchange scholar with the obligation to protect the
reputation of the program." We read ths as confirming, rather than
refuting, the essential charge that Stanford's actions were linked to
Mr. Mosher's disquieting revelations about China. Moreover, such
procedural fastidiousness leaves us with the strong impression that
had Mr. Mosher been a tenured university anthropologist rather than
an Indiana Jones, the world would never have learned of the horrors
he had discovered in Guangdong Province.
Somehow, an institution supposedly devoted to seeking the
truth could find no middle ground in this complex and difficult
affair, but instead feels itself forced to destroy an academic
career. We do not intend to pick a quarrel with Stanford, for this
is by no means the only recent instance of faculty and administrators
flushing from their midst colleagues or visitors they deem intellectually,
politically, or personally uncongenial. We worry about a more
general intolerance on the part of what seems to be an increasingly
enervated class of U.S. university intellectuals. Should these
habits prevail, society will come to look elsewhere for new knowledge,
while departments of anthropology seek out graduate students willing
to produce comparisons of Taiwan's fishing and farming villages.
∂24-Nov-85 2325 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
I don't agree with Roland van Gaalen's idea of where the
burden of proof lies. My slight acquaintance with the Stanford
officials involved doesn't permit me to exclude the possibility
that not rocking the academic boat was a very strong consideration,
so the unreleased evidence carries no weight with me.
The miscellaneous character of the released evidence convinces me
that the Anthropology Department and later Stanford officialdom
was out to get him. As to the reason, I suppose that keeping on
the good side of the Chinese government is a reason that might
appeal to the official-minded independent of politics. I notice
that none of the University's defenders have criticized Mosher's
two books. I suppose their content is considered irrelevant by
bureaucratically-minded people, but I think that Mosher has made
discoveries that eluded previous students of China, and I
am not referring to the forced abortions, which are merely one
manifestation of how that system works and not the most interesting.
For this reason it is and was important to try to salvage him
as a scholar, and Stanford entirely did the opposite.
Bill Poser is mistaken in supposing that my message was entirely
devoted to refuting his earlier one. I again mentioned Kennedy's
raising the point of his changing his thesis topic fully aware
that Poser hadn't mentioned it.
I further believe that the Wall Street Journal is correct in
suspecting that the Chinese communists have little to fear from
the official scholarship of the Stanford social science departments
which will continue to take their pronouncements at face value.
∂25-Nov-85 0742 JMC re: The night of Dec 3
To: yg%eecs.umich.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun, 24 Nov 85 10:03:09 est.]
Yes, I'll stay the night of Dec. 3. Thanks for your patience.
My excuse is the new baby.
∂25-Nov-85 0756 JMC re: JMC and the Mosher Case (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
My longstanding observation suggests that Stanford Faculty have the
same tendencies toward conformity with the group as anyone else.
∂25-Nov-85 1202 JMC People's democracy vs. democracy
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
Excerpt from November 25 Stanford Daily story
Peking Warning Jars Hong Kong
Hong Kong - In recent days, Hong Kong has been jolted by a warning
that China will try to stop the development of a democratic form
of government in the British colony during the transition period
before it reverts to Chinese rule in 1997.
China's senior representative in Hong Kong, Xu Jiatun, told a
Thursday press conference that his govermnet does not want to
see any "radical changes" in this East Asian financial center
over the next 12 years. He indicated that current efforts to
develop an elected legislature in Hong Kong could have what he
calls "damaging effects".
A.P. story
a086 0904 25 Nov 85
PM-Hong Kong Reforms, Adv 03,0635
$adv03
For Release PMs Tues Dec. 3 or Thereafter
China Worried about Demands for Political Reforms in Hong Kong
By TSE PUI SHAN
Associated Press Writer
HONG KONG (AP) - Officials of mainland China have expressed concern
about demands for direct elections and other political reforms in
Hong Kong, which reverts to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.
The demands arose after limited elections were held in September for
24 of the 56 seats on the Legislative Council. The remaining 32 seats
were filled by appointment by the British colonial government.
The voting was limited to semi-government and professional groups,
representing less than 1 percent of Hong Kong's 5.4 million people.
The balloting was devised as part of the process of preparing for
the turnover of Hong Kong to Peking, after a century of British rule.
Peking has promised to retain Hong Kong's capitalist system for 50
years beyond 1997 and that Hong Kong will be a Chinese Special
Administrative Region administered by its own residents.
Since the September elections, several groups have been demanding
more drastic changes. Some have called for direct elections with
universal suffrage, a suggestion that has been interpreted as a move
for greater local autonomy than Peking had agreed to in its pact sign
with Britain.
These groups have expressed a belief that strong democratic
institutions in Hong Kong will discourage China from interfering in
local affairs should it renege on its promise to allow Hong Kong
residents to govern the territory.
Ji Pengfei, director of China's Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office
in Peking, has repeatedly expressed his concern about the demands to
Hong Kong delegations visiting the Chinese capital.
''After Hong Kong's sovereignty is reverted to China, the most
important feature is that Hong Kong must not become an independent
country,'' Ji told one delegation. ''It will only be a Special
Administrative Region practicing capitalism under the leadership of a
socialist China.''
Hong Kong, Ji added, is now in a crucial transitional period.
''In this period, we must avoid the emergence of any unnecessary
chaos that may affect a smooth transfer of sovereignty and the
materialization of Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong after 1997.''
He said any political reforms must be consistent with the Basic Law,
a constitutional document for the post-1997 era now being drafted by
China and Hong Kong representatives.
Hong Kong's left-wing press has supported Ji's views, stressing that
Britain's responsibility is to return power directly to China rather
than to a Hong Kong electorate.
The Hong Kong government has been cautious in its reaction to the
developments and has said it will wait until 1987 to decide what
further steps should be taken toward a more representative
government.
''I think a lot of people are worried that we should not go too fast
and, in fact, we should not go too fast,'' said Chief Secretary David
Akers-Jones, Hong Kong's second-ranked government official after Gov.
Edward Youde.
''I think if we were seen to be doing things hastily and without
consideration, then it may slow down economic development,'' he told
reporters.
Akers-Jones added that he does not believe a majority of Hong Kong
residents are keen on direct elections.
''They don't want change for change's sake or any particular form of
change for change's sake,'' he said. ''We've got one of the most
prosperous economies in Asia. We've got to keep it that way because
our social programs, all our programs, depend on it.''
Some residents have voiced their own concerns about any drastic
reforms, such as ''one man, one vote.'' This sector maintains such
reforms could pose problems, especially if those elected to governing
assemblies are supporters of Taiwan, seat of the Chinese Nationalist
government which was defeated on the China mainland by the Communists
in 1949.
End Adv PMs Tues Dec. 3 or Thereafter
AP-NY-11-25-85 1203EST
- - - - - -
a090 0916 25 Nov 85
PM-Advance Advisory,0042
The following advances moved this cycle:
HONG KONG - Hong Kong Reforms, a086, for Dec. 3
WASHINGTON - Capital Ideas, a081, for Nov. 26
NEW YORK - Business Mirror, a089, for Nov. 26
The AP
AP-NY-11-25-85 1215EST
***************
∂25-Nov-85 1440 JMC
To: RA
All is arranged with Gurevich.
∂25-Nov-85 1712 JMC
To: boyer@MCC.ARPA
When will Huet be at MCC?
∂25-Nov-85 1722 JMC re: trip to Michigan
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 25-Nov-85 17:16-PT.]
I've done it, thanks.
∂25-Nov-85 1732 JMC continuity by rewrite
To: JK
This is a different idea than the one we discussed on the phone.
Suppose EKL is provided with additional rewrite rules as follows:
1. continuous(λx1 ... xn.f(e1,...,em)) rewrites to
continuous(f) ∧ continuous(λx1 ... xn.e1) ∧ ... ∧ continuous(λx1 ... xn.em)
⊃ continuous(λx1 ... xn.f(e1,...,em)).
2. continuous(λx1 ... xk ... xn.e)
rewrites to continuous(λx1...x(k-1) x(k+1)...xn.e)
when xk does not occur in e.
3. continuous(car), etc. are included in simpinfo.
Then it looks like we can get continuity of complex functionals by rewriting
and then can use the theorem that continuous functionals have continuous
least fixed points.
∂25-Nov-85 1739 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA
CC: su-bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message from POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA sent Mon 25 Nov 85 17:10:38-PST.]
I agree that Mosher is not entitled to claim a doctorate without
further action on his part. The most he can claim is that he be permitted
to submit a dissertation and that only if he has satisfied the other
requirements.
However, I have heard of too many cases in which no-one protested
an injustice to find the lack of protest a conclusive argument. Some
people are prepared to protest some things and others protest others.
∂25-Nov-85 1836 JMC consulting opportunity
To: RWW
Jay Perrine, Econ Inc. 408 249-6364
is looking for an AI consulting firm.
User of "model" would answer questions about payload, etc.
and it would say what he needs in the way of boosters and
what it would cost.
∂25-Nov-85 2012 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA
CC: su-bboard@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message from POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA sent Mon 25 Nov 85 19:48:10-PST.]
The Shockley case is one of the reasons why I think that Stanford's
commitment to academic freedom is by no means automatic. Shockley
proposed to give a graduate special course describing the results of his
computations on the heredity of intelligence. The Dean of Graduate
Studies at the time was Lincoln Moses, Professor of Statistics. He
appointed a five member advisory committee which voted 3 to 2 to let
Shockley give his course, but Moses over-ruled him. The President of
Stanford at the time, Richard Lyman, said that he would take action if
Shockley were permitted no forum at all, but Shockley's further proposal
to give a freshman seminar was then denied, and Lyman took no action. I
protested by cancelling a class, but didn't seek publicity for it. I
heard indirectly that Moses said that I was the only "man of the left" who
protested; the other protesters were all "right wing kooks". I heard
that the Academic Senate heard a protest by Tom Moore of Hoover but
decided to do nothing.
By the way, the majority report that proposed that Shockley
be allowed to give his course said that his views were abhorrent,
but like Bill Poser, didn't say what they thought they were.
∂25-Nov-85 2204 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message from POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA sent Mon 25 Nov 85 20:31:31-PST.]
You have Shockley almost right. His proposal to offer a bonus to very low IQ
people to be sterilized was to be voluntary and color blind, although
Shockley wasn't shy about predicting a racially differential effect.
Moses's characterization of me as a "man of the left" was already
somewhat out of date although based on correct information about
some of my previous (I now think mistaken) activities in opposition
to the U.S. attempt to defend South Vietnam. I moved right as
others moved left - partly because I could see in the youthful
campus leftists attitudes that reminded me of Pravda. (I had
been several times in the Soviet Union).
I have decided not to send this to BBOARD, because I feel I've
sent too large a proportion of the flames in the last week.
∂26-Nov-85 1038 JMC re: JMC and the Mosher Case (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
I fear that most people have taken the Mosher case at second and
third hand. Mosher should have had the equivalent of a defense attorney.
∂26-Nov-85 1444 JMC re: Mosher (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 26 Nov 85 13:54:17-PST.]
At the time of the Shockley flap, more than ten years ago, I was considered
a "man of the left" by Moses on the basis of previous activity, including
being one of the first group of faculty to oppose (in my present opinion
mistakenly) the U.S. military action in South Vietnam.
∂26-Nov-85 1645 JMC your example
To: jfinger@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
At first your example of travelling from Monterey to Denver appealed
to me intuitively, and I agreed that it was more efficient to find
the airports close to Monterey and see which had flights to Denver.
Then I tried to use this as an example in the "mental situation
calculus" I'm working on. This made me uncertain of what facts
were being appealed to. If one was working from the OAG and
some kind of computerized Atlas, it wouldn't be clear. If one
is expressing the common sense knowledge that a resident of
Monterey or the bay area would have, it's really some small list
of airports that one normally flies from, e.g. San Jose, San
Francisco and possibly Oakland. There is also the possibility,
which you didn't mention of flying from Monterey Airport to one
of the others, and the others might include LAX at certain times.
My actual question is this? Do you have in mind a specific
collection of facts that might be used for both substantive
and heristic purposes?
∂26-Nov-85 1849 JMC re: More Mosher! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Many newspapers besides the Wall Street Journal questioned
Stanford's action, and even the Wall Street Journal is not properly
characterized as far right - nor do I consider myself far right -
though not a "man of the left" as Lincoln Moses considered me 15
years ago. Unsavory and dishonest character as a general judgment
is not proper grounds for disciplinary action. I note with dismay
how the defenders of the University's action resort to vague
characterizations which are matters of opinion.
Incidentally, I think it quite possible that some of the
things that Mosher did are proper grounds for some disciplinary
action short of dismissal.
Mosher didn't, perhaps due to own mistake, have anything like a
defense attorney in the University proceedings. Belli will help him sue
for damages if there is something in it for Belli, and he may well use the
University's failure to appoint a defender as one of his grounds.
Certainly, the lack of proper defense in criminal cases has been
successfully used in defense on appeal even when the lack is the
defendant's fault.
Graduate specials were often taught out of the profesor's field,
and Shockley's proposed course was mainly a matter of applied statistics.
The chairman of the Statistics Department at the time remarked to me
privately that he considered Shockley "a very competent applied
statistician". However, he apparently wasn't about to buck the spirit of
the times by publically defending Shockley's appropriateness to teach the
course. The mob spirit at Stanford was far greater than it is
today, and defying it would have been a full time effort as Shockley
discovered. I don't now recall whether the offensive character
of Shockley's opinions was explicitly cited as a reason for
denying permission. I remember that the majority report saying
he should be permitted to teach the course cited the repulsiveness
of his opinions, by the way miss-stating them, but the opponents
may have evaded this possible trap, choosing specious other grounds.
∂27-Nov-85 1050 JMC re: Qual syllabus
To: WINOGRAD@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 27 Nov 85 09:34:19-PST.]
My memory agrees with yours.
∂28-Nov-85 1705 JMC other approach
To: JK
That involved a special form analogous to a quantifier
(continuous (x1 ... xn) e). I haven't yet figured out what
laws it should obey.
∂29-Nov-85 1400 JMC Ian Mason will lecture on Tuesday and Carolyn Talcott on Thursday.
To: "@TA.306[F85,JMC]"@SU-AI.ARPA
I will be away. Please distribute take home finals on Tuesday.
∂29-Nov-85 1702 JMC re: Planning workshop
To: georgeff@SRI-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 29 Nov 85 15:17:01-PST.]
All the above dates are clear for me, and I'll probably come. Don't
forget Vladimir Lifschitz who has done good work recently on the
logic of situation calculus and also of STRIPS.
∂29-Nov-85 1723 JMC reply to message
To: GLB
[In reply to message rcvd 29-Nov-85 17:19-PT.]
Manna's Mathematical Theory of Computation or ask Carolyn for a reference.
∂30-Nov-85 1445 JMC re: AIQ Contest.
To: BACH@SU-SCORE.ARPA, gcj%qmc-ori.uucp@UCL-CS.ARPA,
genesereth@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message from BACH@SU-SCORE.ARPA sent Sat 30 Nov 85 10:18:44-PST.]
I have consideral skepticism of making an IQ test a comparable test of human
and machine intelligence. Some items involved in sentence comprehension
would be merely tests of inputted facts about English usage for a machine,
whereas they correlated highly with intelligence in English-educated
humans. I also don't see how you would do the geometric analogies,
because I don't consider giving the machine logical descriptions of
the figures makes a comparable problem.
Perhaps you have solved these problems, and I await your detailed
proposal.
∂30-Nov-85 1909 JMC
To: RA
Did you send the Scientific American article to the Chudnovskys?
∂30-Nov-85 2246 JMC
To: JK
In my last message I meant to propose (continuous (...) ...) as a bindop.
∂30-Nov-85 2246 JMC (→17512 6-Dec-85)
To: "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"
I shall be in the East from Sunday, December 1 to Friday, December 6.
Rutie has my itinerary.
∂30-Nov-85 2248 JMC
To: LES@SU-AI.ARPA, VAL@SU-AI.ARPA, nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
I'll be away till Friday.
∂30-Nov-85 2325 JMC
To: CLT
In case I forget, did the pants being rewoven ever return?
∂06-Dec-85 0000 JMC Expired plan
To: JMC
Your plan has just expired. You might want to make a new one.
Here is the text of the old plan:
I shall be in the East from Sunday, December 1 to Friday, December 6.
Rutie has my itinerary.
∂06-Dec-85 2313 JMC re: Star Wars Debate
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 5 Dec 85 08:49:45-PST.]
Sure, I'll be glad to attend.
∂06-Dec-85 2315 JMC re: IBM workstation
To: LES
[In reply to message rcvd 06-Dec-85 15:12-PT.]
I believe that's Eustis with whom you checked.
∂06-Dec-85 2327 JMC re: [Reply to message recvd: 30 Nov 85 19:09 Pacific Time]
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Dec-85 11:16-PT.]
Looks like the reference wasn't in a computer message. Perhaps there
was a piece of paper. Otherwise, I'll have to ask Diffie for it again.
∂07-Dec-85 1009 JMC re: Robotics Search
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sat 7 Dec 85 09:52:05-PST.]
If we can't get someone good enough to apply, we should give up for the
time being and try to transfer the slot to another area.
∂07-Dec-85 1031 JMC SEAI parallel computing survey
To: LES
CC: CLT
I think we should get this (in collaboration with Davies if it's expensive).
It is described in number 42 of the Parsym digest.
∂07-Dec-85 1058 JMC re: mail lost (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Gee, this seems to be the second time. Perhaps Vaughan needs
to use a dinosaur with file backup. Try using SAIL for MAIL. $5.00
for the best jingle advocating SAIL for MAIL.
∂07-Dec-85 1104 JMC Subject: Here lies science, Shot down by Star Wars (36 lines) (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
It was, however, the Air Force's satellite.
∂07-Dec-85 1109 JMC comments on book
To: danny@THINK.COM
1. I like the book.
2. I ran into Gene Amdahl in SF Airport, and remarked that it was a
potentially plausible SIMD machine.
3. On p. 76, it seems that 2**32 should be 2**16.
4. The reference on page 84 to (Bracewell 84) is not in references.
Which Bracewell is it?
5. The detailed program for addition was very helpful, but I had it
more or less figured out. On the other hand, a detailed program for
marker propagation is much harder to figure out from the description
of the machine. Including such a program would be very valuable,
because this is where the Connection machine differs from other SIMD
machines.
6. What is your opinion about the broadcasting of several, e.g. 4,
instruction streams and having a larger, e.g. 2 bit, condition field
in each processor? One stream could be no-op.
∂07-Dec-85 1703 JMC re: mail lost (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: BRONNER@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sat 7 Dec 85 17:00:37-PST.]
That's a rhyme? Needs another consonant in the rhyme.
∂07-Dec-85 1834 JMC Genesereth
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Sussman and Bledsoe have replied. Cc shortly.
∂07-Dec-85 2013 JMC re: wodehouse, waugh, and sharpe
To: ROBERTS@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sat 7 Dec 85 20:03:36-PST.]
St. Exupery
∂07-Dec-85 2045 JMC paper from math library
To: RA
J. R. Shoenfield
Unramified Foricing
in
Proceedings Symposium in Pure Math
13 No. 1 (1971), pp. 357-380
∂07-Dec-85 2052 JMC more from Math Library
To: RA
On this I have less precise information.
Joyal (last name) Un theorie combinatoire des series formelles.
In Advances in Mathematics (a journal).
∂07-Dec-85 2054 JMC send paper
To: RA
Unless you have some record that I did this, perhaps some time ago,
please send Ascribing Mental Qualities to Machines to Prof. Richmond
Thomason at U. Pittsburgh with a note saying that I may have already
sent this, but I surely won't send it yet again.
∂08-Dec-85 1209 JMC re: Genesereth
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 8 Dec 85 11:23:30-PST.]
ok
∂08-Dec-85 1353 JMC re: mail lost (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: greep@CAMELOT
[In reply to message sent 8 Dec 1985 1310-PST.]
getting better
∂08-Dec-85 1359 JMC re: mail lost (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: greep@CAMELOT
[In reply to message sent 8 Dec 1985 1347-PST.]
The sing-off will be at this week's TGIF.
∂08-Dec-85 1437 JMC re: please
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 08-Dec-85 14:32-PT.]
Done.
∂08-Dec-85 1957 JMC re: Ethical Drugs (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
In many professions, ethical is an adjective applied to conspiracy
in restraint of free trade. I suspect that an ethical drug is one available
by prescription only.
∂09-Dec-85 0942 JMC re: mental situations
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Dec-85 09:39-PT.]
Good, I'll be in.
∂09-Dec-85 1054 JMC re: reviewing a draft manuscript
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Dec-85 10:49-PT.]
Please tell her no.
∂09-Dec-85 1143 JMC re: your trip expenses
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Dec-85 11:23-PT.]
Hang on to them. There will be three expense reports to make.
∂09-Dec-85 1345 JMC
To: LES
IJCAI.REP[F75,JMC] 15-Jul-78 Lerner in Tblisi
∂09-Dec-85 1553 JMC
To: gcole@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
jmc - That's Wimsey.
∂09-Dec-85 1557 JMC re: new time for the non-monotonic seminar
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Dec-85 15:46-PT.]
It would have to be 4 if I'm to make it. My class will be 2:15-3:30.
∂09-Dec-85 1724 JMC debate dinner invitation
To: llw@S1-A.ARPA
There is to be a debate on SDI at Stanford on Dec. 19, and I am the host
for the Computer Science Dept. The debaters are Major Worden and Richard
Lipton, pro vs. David Parnas and Garwin con. Moderator = Goldberger of
Caltech. Dinner at 6pm, drinks at 5:30. Would you like to come to
dinner?
∂09-Dec-85 1927 JMC re: new time for seminar
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Dec-85 16:55-PT.]
All the above are ok with me. The colloquium is on Tuesday.
∂09-Dec-85 2238 JMC seminar on program transformation wednes, 3:45
To: CLT
∂09-Dec-85 1720 @SU-CSLI.ARPA:WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA seminar on program transformation wednes, 3:45
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 9 Dec 85 17:20:01 PST
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Mon 9 Dec 85 17:16:55-PST
Date: Mon 9 Dec 85 17:09:43-PST
From: WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: seminar on program transformation wednes, 3:45
To: AIC-Associates: ;,
CSL: ;, su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA, friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA, bboard@SRI-AI.ARPA
Title: A Closer Look at the Tupling Strategy for Program Transformation
Speaker: Alberto Pettorossi, IASI-CNR, Rome, Italy
Place: EK242 (Old AIC Conference Room), SRI International,
Ravenswood Avenue and Pine Street
Time: 3:45 pm Wednesday, 11 December
Coffee in Waldinger office at 3:15
Abstract:
Tupling is a strategy for transforming programs expressed as recursive
equations. We see how it applies to some challenging "little"
problems: the tower of Hanoi, the Chinese rings problem, drawing
Hilbert curves, and computing recurrence relations. We characterize
the power of the tupling strategy in terms of the structure of the
graphs we obtain by unfolding the functions of the programs.
-------
∂09-Dec-85 2321 JMC re: gwai-85
To: HST
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Dec-85 23:09-PT.]
1. No objection.
2. I don't understand about museum material.
3. I think there's a VAX with VMS, but I'm not sure.
4. Mother and baby are fine.
∂10-Dec-85 1051 JMC re: Turing Award paper
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 10-Dec-85 10:18-PT.]
"Generality in AI". A written version of the lecture was never produced.
∂10-Dec-85 1313 JMC
To: CLT
Faculty meeting ends at 3:45; I'll phone again before then.
∂10-Dec-85 1638 JMC SAIL jingle
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
The award will be made at the CSD TGIF this week. Perhaps a sing-off
will be necessary or at least a recitation with feeling.
∂10-Dec-85 2145 JMC re: AI Qual
To: PACK@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 10 Dec 85 21:25:25-PST.]
I don't know who's in charge of the AI Qual or when it will be. Ask
Stuart or perhaps Nils. I'll be interested in your paper. If you can
find others intending to take the qual, a study group helps. I think
you should be entirely familiar with the contents of the Charniak and
McDermott book, but this is a personal opinion.
∂11-Dec-85 0906 JMC re: should I bother?
To: JGRAY@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 10 Dec 85 23:33:50-PST.]
If you can do reasonably on the final, you can do well in the course.
I usually drop the worst performance from consideration.
∂11-Dec-85 1554 JMC re: please bring
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 11-Dec-85 15:02-PT.]
It's in my bag.
∂11-Dec-85 1647 JMC reply to message
To: HALPERN@IBM-SJ.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 11 Dec 85 16:32:56 PST.]
Here's what he gave me. The quotes are required on SAIL, because
for us % means something else, but may be forbidden for you. I haven't
used it.
Kuo, Victor "Victor.Kuo%UPenn-GradEd%upenn.csnet"@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
∂11-Dec-85 1728 JMC re: High Risk Groups and Health Insurance (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Single males have more accidents than other groups, or so
the statistics kept by the insurance companies tell them.
Insurance started as an unregulated business, not as a public
welfare scheme. Mostly, the actuarial part still is. Any company
could divide up the risks and offer insurance to whomever if chose,
at whatever rates it chose. Naturally, if it could find a group
with a small risk of a particular loss, it could compete successfully by
offering low rates. Most of the members of Lloyd's still operate
according to that principle and will even offer individually determined
rates to individual customers for particular events. For example, if
you are planning a Grateful Dead concert in Frost Ampitheater, you could
insure against losses you might incur if Stanford decided it didn't wish
to rent the ampitheater. For common risks, it is too expensive to divide
the categories too narrowly. As a peculiar example, when I took up
skydiving (briefly), my insurance company said that it wouldn't cost
me extra, because I had been their client for 5 years. Presumably, this
protected them against that skydivers would flock to their company.
I believe there are special rates for certain hazardous occupations, in
which category stunt-men but not nuclear reactor operators would fall.
There are enough nuclear reactor operators and enough man-years of
experience to establish that they present no special risk beyond that
of other sedentary occupations.
The regulation of insurance companies originally started in order to
insure financial soundness. It is a plausible racket to offer insurance
at low rates, pay oneself an enormous salary and skip the country
when the first big loss occurs. This was to be prevented by regulation.
However, when the Government undertakes to regulate something, it becomes
a vehicle for representatives or advocates of various groups to try
to get something for their clients. Thus money I have put into TIAA,
supposedly as a retirement investment, has recently been confiscated,
because some court thinks that a woman with ten years' more life
expectancy than me should get the same amount per month as me
after retirement. If it weren't for Stanford's contribution to TIAA,
it would certainly pay me to withdraw from it and invest my the
fraction of my income now going to TIAA in some other way.
Another form of greedy regulation concerns car insurance. Now that
the principle is established that the states can order insurance
companies to charge whatever groups whatever rates the politicians
please, the way is open for advocates of any group to try to obtain
preferential rates or to avoid rates based on their actual losses.
In conclusion, if you want single males to be subsidized by other drivers,
make up your sob story and tell it to the regulators. Present fashion
suggests arguing that charging single males more is just another
manifestation of homophobia, since homosexuals are more likely to be
single. If your sob story can be combined with an offer of votes, it will
win more sympathy and concern, and the above appeal might do it.
∂12-Dec-85 1258 JMC
To: CLT
I'm going to MCC Monday afternoon, return Wednesday evening.
∂12-Dec-85 1304 JMC re: gold standard (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
What neither Richard nor I knows is the supply of gold relative to
the annual production. Since gold is not used up very much, I suspect
the ratio is quite large. Indeed I suspect that the market has been
much more often manipulated by selling from stock or buying with paper
money than by the producers.
∂12-Dec-85 1454 JMC re: connection machine
To: HADDAD@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 12 Dec 85 13:52:02-PST.]
Thanks, I know John Lamping, but I hadn't known he had worked on
the Connection Machine. I'll probably ask him some questions.
∂12-Dec-85 1652 JMC re: strips
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 12-Dec-85 15:28-PT.]
What is the actual name of the person to whom your last message
was addressed? Was he in the seminar?
∂13-Dec-85 1202 JMC Knowledge acquisition workshop
To: clancey@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
I have been asked by John H. Boose of Boeing for AAAI support for the
workshop and am inclined to do it. You are listed as on the tentative
program committee. This message is to verify that you have agreed
and solicit your comment on the workshop.
Also we should make another try at lunch. How about next Friday at
noon at the Faculty Club which I have just verified will still be
serving.
∂13-Dec-85 1231 JMC re: Lord Peter
To: GCOLE@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 13 Dec 85 12:20:19-PST.]
However, I believe his family motto is something like "As my whimsy takes me".
∂13-Dec-85 1522 JMC re: Knowledge acquisition workshop
To: CLANCEY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 13 Dec 85 15:16:29-PST.]
OK, I'll tell Boose I'll support it.
Alas, Tuesday and Wednesday, I'll be in Texas. How about Monday or Thursday?
∂13-Dec-85 1527 JMC your book
To: danny@THINK.COM
The mailed copy arrived today. I'll make good use of both; several people
in my project and in our proofs-about-programs project want to read it.
∂13-Dec-85 1659 JMC re: Fredkin
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 13-Dec-85 09:41-PT.]
The Hyslop address is correct.
∂13-Dec-85 1721 JMC re: Afghanistan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
The Associated Press has a story about military action in Afghanistan
about every other day. Perhaps the Bay Area newspapers don't print them
all the time. From the American journalistic point of view there is no
substantial issue about Afghanistan. Occasionally, U.S. journalists venture
into Afghanistan, and one was killed there, but none seem to take it
seriously enough to learn the language.
The U.S. is supporting the anti-communist
side with some supplies, and there seems to be no substantial opposition
to this. Unfortunately, there also seems to be no substantial demand to
increase it. I have read that the CIA has a policy against sending agents
into Afghanistan for fear that one will be captured and that then the
newspapers will demand concessions to the Russians to get him out.
The "peace movement" prefers to ignore Afganistan, because
they regard taking the massacre seriously as interfering with the more
important issue of nuclear war. To one who believes the danger of nuclear
war as being no different than it has been for a long time, there is some
thought left over for Afghanistan. At various times I have left publicity
in the CS lounge from organizations that buy boots and other non-weapon
supplies for Afghan guerrillas.
While I'm not sure the U.S. Government can do much differently than
it is doing, it should spend more if this can be done effectively. In
particular the anti-communists should be sent U.S. anti-helicopter
missiles and not merely ancient Russian missiles obtained from the
Egyptians (if indeed the U.S. is in any way helping send those missiles).
The main problem with the lack of publicity is that the Russian
massacres in Afghanistan are killing more people by a factor of 100
than are being killed anywhere else, and making a quarter of the population
flee the country as refugees is another enormous crime. The lack of
publicity means that it is hard to get public support for preventing
similar communist behavior in the Western Hemisphere. The desire to
inhibit aid to the contras is another reason for not mentioning Afghanistan.
∂13-Dec-85 1726 JMC re: Slides of 2300 mile walk thru the Soviet Union (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Don't complain Sergio. Emphasizing that the Russians are people
helps distract attention from the behavior of their government in
Afghanistan and other places. Perhaps it's a reasonable error in that
the visitor would discover that the other Soviet peoples find it
advantageous to give up their native languages as long as they are
inhabitants of the Russian Empire.
∂13-Dec-85 1732 JMC re: Help: cwd in Unix prompt (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Would anyone like to work on developing an operating system that
can be programmed in a decent way (along with other desiderata)?
∂13-Dec-85 1738 JMC re: Knowledge acquisition workshop
To: CLANCEY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 13 Dec 85 17:37:12-PST.]
Would 12:30 at the Faculty Club be ok?
∂13-Dec-85 1852 JMC re: Programmable operating system interface
To: greep@CAMELOT
[In reply to message sent 13 Dec 1985 1836-PST.]
As Les may have told you, the IBM possibility that we discussed last
year faded out. However, there is now a new possibility, also IBM,
that Les may have mentioned to you. Don't stand on one foot, however.
∂14-Dec-85 1153 JMC
To: reuling@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: ktracy@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
I endorse this request.
∂14-Dec-85 1146 KTRACY@SU-SUSHI.ARPA Account on SAIL?
Received: from SU-SUSHI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 14 Dec 85 11:46:42 PST
Date: Sat 14 Dec 85 11:43:35-PST
From: Kim W. Tracy <KTRACY@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
Subject: Account on SAIL?
To: jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
Message-ID: <12167104936.7.KTRACY@SU-SUSHI.ARPA>
I would like to have an account on SAIL. At this point in
time, I do not have a project which entitles me to that account.
But, I know that there are some interesting items that are unique
to SAIL. So, I would like to be able to familiarize myself with
SAIL so that I can more knowingly pick a project.
Is there any problem with such a desire? If not, I would
appreciate it greatly if you could send an e-mail message to John
Reuling, saying as much. John Reuling said that such was required
for master's students. An account with minimum privileges would
probably be sufficient at this point.
Kim Tracy
KTRACY@SUSHI
-------
∂14-Dec-85 1521 JMC The enemy within
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
Objectors to the pejorative use of the word "hacker" should complain
to Adele Goldberg of Xerox PARC, the President of ACM, about her
December 1985 President's letter. See page 1266, column 3 of the
December CACM.
∂14-Dec-85 2127 JMC re: Books
To: JJW
[In reply to message rcvd 14-Dec-85 21:17-PT.]
Star Warriors will be on your desk tomorrow morning. It will be a new
copy because I forgot and made notes in yours.
∂15-Dec-85 1606 JMC re: Afghanistan (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: Crispin@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 15 Dec 85 15:54:48-PST.]
I was going to comment that you had succeeded in changing the subject
from Afghanistan. However, you had copied your message to
other-su-bboards@sail with the result that was to be expected.
Also that was the 13th Amendment, not the 14th.
∂16-Dec-85 1119 JMC re: Info Request : English, the de-facto scientific language (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
I know of no books or articles, and if you find one I'd like to know
about it.
The defeat of Germany was important, but in 1949-51 I studied for my
PhD comprehensives in math at Princeton from textbooks written in German
that were not available in English.
The French never officially gave up.
My impression is that change in such matters occurs one field at a time,
so what happened in computer science wouldn't affect other fields.
Stanford gave up requiring foreign languages as a general requirement for
PhD in science in the middle 1960s.
A visit to the Math Library would ascertain when Zentralblatt fur Mathematik
und ihre Grenzegebiete, which was the original mathematical review journal,
stopped publishing reviews in German. This journal is not much used in the
U.S., because Americans use Mathematical Reviews, but presumably it has
a substantial circulation in many countries where the native language is
neither English nor German.
The development of important scientific activity in a large number of
countries reduced the importance of continental Europe.
English has become the international language not merely for science
but also for travel.
∂16-Dec-85 1121 JMC re: confirmation
To: CLANCEY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 16 Dec 85 11:16:43-PST.]
Confirmed.
∂16-Dec-85 1124 JMC re: new time for the seminar
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 16-Dec-85 11:00-PT.]
11 on Tuesday is ok with me. It gives us only until 12:15 for people who
attend the faculty lunch, but there's not much disadvantage in being
late to it.
∂16-Dec-85 1124 JMC re: new time for the seminar
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 16-Dec-85 11:00-PT.]
Have you verified that Pat Hayes intends to keep coming?
∂16-Dec-85 1139 JMC re: Genesereth
To: RICHARDSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 16 Dec 85 11:33:55-PST.]
Well, I've sent some.
∂16-Dec-85 1155 JMC
To: VAL
prevent[f85,jmc] Priorities by prevention
Perhaps explicit nesting corresponds to common sense when one condition
prevents another from applying. The example is
Object A being trivial prevents on(A,B) from preventing B from
being moved.
Here is a propositional version.
n(p) -- p is normally true
np(p,q) -- p being true normally prevents q from being true, abbreviated
p normally prevents q.
With this notation we can construct the expression
np(p,np(q,r))
which is read --- p normally prevents q from preventing r.
Example: Suppose we have
n(r)
np(q,r)
np(p,np(q,r))
q
p
We ask about r and we want to r to come out true. The question is
Can we get this result by minimizing something? What?
∂16-Dec-85 1440 JMC (→17527 19-Dec-85)
To: "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"
I will be at MCC in Austin from Monday evening till Wednesday evening.
∂19-Dec-85 0001 JMC Expired plan
To: JMC
Your plan has just expired. You might want to make a new one.
Here is the text of the old plan:
I will be at MCC in Austin from Monday evening till Wednesday evening.
∂19-Dec-85 0953 JMC
To: CLT
01-13 Monday, Amarel here, evening dinner chez Nils, f85.in[let,jmc]/577p
∂19-Dec-85 1033 JMC re: protecting electronics (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Will Martin doesn't say what mailing lists he is likely to be on.
However, the device is of obvious interest to people designing military
electronics or electric power systems that should survive EMP. Presumably
there is some time after a nuclear explosion is detected to disconnect
electronic equipment from wires that would act as antennae to pick up
EMP. Just what automatic actions would protect what kind of equipment
is up to the user to figure out.
We can now have flamage as to whether it would be moral for the City of
Palo Alto, PG & E, Pacific Telephone, or Stanford to install such equipment
to try to protect electric or telephone service.
$2.56 for the best worded petition urging Stanford to refuse to install
this equipment in its new telephone system on the grounds that it couldn't
possibly work and would increase the probability of nuclear war.
(The SAIL jingle award ceremony is postponed till the first TGIF of January).
∂19-Dec-85 1050 JMC re: your current events file
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 19-Dec-85 10:46-PT.]
In my desk, right hand file drawer.
∂19-Dec-85 1630 JMC re: reply to message
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 19-Dec-85 11:49-PT.]
While I don't suppose that priorities will in general be obtained from prevention,
I did hope to do it in the case of moving blocks. I'll see if I can make
it work.
∂21-Dec-85 2318 JMC
To: DKE
2 hits on key "frost".
Exit
↑C
.
downtime
As Carolyn told you, the current cause of downtime is overheating.
Last I heard from ME around 5pm they had cleaned some filters and
fans and hoped they'd fixed it. However, it went down again shortly
for the same reason. Now it has been up for two hours.
The machine room phone is 497-4975, same as it was at the D.C. Power
Lab, but there was very little time today when it would have been
answered. Marty's phones are (office: 7-2462) (home: 856-1456).
∂21-Dec-85 2322 JMC re: The enemy within
To: yee@DALI.BERKELEY.EDU
[In reply to message sent 21 Dec 85 21:41:28 PST.]
By her I suppose you mean Adele Goldberg. I think she still works at
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
∂21-Dec-85 2323 JMC
To: RA
belenk.1
∂22-Dec-85 1001 JMC re: The enemy within
To: yee@DALI.BERKELEY.EDU
[In reply to message sent 22 Dec 85 09:00:26 PST.]
I'm sure she does, but I don't know it, and she isn't listed in the 1980
ARPANET directory, which is all I have at home.
∂22-Dec-85 1242 JMC sdi software
To: llw@S1-A.ARPA
Do the following considerations seem relevant to you?
Whether the software problems of SDI would make it impracticable cannot
fully be estimated until a definite system is proposed. However, some
relevant information can be obtained by answering the following questions
about previous large systems involving both software and hardware.
1. What fraction of system failures have been due to program bugs?
2. What fraction of delays in system availability have been due
to program bugs?
3. What fraction of cost over-runs have been due to underestimation
of the cost of software?
4. What fraction of total cost has been software?
Answers to these questions can be obtained for NASA, DoD and
commercial systems and should help clear the air. Lacking such answers,
let me mention some impressions based merely on having read the
newspapers.
1. While some examples of software failure have been publicized, they
are very small in number compared to hardware failure. Moreover,
computer hardware failure is a small part of total hardware failure.
Certainly this is true of the Shuttle program.
2 and 3. The cited sources of delays and cost over-runs are almost
always hardware.
4. Software is relatively small fraction of the cost of most military
programs.
In so far as past experience is relevant to SDI, this means that
there are likely to be resources for putting extra effort into software
if this is critical. In previous programs, it would seem that the
competition for resources has prevented putting more money into software
than was required to keep software failures to the small fraction of
total failures that was actually experienced.
These considerations bode well for SDI.
∂22-Dec-85 1455 JMC phase conjugation
To: elliott%slacvm.bitnet@SU-FORSYTHE.ARPA
Now that I've read the article in Sci Am, your theory about its message
seems more plausible, but I'm not ready to pay off on the bet.
∂23-Dec-85 1120 JMC re: bibliographic retrieval
To: BRINKLEY@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 23 Dec 85 09:33:17-PST.]
Someone has, I believe, adapted the NS program on SAIL for such purposes.
Ask Martin Frost, ME@SAIL.
∂23-Dec-85 1144 JMC
To: RWW, LES
This is what I wrote before thinking that we might actually undertake
the relevant survey. Of course, we need to check whether it has already
been done, but there is no trace of its having been done in any of the
pro or con arguments on the feasibility of the SDI software.
Whether the software problems of SDI would make it impracticable cannot
fully be estimated until a definite system is proposed. However, some
relevant information can be obtained by answering the following questions
about previous large systems involving both software and hardware.
1. What fraction of system failures have been due to program bugs?
2. What fraction of delays in system availability have been due
to program bugs?
3. What fraction of cost over-runs have been due to underestimation
of the cost of software?
4. What fraction of total cost has been software?
Answers to these questions can be obtained for NASA, DoD and
commercial systems and should help clear the air. Lacking such answers,
let me mention some impressions based merely on having read the
newspapers.
1. While some examples of software failure have been publicized, they
are very small in number compared to hardware failure. Moreover,
computer hardware failure is a small part of total hardware failure.
Certainly this is true of the Shuttle program.
2 and 3. The cited sources of delays and cost over-runs are almost
always hardware.
4. Software is relatively small fraction of the cost of most military
programs.
In so far as past experience is relevant to SDI, this means that
there are likely to be resources for putting extra effort into software
if this is critical. In previous programs, it would seem that the
competition for resources has prevented putting more money into software
than was required to keep software failures to the small fraction of
total failures that was actually experienced.
These considerations bode well for SDI.
∂23-Dec-85 1643 JMC re: Please
To: GINN@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 23 Dec 85 16:04:34-PST.]
do not send such requests to the whole list.
∂24-Dec-85 0210 JMC re: Expenses
To: yg%eecs.umich@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun, 22 Dec 85 23:10:20 est.]
The expense report is in the mail.
∂24-Dec-85 0958 JMC re: Expenses
To: yg%eecs.umich@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun, 22 Dec 85 23:10:20 est.]
Afterthought: Thanks for returning my tie, and have a good holiday.
I certainly enjoyed the visit.
∂25-Dec-85 1308 JMC sdi computing, an actual objective question
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
The debate on whether the SDI computing was feasible didn't,
in my opinion, turn up much in the way of technical questions.
Garwin gave the standard anti-SDI arguments which are variants
on the arguments he has given against many defense proposals.
Goldberger, the moderator, agonized suitably as is appropriate
for a university president and physicist. Parnas was the most
emotionally involved and seemed to attribute bad motives to the
other side. Worden presented the pro side in a relatively
straightforward way but was apparently constrained not to make
statements that would embarass General Abrahamson if quoted
by Congressmen in hearings. What these constraints might have
been wasn't obvious to me. Lipton pushed his (reasonable) idea
about achieving redundancy by making the individual detectors
and weapons as independent of each other as possible.
In my (representing Nils) introduction of Goldberger, I recounted
how this debate had come about as a result of Barbara Simmons's (IBM)
original proposal for having a debate at a meeting on reliability of
software for distributed systems which was turned down by a program
committee on the grounds of lack of technical content.
I doubt that seeing the videotape will persuade the program committee
to change its position.
Well, here's a semi-technical question that could be answered and is
somewhat relevant.
There have been many past military, NASA and commercial large systems that
had an important computer component. We can ask for a variety of such past
systems the following questions.
1. What fraction of system failures have been software failures?
2. What fraction of project delays have been caused by delays in
the debugging of software?
3. What fraction of cost overruns have been due to spending more money
on software than was anticipated?
Naturally, we computer scientists remember best the problems associated
with computing. Moreover, such problems are understandable by a larger
public than problems with valves, vibration and aerodynamics and can
therefore be more readily publicized. Nevertheless, when we consider
such heavily publicized projects such as the Shuttle, it would seem
that the delays caused by computer programming are only a small fraction.
This is my subjective impression, but the matter is capable of being
studied objectively, and the results published. A preliminary look
at about ten issues of journals on software engineering didn't turn
up relevant papers. The papers of Parnas, Redell and Lin arguing against
the possibility of meeting SDI computing don't cite past experience
except by listing individual problems. What fraction of the total
delays, costs and failures are due to software is never stated.
The Aegis system for defending fleets against
missiles seeems to me to be the closest thing to having SDI-like
requirements.
While the result of such a historical study won't be decisive for SDI,
if it turns out that software has been one of the smaller sources of
trouble, then we can conclude that there is the possibility of greater
efforts than have been made in the past if software proves to be
the most difficult part of some SDI system. This is because extra
money is always spent on the part of the system giving the most
difficulty.
I hope this will ease some of the flame-readers' withdrawal symptoms.
∂25-Dec-85 1409 JMC
To: JMC
Mary Mainland wrote American Spectator 1986 Jan. article re Mosher.
∂25-Dec-85 1748 JMC re: memory allocation MacLisp (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
As far as I can tell the ALLOC function in MACLISP on Sushi works in
accordance with page 273 of the MACLISP Manual by Kent Pitman. (setq foo
(alloc t)) gets you the values of the current parameters. You can then
change foo and then (alloc foo) will then set the parameters accordingly.
As far as I can tell the initiation form of ALLOC is broken in the TOPS-20
systems. I think it assumes a form of character-by- character interaction
with the terminal that doesn't exist on TOPS-20 or at least isn't in
effect when you enter MACLISP. It works more or less on SAIL, and you can
change parameters on TOPS-20 by typing y followed by a space and some
parameters separated by spaces followed by a final carriage return, but I
haven't bothered to try to figure out the exact effect of various actions.
Why not use COMMON LISP on TOPS-20?
∂25-Dec-85 1752 JMC re: memory allocation MacLisp
To: KOHEN@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 25 Dec 85 16:01:29-PST.]
jmc - As far as I can tell the ALLOC function in MACLISP on Sushi works in
accordance with page 273 of the MACLISP Manual by Kent Pitman. (setq foo
(alloc t)) gets you the values of the current parameters. You can then
change foo and then (alloc foo) will then set the parameters accordingly.
As far as I can tell the initiation form of ALLOC is broken in the TOPS-20
systems. I think it assumes a form of character-by- character interaction
with the terminal that doesn't exist on TOPS-20 or at least isn't in
effect when you enter MACLISP. It works more or less on SAIL, and you can
change parameters on TOPS-20 by typing y followed by a space and some
parameters separated by spaces followed by a final carriage return, but I
haven't bothered to try to figure out the exact effect of various actions.
Why not use COMMON LISP on TOPS-20?
Concerning your message about a SAIL account, I don't control them. My
understanding of the current rules is that you can get one for the asking
if you are a PhD student and with faculty approval if you are a Masters
student. If you want my approval, you have it, assuming I don't have
to pay.
∂26-Dec-85 1003 JMC re: SDI (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
It is a convention of peace-minded political discourse such as Lanre
Amos's BBOARD message that one can discuss "the arms race" as if humanity
had jointly decided to have an arms race as a sporting event and that
there was some prospect of humanity jointly deciding that it was too
dangerous and expensive. Since World War II this has been silly. There
is no-one in political or academic life maintaining in print that an arms
race is a good thing, and the U.N. has passed and repassed unanimously
resolutions deploring it. Secondly if you want to discuss the defense
requirements of the United States with us defense-minded people, you have
to deal somehow with our opinion that the Soviet Union is quite different
from the United States so that the situation is essentially not symmetric
although it may have some symmetric aspects.
We believe that the problem would be readily solvable if the Soviet Union
were politically like Britain, France, West Germany or Japan. We believe
that the Soviet Union's undemocratic character and its political and
Russian chauvinist ideology make it dangerous. The undemocratic character
means that popular fear of war and desire for peace is irrelevant compared
to the unknown and secretive ambitions of its shifting leadership. Since
there aren't free elections, the leaders don't have to campaign on their
opinions. Since there is no free press, there is no check on the extreme
Russian nationalism expressed in the press and even more strongly among
most of the people. The Marxist-Leninist ideology encourages military
support of totalitarian movements elsewhere, and the slogan of "the leading
role of the Soviet Union" encourages the demand for subservience on the
part of these movements.
If you want to express political objection to SDI, then you must deal
with the arguments that the Soviet Union is dangerous.
∂27-Dec-85 1604 JMC re: Amarel Visit and Dinner
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA, CLT@SU-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 27 Dec 85 15:53:28-PST.]
We accept with thanks your invitation for dinner with Amarel at 7pm on Monday,
January 13.
∂27-Dec-85 1758 JMC
To: RA
Please call Diffie and tell him that Barbara Simons's phone is 408 927-1785.
∂27-Dec-85 2318 JMC re: Russia Cannot Survive (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
Before the revolution, Russia exported food. While Russia has a
climate more like Canada's than like that of the U.S., there are enough
known inefficiencies there, so that one could be confident that they would
be a food exporter again with a better system. There is nothing about a
cold climate requiring that machinery be allowed to rust.
Nevertheless, I don't think the Soviet government will be
overthrown by any presently predictable mechanism. They will be able to
adopt from the West and develop on their own enough technology to provide
a gradually rising standard of living even though they are unlikely to
catch up with advanced countries. While no presently operating process
can be confidently predicted to lead to the replacement of the Soviet
system, I believe it will be replaced but most likely not soon, i.e.
perhaps not for many decades. Here are some possibilities.
1. The development of present working class anti-communist
sentiments into a movement like that in Poland. It would help for that if
the dissident intellectuals weren't so anti-working class.
2. A gradual collapse of morale on the part of the ruling class
itself. Already many of its children are inclined towards dissidence
though not courageous enough to break openly with their parents. However,
a movement like that of the Decembrists of 1825 could develop.
3. A leader at the top like Khrushchev could appear again but even
more inclined to move away from orthodoxy.
4. A long term split could develop in the ruling class on a
territorial or other basis that would give reformists a chance to take a
third position and survive.
5. A conquest-oriented dictator could develop who would force a
war.
6. At present no member of the ruling class has real security,
because everything depends on staying in favor with the Politburo and its
current boss. This leads to the development of courtier-like skills, i.e.
those required to remain a favorite of an absolute monarch. There may
eventually be a demand among the party bosses for a Magna Carta, i.e. the
development of permanent and even hereditary rights to position.
None of the above has a high probability of happening in the near
future, but perhaps the chance of each occurring can be regarded as a
Poisson process. My belief that one of these will eventually happen is
partly based on history. Oligarchies can last for hundreds of years, but
eventually something happens. The safest prediction for the next few
years will always be a continuation of the pattern of the last few years,
but remember that the twentieth century, like its predecessors, has been
punctuated by completely unpredicted events.
∂28-Dec-85 2133 JMC Always make lots of S-turns.
To: SJG
a288 2102 28 Dec 85
AM-Plane Collision,0187
Two Killed When Small Planes Collide
CADDO MILLS, Texas (AP) - Two private planes trying to land on the
same runway collided in the air Saturday, killing two people in one
of the planes, officials said.
An acrobatic Pitts biplane landed safely after the accident at the
Caddo Mills Municipal Airport in northeast Texas, said Department of
Public Safety spokesman Mike Cox.
The Pitts plane was circling for a landing when it clipped the tail
of the single-engine Cessna Skyhawk, which crashed into a wheat
field, he said.
''Both planes were on final approach to the same runway and
apparently didn't see each other,'' said airport Manager A.C.
Williams. ''I don't know how something like that could happen, unless
they were in a blind spot to each other.''
Michael Lee Watkins, 40, and Mike Craig Neves, 43, both of Garland,
were pronounced dead at the scene by Hunt County Justice of the Peace
Mickey Money.
Wayne Smith of Sachse, the pilot of the biplane, and passenger Danny
Faulkner of Garland were not injured, Williams said.
Federal Aviation Administration officials were called to investigate
the accident, Cox said.
AP-NY-12-29-85 0001EST
***************
∂29-Dec-85 1229 JMC in case you're interested
To: CLT
∂29-Dec-85 1047 PAPA@SU-SCORE.ARPA Concurrency Control Book
Received: from SU-AIMVAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 Dec 85 10:47:42 PST
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by su-aimvax.arpa with Sendmail; Sun, 29 Dec 85 10:45:03 pst
Date: Sun 29 Dec 85 10:41:31-PST
From: C. Papadimitriou <PAPA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Concurrency Control Book
To: nail@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
Message-Id: <12171025799.11.PAPA@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Believe it or not, my book ``The Theory of Database Concurrency Control'' is
almost done. Its shape is final enough that I would like to have some
people with interest in the area look at it. If you are seriously interested
in looking at it in the next six weeks and give me your comments and
corrections, I would appreciate it. Please send me a message. I plan to
make about ten copies. The table of contents follows (in broken TeXese):
\input macros
\obeylines
\centerline{\bf CONTENTS}
\vskip .25 in
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Databases and Concurrency
1.2 The Model
APPENDIX: Notation, Graph Theory, Algorithms and Complexity.
\vskip .2in
CHAPTER TWO: CORRECTNESS
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Final-State Serializability
2.3 The Critics of Final-State Serializability
2.4 View Serializability
2.5 The Complexity of View Serializability
2.6 Conflict Serializability
2.7 Special Cases
\vskip.2in
CHAPTER THREE: MORE ON CORRECTNESS
3.1 Multiple Versions
3.2 Reliability
3.3 The Complexity of Reliability
\vskip.2in
CHAPTER FOUR: SCHEDULERS
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Locking
4.3 Structured Locking
4.4 Timestamp Scedulers
4.5 Conflict Graph Schedulers
4.6 Multiversion Schedulers
4.7 Deadlocks
4.8 Reliable Schedulers
\vskip.2in
CHAPTER FIVE: THE PERFORMANCE OF SCHEDULERS
5.1 Efficiency and Concurrency
5.2 Information and Concurrency
5.3 Multiversion Schedulers
\vskip.2in
CHAPTER SIX: THE THEORY OF LOCKING
6.1 Uninterpreted Locking
6.2 Entity Locks
6.3 Locking Protocols
6.4?? Deadlocks
\vskip .2in
CHAPTER SEVEN: DISTRIBUTED CONCURRENCY CONTROL
7.1 The Model
7.2 Distributed Schedulers
7.3 The Complexity of Distributed Concurrency Control
7.4 Distributed Locking
\vfill\end
-------
∂29-Dec-85 2247 Mailer failed mail returned
To: JMC
In processing the following command:
MAIL
The command was aborted because these Host Name(s) are Unknown:
OZ.AI.MIT.EDU
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
∂29-Dec-85 2247 JMC re: your recent letter
[In reply to message sent Mon 30 Dec 85 00:24-EST.]
Thanks.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂29-Dec-85 2249 JMC
To: ME
This address didn't work. How do I fix it?
Replying-To: DAVIS@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU
∂29-Dec-85 2322 JMC re: your recent letter
To: DAVIS%OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 30 Dec 85 00:24-EST.]
Thanks in advance.
∂30-Dec-85 0943 JMC re: Question about Common Lisp
To: RPG
[In reply to message rcvd 30-Dec-85 09:30-PT.]
While I might have a technical idea from time to time about what should be
in Common Lisp, I never followed the detailed discussions in the mailing
list. Therefore, I don't want to be on the Technical Committee. I am
willing to be on the Strategic Committee provided it meets at least once
but not too often (or at least I don't always have to attend)
and provided you and Guy are also on it.
∂30-Dec-85 1231 JMC I suggest inviting Vladimir Lifschitz
To: yorick%nmsu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
to the Foundations of AI conference. He works with me and is
strong in the applications of logic to formalizing common sense
knowledge. He is also a very good logician. He is VAL@SU-AI.ARPA.
∂30-Dec-85 1234 JMC Lifschitz for editorial board
To: BOBROW@XEROX.ARPA
He would be very good at evaluating papers with a substantial logical
content, especially when they involve non-monotonic reasoning or
applications to formalizing common sense knowledge.
∂30-Dec-85 1459 JMC Re: Lifschitz for editorial board
To: VAL
∂30-Dec-85 1447 Bobrow.pa@Xerox.ARPA Re: Lifschitz for editorial board
Received: from XEROX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Dec 85 14:47:36 PST
Received: from Cabernet.ms by ArpaGateway.ms ; 30 DEC 85 14:47:47 PST
Date: 30 Dec 85 14:47 PST
From: Bobrow.pa@Xerox.ARPA
Subject: Re: Lifschitz for editorial board
In-reply-to: John McCarthy <JMC@SU-AI.ARPA>'s message of 30 Dec 85 12:34
PST
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: BOBROW.PA@Xerox.ARPA
Message-ID: <851230-144747-2607@Xerox>
Thanks for the suggestion of Vladimir. I will pass it on for approval
to the Editorial board next time I write them.
danny
∂30-Dec-85 1647 JMC re: tourists detained in Eastern countries (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
As someone said, it would be big news if any country captured a U.S.
born citizen on the grounds of his ancestry. So far as I know, no country
including the Soviet Union has done that with the following exception.
Some U.S. born people were taken as children by their parents to the
Soviet Union during the 1930s and also right after the war (the latter
especially Armenians). Subsequent attempts by the children to return to
the U.S., usually with Russian born wives and children, have met with
difficulties, although most have eventually succeeded. I believe there
are one or two cases of an immediately postwar emigre from the Soviet
Union returning as a businessman and being recaptured, but this was when
they had something else against the person. Recent (since 1970) emigres
have not been admitted as visitors and are afraid to go anyway. Surely in
the next few years the issue will arise again in connection with an
international meeting proposed to be held in the Soviet Union. For
example, there were no emigres from the Soviet Union proposing the 1975
IJCAI that was held in the Soviet Union, but there are some who have given
papers at more recent IJCAIs and whose ability to attend and return would
have to be guaranteed if there were a proposal to hold another in the
Soviet Union. I believe there is a linguistics meeting scheduled for the
Soviet Union whose organizers have not bothered to ask for any such
guarantees.
I believe there are no current disputes between the U.S. and the
Soviet Union concerning Americans accused of crimes there, e.g. the
afore-mentioned smuggling or currency violations. A few years ago some
Americans were caught in Moscow attempting to smuggle drugs (cocaine I
think) to Europe from the Far East via Moscow. However, the U.S. raised
no objection to their prosecution, and I think they have served their
sentences and are out. I believe some Europeans and possibly Americans
have served short sentences for smuggling religious literature, but the
Soviets generally just deport them.
Their treatment of their own citizens is an entirely different
story.
All this is from memory only, but anyone who wishes to research
the matter should call the Russian desk at the U.S. State Department. Any
U.S. citizen or permanent resident with doubts about his own safety on a
visit to a foreign country should begin by calling the State Department.
The biggest source of problems is people who have not fulfilled their
military service obligations in their home countries and then become U.S.
residents.
∂31-Dec-85 1807 JMC reply to message
To: HALPERN@IBM-SJ.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 31 Dec 85 18:02:07 PST.]
I'll submit at least the abstract.