perm filename S85.OUT[LET,JMC] blob
sn#797494 filedate 1985-06-30 generic text, type C, neo UTF8
COMMENT ⊗ VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC PAGE DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002
C00003 ENDMK
C⊗;
∂01-Apr-85 0919 JMC next visit
To: AI.Woody@MCC.ARPA, cl.boyer@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 1 Apr 85 09:04:54-CST.]
April 11 and 12 is also fine with me. Shall we make that definite.
∂01-Apr-85 0932 JMC re: new mailing list
To: Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 1 Apr 85 09:08:47-PST.]
Please change my name on the list RRR and other CSLI mailing lists
to JMC-LISTS@SU-AI. This separates mail sent to lists from mail
sent individual to individual.
∂01-Apr-85 0939 JMC reservations
To: Ai.Barbara@MCC.ARPA
If Woody finalizes my next visit at April 11 and 12, please make
reservations at the Brookhollow for the nights of April 10, 11
and 12.
∂01-Apr-85 0959 JMC re: NAIL!
To: ullman@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 1 Apr 85 09:37:45 pst.]
Thanks, I'll be late to the first meeting, since I'm giving a lunch
talk at noon.
∂01-Apr-85 1037 JMC article
To: RA
Please make a copy for me of the following article:
Gerard P. Huet, A unification algorithm for the typed λ-Calculus,
Theoretical Computer Science 1 (1975),27-57.
∂01-Apr-85 1430 JMC
To: VAL
The first Spring meeting of NAIL is 1PM Weds. 4/3, in 252MJH, and
subsequent meetings are Wednesdays, 11AM in 301MJH.
∂01-Apr-85 1447 JMC
To: CLT
I have a seminar at 8pm tonight. If we eat we should finish by then.
∂01-Apr-85 1602 JMC re: search committee
To: YAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 1 Apr 85 14:40:00-PST.]
Wednesday at 11 is ok with me, but I'll have to leave at 11:50.
∂01-Apr-85 1701 JMC
To: RA
resnic.2
∂01-Apr-85 2235 JMC re: meeting time
To: YAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 1 Apr 85 18:55:25-PST.]
Friday at 2pm will be fine.
∂02-Apr-85 0013 JMC
To: JJW
The April Fool spider appears to be slightly easier than the ordinary.
∂02-Apr-85 0013 JMC
To: DON@SU-AI.ARPA
The April Fool spider appears to be slightly easier than the ordinary.
∂02-Apr-85 0024 JMC move to engineering
To: faculty@SU-SCORE.ARPA
I'm inclined to vote against it or at least propose that it be
negotiated further (by people not including me). My primary reason
is that there is sure to be a lot of fuss for at best marginal
gains. At Berkeley there was enormous fuss according to my
informant there.
My reason for proposing further negotiation is that one
of the major proposed advantages won't be realized without it.
The obstacle to a unified set of courses and a unified undergraduate
major isn't that computer science is in different schools but that
it is in different departments. Unless there ends up being a single
department that teaches computer science courses, the fact that there
are two departments in the same school won't make much difference.
Well, one difference it can make is that when there is a
difference of opinion, the two departments will be able to politic
with the dean of engineering. This won't be an advantage.
∂02-Apr-85 0043 JMC re: Common business communication language
To: cheriton@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue, 2 Apr 85 00:41:02 pst.]
I'll send you the paper, and you can then decide if it's relevant
to your course.
∂02-Apr-85 0044 JMC
To: RA
Please send the CBCL paper to David Cheriton.
∂02-Apr-85 0958 JMC talk by albert meyer (mit)
To: CLT
I think perhaps you can do this one.
∂02-Apr-85 0858 EMMA@SU-CSLI.ARPA talk by albert meyer (mit)
Received: from SU-CSLI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 Apr 85 08:58:13 PST
Return-Path: <WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA>
Received: from SRI-AI.ARPA by SU-CSLI.ARPA with TCP; Mon 1 Apr 85 17:13:06-PST
Date: Mon 1 Apr 85 17:04:23-PST
From: WALDINGER@SRI-AI.ARPA
Subject: talk by albert meyer (mit)
To: AIC-Associates: ;,
CSL: ;, friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA, bboard@SRI-AI.ARPA, su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: meyer@MIT-MC.ARPA
ReSent-Date: Tue 2 Apr 85 08:53:52-PST
ReSent-From: Emma Pease <Emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA>
ReSent-To: friends@SU-CSLI.ARPA
when: mon, april 15, 4:15pm
where: csl conference room (el381)
building e, sri, on ravenswood av. opposite pine street, menlo park
coffee: 3:45 pm in waldinger's office (ek292)
REASONING ABOUT BLOCK STRUCTURED VARIABLES: WHAT MAKES THE FREE-LIST FREE?
Albert R. Meyer
Abstract: Let Q be an identifier denoting a "global" (i.e., unknown) procedure
which takes a procedure parameter. In many familiar programming languages (say
Pascal or ALGOL, but not C) the block
BEGIN
INT X:=0;
PROCEDURE P();
x:=x+2;
END(*of P*);
Q(P);
IF EVEN?(x) THEN RUN←FOREVER
ELSE...FI
END
always runs forever. The reason is that the "new" variable x is initialized to
0, and the global procedure Q, which has no independent access to x, is only
given the ability to increment x by 2, so if and when Q(P) terminates, it can
only have added 2 to 0 a finite number of times, thereby leaving x even.
None of the logical systems in the literature for reasoning about procedures is
powerful enough to prove this fact. Indeed, this fact is not even true
according to the standard models of storage allocation. In this talk, we
discuss some of the theoretical difficulties in reasoning about local storage.
-------
∂02-Apr-85 1025 JMC re: Bert Enderton
To: GANGOLLI@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 2 Apr 85 10:05:42-PST.]
1:45pm
∂02-Apr-85 1313 JMC re: [Reply to message recvd: 02 Apr 85 00:44-PST]
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Apr-85 13:10-PT.]
Common Business Communication Language
∂02-Apr-85 1327 JMC request for report
To: davism.acf1@NYU.ARPA
Can you have sent to me a copy of your 1977 report with Jack Schwartz
Metamathematical Extensibility for theorem verifiers and proof checkers?
Please acknowledge this so I'll know the address still exists.
∂02-Apr-85 1346 JMC re: [Nils Nilsson <NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: candidates]
To: YAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA, Papa@SU-SCORE.ARPA, yao@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message from YAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA sent Tue 2 Apr 85 13:23:24-PST.]
I would also like to consider Natarajan Shankar, who has applied,
Keith Clark of Imperial College (who hasn't) and J. W. Lloyd.
Shankar does computer theorem proving (I'll bring two papers), and
both Clark and Lloyd are interested in logic programming.
∂02-Apr-85 1434 JMC faculty lunches
To: waldinger@SRI-AI.ARPA
In connection with you teaching a course this quarter, I hope
you will come to as many of the faculty free lunches on Tuesdays
as you find convenient. They are at 12:15 in room 142.
∂02-Apr-85 1703 JMC re: PLAYBOY photographer (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - PB has enlightened us on the origin of the word "cretin". Given
this and the attitudes MRC has expressed in this BBOARD about religion,
his use of the word is more appropriate than I thought.
∂02-Apr-85 1706 JMC re: Looking for a Thai Restaurant (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Hmm, even if it is already April 2, I would be cautious about using
a suggested foreign language greeting whose meaning I didn't know.
∂02-Apr-85 1711 JMC re: Flame: Sexism in Language (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - The use of alumna for a female alumnus is still common in English.
It was universal when all educated English speaking people were
exposed to Latin. It will surely disappear eventually even without
the help of the sexism hunters.
∂02-Apr-85 1716 JMC re: Peat Marwick
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 02-Apr-85 16:57-PT.]
That's Molly Cooper.
∂03-Apr-85 0926 JMC re: [Larry Fagan <FAGAN@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>: Request for Support for AI in Medicine Workshop]
To: FAGAN@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, aaai-office@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA,
Bledsoe@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
CC: Kingsland@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, Shortliffe@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message from FAGAN@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA sent Wed 3 Apr 85 08:03:31-PST.]
Probably I mislaid the earlier message requesting support. Therefore, I
probably apologize. This time AAAI will support the AI in Medicine with
$7500 in order that more students can attend. Please make arrangements
with Claudia Mazzetti at the AAAI office.
∂03-Apr-85 0957 JMC
To: RA
CBCL[f75,jmc] is a SCRIBE source for it. Make 15.
∂03-Apr-85 1141 JMC mail forwarding and non-monotonic reasoning
To: DAVISM.ACF1@NYU.ARPA
It is possible to arrange that mail for MDD here be forwarded
automatically to your present address. It has the side effect
of telling the sender that the mail has been forwarded and to
what address, so perhaps he'll be more efficient in the future.
Would you like that?
On another subject, non-monotonic reasoning has become much more
popular, both in AI and among logicians. Vladimir Lifschitz,
a logician originally from Leningrad, is now in my group and has
produced several small papers, and I have a new paper on
circumscription. If you're at all interested, I can send you
some of these.
∂03-Apr-85 1146 JMC re: Pornography and the Bible (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I believe someone has indeed prepared such an index to the Bible.
∂03-Apr-85 1518 JMC
To: ME
Yes I would like mail to MDD forwarded to DAVISM@NYU. Thank you.
∂03-Apr-85 1533 JMC
To: RPG, CLT, LES
Sam Daniel of Motorola may call me about a possible presentation of
a multiprocesor based on the 680020.
∂03-Apr-85 1836 JMC
To: LES
Sam Daniel of Motorola may call me about a possible presentation of
a multiprocesor based on the 680020.
602 897-4306, I'll call him today or tomorrow.
∂03-Apr-85 2331 JMC re: The Death Penalty (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Most likely the 22 percent are against the death penalty, and
read the quote as saying "It is a virtue of the death penalty that it
acts as a protection from further crimes by the guilty person". Since
they don't want to admit that the death penalty has any virtue,
they answer it no. If assumes that the questions
in a poll are supposed to refer to matters of opinion rather than fact, then
one is inclined to look for a non-trivial interpretation of the
question. The other possibility is that the 22 percent believe,
as do many primitive peoples, that the criminal can still commit
crimes after she is dead.
∂04-Apr-85 1053 JMC
To: RPG
∂04-Apr-85 1038 RA Parallel LISP
Elia Weixelbaum AT&T Bell Lab, New Jersey (201) 386 7407 re: his work
on parallel LISP. Wanted to discuss with you your work on the subject.
He'll be in his office today; he will be on vacation beginning tomorrow
until a week from Monday. If he doesn't hear from you today, he will call
back in 10 days.
jmc - I talked to him. He will call you also. He sounds a bit light weight,
but you can draw your own conclusion.
∂04-Apr-85 1355 JMC re: Church-Rosser paper
To: CL.SHANKAR@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 4 Apr 85 15:30:27-CST.]
Thanks, I hadn't got to a missing page yet.
∂04-Apr-85 1403 JMC re: Common business communication language
To: cheriton@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue, 2 Apr 85 00:41:02 pst.]
The paper is on its way, and it if it proves interesting to you we can talk.
∂05-Apr-85 1500 JMC
To: yao@SU-SCORE.ARPA, papa@SU-SCORE.ARPA, nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Here's a draft of a letter I would send to logic programming people.
Dear ...
Among other possibilities the Stanford Computer Science Department
is considering hiring a faculty member in logic programming. The
position might be at any level. Therefore, I am writing to you and
others to solicit suggestions and an expression of your own interest.
A strong research record and the ability to teach and supervise
research students are the primary requirements.
Candidates in logic programming will be in competition with
those in other fields.
Sincerely,
∂05-Apr-85 1536 JMC
To: bscott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
∂05-Apr-85 1500 VAL increase in salary at San Jose State
San Jose State University will be increasing the salary of computer science
faculty this spring (because we are "hard-to-hire"). It seems that my salary
will be about 35,500 now, possibly beginning with my next paycheck. I will know
in a couple of weeks what precisely is going to happen. Will you be able to
match this increase?
∂05-Apr-85 1536 JMC
To: VAL
I have referred your message to Betty Scott, but I don't see difficulty.
∂06-Apr-85 0005 JMC re: Networks are for . . . (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I have noticed increasing bureaucratic tendencies on the part of the
LOTS management in recent years.
∂07-Apr-85 1829 JMC
To: ME
Is there a way to flush the 64 remembered stories short of logging out?
∂07-Apr-85 2030 JMC re: NS/AGAIN
To: ME
[In reply to message rcvd 07-Apr-85 20:04-PT.]
No, I know about AGAIN. When I have 64 stories, it doesn't remember
new ones I see. I want it to flush its memory and start remembering
stories over again. I will then ask about stories coming in after
some time.
∂08-Apr-85 0226 JMC
To: SJG
Early Entrance to College: The Johns Hopkins Experience; Study
of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SIMPY), The Johns Hopkins
University.
Eisenberg, Ann R.; George, William C.
College and University, v54 n2 p109-18 Win 1979
Available from: Reprint: UMI
Language: ENGLISH
Document Type: JOURNAL ARTICLE (080); RESEARCH REPORT (143);
REVIEW LITERATURE (070)
The effects of shortening gifted students' overall time for
completing elementary, secondary, and collegiate education are
addressed. A study of the performance of such accelerated
students in Johns Hopkins University's program indicates that
most of the early entrants have done well without encountering
serious emotional and social difficulties. (JMD)
Descriptors: *Academic Achievement; *Academically Gifted;
*Acceleration; College Admission; College Students; *Early
Admission; *Exceptional Child Research; Grade Point Average;
Higher Education; Mathematics; *Student Adjustment
Identifiers: *Johns Hopkins University MD
∂08-Apr-85 1112 JMC re: Faculty search folders
To: ashok@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 8 Apr 85 11:09:37 pst.]
I'll be done by noon, and I'll leave them with Phyllis Winkler.
∂08-Apr-85 1320 JMC notes for proposal
To: blasgen.yktvmt.ibm@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Mike:
Here is the draft I wrote in September. Les Earnest, who
will play the role I had originally planned for Dick Gabriel,
has costed the proposal, and it comes to about twice the money
I had imagined. Some cuts, my time and his, can be made without
really reducing the level of activity, but bringing it anywhere
near the $100K per year we discussed will do that. It is reasonable
to begin with just a student, Ross Casley, and a little of Les's
and my time, and this would probably bring it well within range.
I have dithered about sending it for insufficient reason.
John
ebos[f84,jmc] Editor based operating system proposal
Stanford proposes to develop technology for editor based
operating systems for the IBM ROMP microprocessor. A particular
such operating system will be the concrete result of the work, but
our proposal includes technical reports and scientific publications
on the technology in general. The work will cost $115,000 per
year for personnel, and we propose a 4 year project. In addition to the
personnel cost, we will need three ROMP microprocessor systems,
each with 4 megabytes of memory (not necessarily immediately),
and ethernet interface. Unless a substantial disk for file storage
is included, there will be (not large) costs for use of Stanford University
Computer Science Department computer facilities.
The part of the project that involves experimenting with keyboards
will require the ability to order additional keyboards beyond
the number of processors. Since most of these will have to be
ordered specially, we anticipate subcontracting $15,000 worth
of keyboards unless IBM is in a position to provide them.
Goals of the project:
The main premiss 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 ROMP executive 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.
2. We have studied the CPR operating system and find it
suitable as a base for building our editor and interactive system.
Thus our programs will use its system calls. We don't presently
anticipate having to change it in important ways, but very likely
something will turn up.
3. The editor and our other programs will be written in
Common Lisp. The full facilities of Common Lisp will be available
for macros (execs in certain IBM dialects) for controlling the editor
itself, the operating system and user programs. Our experience
at Stanford 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 (IBMese APA) 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
interest students in the project after it gets started. We should
have something working within a year of the time we get people,
computers, budget and Common Lisp.
Personnel:
John McCarthy, 15 percent
Executive officer and project manager, Lester Earnest, 15 percent
Research associate, Carolyn Talcott, 10 percent.
2 graduate research assistants, half time academic year, full time summer.
Stanford computer facilities $10K per year
This includes both computer time, disk storage and help with installation.
Research Programmer, Martin Frost 30 percent.
∂08-Apr-85 1322 JMC for your info less unchanged part
To: LES
Mike:
Here is the draft I wrote in September. Les Earnest, who
will play the role I had originally planned for Dick Gabriel,
has costed the proposal, and it comes to about twice the money
I had imagined. Some cuts, my time and his, can be made without
really reducing the level of activity, but bringing it anywhere
near the $100K per year we discussed will do that. It is reasonable
to begin with just a student, Ross Casley, and a little of Les's
and my time, and this would probably bring it well within range.
I have dithered about sending it for insufficient reason.
John
∂08-Apr-85 1702 JMC re: Research Associate Salaries
To: BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 8 Apr 85 15:36:15-PST.]
Let it be as you say.
∂08-Apr-85 1716 JMC re: Self-Modifying Code Survey (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I wrote some programs to get around Fortran's restriction that
subscripts had to have forms like 3*I+2 in order to allow arbitrary
integer expressions. When one wanted A(<integer expression>) which
wasn't allowed, one wrote ARRAY(A,<integer expression>), which generated
a call to the function ARRAY. The first time ARRAY was called it modified
the machine code that called it so it would compute A(<integer expression>)
without calling array. A similar program worked for storing in arrays.
A grander plan to make a program modifying function to allow recursive
function calls by finding certain memory cells and storing them on the
stack didn't work before Lisp became available. This was 1958 I guess.
∂08-Apr-85 1732 JMC Lisp programming and proving.
To: RA
Now I remember that the text last Fall time was issued in two installments.
There were three new chapters and the rest were taken from the old
version. Anyway I'd like to give Eric Muller a free one.
∂08-Apr-85 1729 EM@SU-SCORE.ARPA Lisp programming and proving.
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 8 Apr 85 17:29:47 PST
Date: Mon 8 Apr 85 17:12:50-PST
From: Eric Muller <EM@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Lisp programming and proving.
To: jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
Hello,
Where can I buy a copy of the CS206 textbook, "lisp programming and proving" ?
I did not bring my copy back with me and it turns out to be a
mistake.
thanks.
eric.
-------
∂08-Apr-85 1917 JMC re: coloring I
To: avg@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 8 Apr 85 16:21:44 pst.]
The edited version of "coloring II" indeed runs out of stack space
when asked for a second solution. More later.
∂08-Apr-85 2313 JMC doubt
To: avg@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
Most likely I don't understand, but I'm not sure Color VI is correct.
It seems to branch on whether the first country is easy or hard rather
than collecting all the easy countries, removing them from the map
and repeating the process.
∂09-Apr-85 1006 JMC re: AI book
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 09-Apr-85 09:48-PT.]
Tell her ok.
∂09-Apr-85 1524 JMC
To: peters@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Stan, this isn't the editorial, but it's relevant.
Ed, here's a draft. I suppose it's too frank in some matters.
What's your reaction? I think additional material
should be added, but I'm not sure what.
basic[e84,jmc] Basic research in AI committee
Artificial intelligence has attained great public recognition
recently, and many companies, new and old, are trying to apply
AI technology to a wide variety of problems. However, almost all
of this expanded effort is aimed at applying the technology as is,
and few if any companies are making basic scientific efforts in
support of the technology they are trying to use.
Of course, it is normal for companies and Government agencies
to put vastly more effort into technology than into basic research,
and it is unlikely that AI can fare much better than other sciences.
However, it is currently faring much worse, and we can hope to
correct this.
It is important for the companies to correct this problem,
because what AI technology can accomplish is seriously limited
by the fundamental state of AI science. Many desired applications
are simply infeasible today. Moreover, without activity in basic
AI science it is difficult for a company to decide what projects
current technology will support, what new tools are available or
will shortly become available, and where fundamental advances are
required.
One can say that AI technology is
treading close on the heels of AI science.
The basic AI research situation in industry has always been
weak, but just as the Defense Department has begun to work towards
relying on AI technology, Congress has just wiped out DARPA's
allocation for basic research in AI. As we understand it, the
rationale was that since AI has become a usable technology, it is
time for basic research in AI to be relegated to NSF. NSF never
has supported basic research in AI very heavily, and it is entirely
unlikely that NSF will come up with the $21 million that has been
cut from the DARPA budget.
In fact NSF's support of AI has also been heavily oriented
to specific applications parasitic on the state of research rather
than contributing to it. This is because NSF began support of AI
in the early 1970s when short term applications were emphasized
in every science in connection with the ill-conceived slogan of
``Research Applied to National Needs, RANN''.
In order to do something about this problem, the American
Association for Artificial Intelligence has formed a Committee
on Basic Research chaired by John McCarthy of Stanford University,
the immediate past President of the Asssociation.
The decision to form the committee was taken before the
dimensions of the DARPA catastrophe became apparent. At that
time the main problem was taken to be one of helping companies
active in applying AI technology to build programs in AI basic
research. These programs might include both in-house research
and support of basic research at universities, but we expected
the emphasis would be on the former. We propose to begin
by discussing the situation with executives of companies
that have efforts in AI technology.
Now something will also have to be done about the DARPA
situation. The present situation resembles what has happened
in the past but promises to be worse. In the early 1970s,
promising lines of AI research were diverted into short term
``practical projects'' promising results in two or three years.
The researchers often continued to bootleg some basic research,
and today the results of the bootlegging are much more widely
known in academia, industry and government than the applied
projects, which are mostly long forgotten. They have also
have made much more of a contribution to the AI applications
of today than the ``applied projects''.
People interested in the work of the Basic Research
Committee are invited to contact the chairman.
John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
Stanford, CA 94305
(415) 497-4430
Arpanet: JMC@SU-AI
∂09-Apr-85 1526 JMC
To: peters@SU-CSLI.ARPA
What follows is the President's message. I'll shorten it if there
is a space problem. Note that the formulas n↑2 and n log n
need to be printed properly. I would be glad to look at the TEX version
and possibly tinker a bit more.
Here is the harangue that will appear in AI Magazine; hope it helps.
AI NEEDS MORE EMPHASIS ON BASIC RESEARCH
Too few people are doing basic research in AI relative to the
number working on applications. The ratio basic/applied is less in
AI than in the older sciences and than in computer science generally.
This is unfortunate, because reaching human level artificial intelligence
will require fundamental conceptual advances. Even the applied goals
proposed by various groups in the U.S., Europe and Japan
for the next ten years are not just engineering extrapolations from
the present state of science. Their realization will require more basic
research than is now being done.
Jon Doyle put it this way in a recent net message. "... tentative,
but disturbing conclusion: that the students interested in AI are not
very interested in fundamental questions, open problems, and long term
research, but instead are eager to get in on big, build-it-now
projects in expert systems and natural language interfaces." He
was definite about CMU, but he conjectured that the situation was similar
elsewhere, and I suppose student preferences are similar in different
places.
I'll begin with a few recriminations and then try to be more
constructive. First the Government, specifically DARPA and NSF, had
a fit of extreme "practicality" in the early 1970s. The Mansfield
amendment required DARPA to claim short term military relevance for
what it supported, and NSF diverted much of its resources to "Research
Applied to National Needs". The older sciences were able to resist this
in NSF but lost their DARPA support completely. AI, which was more
dependent on DARPA than the others were, survived but wounded. The
situation has improved in both places in recent years.
Second the opportunities to make money have perhaps lured
some people away from research per se. I don't really know the
extent to which this is true. Maybe they were tired of research.
Third much of the theoretical work in AI is beside the point
and unlikely to lead to advances toward human level intelligence.
The mathematically talented like well-defined conjectures
the wherein the mere statement of the result that has been proved or
the asymptotic behavior of the algorithm discovered wins instant
scientific recognition.
AI badly needs mathematical and logical theory,
but the theory required involves
conceptual innovations - not just mathematics. We won't reach
human level intelligence by more algorithms reducing the complexity
of a problem from n↑2 to n log n and still less by proofs that
yet another problem is unsolvable or NP-complete.
Of course, these results are often very significant as mathematics
or computer science.
Fourth, like many fields AI is given to misguided enthusiasms
in which large numbers of people make the same errors. For example,
much of the present work in natural language processing seems
misguided to me. There is too much emphasis on syntax and not enough on
the semantics. Natural language front ends on programs that convert
between existing AI formalisms and English miss the point.
What we can learn from natural language is not how to express in English
what we already know how to express in computerese. Rather we must
study those ideas expressible in natural language that no-one knows
how to represent at all in a computer.
We also won't reach human level intelligence by building
larger and larger production systems involving more and more facts
all on the same level. Of course, these systems of limited intelligence
may have substantial practical utility.
Now that I've finished grumbling, I'll try to be constructive.
1. People beginning their research careers should think about the
long term goals of AI and should think how to apply their own talents
in the best way. If they can do first class basic research they should.
2. In my opinion, the key problem at present is the formalization
of common sense knowledge and reasoning ability. It still looks to me
that separating epistemology from heuristics will pay off.
3. We need to think hard about how to make experiments that
are really informative. At present the failures are more important
than the successes, because they often tell us that the intellectual
mechanisms we imagined would intelligently solve certain problems
are inadequate.
4. We need good problem domains - the AI analog of what the
Drosophila did for genetics. The Soviet computer scientist A. S.
Kronrod once referred to chess as the Drosophila of artificial
intelligence, because it permitted comparison of human and artificial
intellectual mechanisms. Unfortunately, chess was discouraged as
a serious problem domain, and most chess programming is carried on
at the level of sport rather than science. In particular, there is
little publication about the intellectual mechanisms involved, and
the race often involves merely faster hardware.
5. I also believe there is a large payoff in a more general
analysis of the concept of pattern.
Finally, let me cheerfully admit that general harangues
like this one are no substitute for scientific papers setting
forth specific problems in detail.
I hope that other members of AAAI will express their own
opinions about what the basic research problems are.
∂09-Apr-85 1735 JMC re: Self-Modifying Code Survey (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - To know a specific machine is one thing. To know enough about
machhines to program a new one in machine language from a manual is
another. I was once quite disappointed by a PhD exam candidate who declined
to program a bubble sort in the CDC 6600 given a manual.
∂10-Apr-85 0013 JMC
To: reges@SU-SCORE.ARPA
What about accounts for faculty on sushi?
∂10-Apr-85 0057 JMC re: SUSHI
To: REGES@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 10 Apr 85 00:53:17-PST.]
Yes, it will help in interacting with those students whose main home will
be SUSHI. Otherwise, I don't see myself using it.
∂10-Apr-85 1150 JMC
To: CLT
Done forget to pay Zella tomorrow. She gets $75.
∂11-Apr-85 0818 JMC
To: CLT
I have neither sent a check nor talked again with Cate? Could you?
∂11-Apr-85 0820 JMC
To: vardi@SU-CSLI.ARPA
I have no direct interest in Lehman.
∂11-Apr-85 0827 JMC
To: CLT
You can send mail to ai.jmc@mcc.
∂12-Apr-85 1127 JMC
To: RA
Pls. make logic programming letter to Raymond Reiter.
∂12-Apr-85 1514 Mailer failed mail returned
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
In processing the following command:
SEND berglund@pescadero OK about Hailperin.
The following message was undeliverable to recipient(s):
berglund@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
Here is how the remote host replied to this mail address:
berglund@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
500 Command unrecognized
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
∂12-Apr-85 1514 JMC (on TTY162 1514)
To: berglund@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
OK about Hailperin.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂12-Apr-85 1516 JMC
To: berglund@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
OK about Hailperin.
∂13-Apr-85 1553 JMC
To: CLT
I have returned.
∂14-Apr-85 1858 JMC
To: cl.boyer@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
Say again who is doing the public domain Macsyma.
∂15-Apr-85 0959 JMC re: Hailperin
To: berglund@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 15 Apr 85 09:39:16 pst.]
Make it 11am on the 25th.
∂15-Apr-85 1204 JMC re: Hailperin
To: berglund@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 15 Apr 85 11:17:24 pst.]
Make it 3pm on the 25th.
∂15-Apr-85 2100 JMC
To: ai.woody@MCC.ARPA, cl.boyer@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
Confirming Thur and Fri May 16 and 17.
∂16-Apr-85 1024 JMC re: [ATP.SCHELTER: Macsyma for the Explorer]
To: CL.BOYER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA, ATP.SCHELTER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
[In reply to message from CL.BOYER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA sent Tue, 16 Apr 1985 12:07 CST.]
Thanks for the information on the DOE Macsyma. I have no immediate
requirement to proceed further, but if and when we get some Explorers ... .
∂16-Apr-85 1049 JMC Squires
To: LES, CLT
I talked with him today. He is ready to send a memo to Kahn as soon as
he gets a proposal. It doesn't have to be perfect with regard to the
arrangements with Lucid and Berkeley. He plans to negotiate himself
to some extent with Dick, and he confirmed my speculation that this
is something the contracting agency may also get involved in.
As part of a desire to get an interim machine, he is prepared to add
some money to our present contract, and it seems to me that we can
get some to pay you and a student or two to do some programming.
Remember that there are the usual rumors of instability at DARPA, so
each delay increases the probability that Kahn will be gone or
someone else there will put the proposal on hold while he deals with
more urgent matters.
Therefore, getting a proposal out the door is on the critical path.
∂16-Apr-85 1347 JMC re: [ATP.SCHELTER: Macsyma for the Explorer]
To: CL.BOYER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue, 16 Apr 1985 12:26 CST.]
It's all clear thank you. I have the Symbolics Macsyma through a special
arrangement on two of our 3600s, and for the time being I am only sampling
its use anyway, and therefore what I have is satisfactory. My inquiry was
mainly on behalf of someone else.
∂16-Apr-85 2023 JMC re: SOCRATES: Searching Techniques--the AT index in the Command Mode
To: LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 16 Apr 85 13:38:07-PST.]
Could you put the green sheet on-line at SAIL and SCORE? What about library
keys?
∂16-Apr-85 2116 JMC visit by Chudnovskys
To: llw@S1-A.ARPA
David and Gregory Chudnovsky would like to visit you and the S1 project
next week at your convenience. You remember I spoke of them as good
mathematicians, and they are citizens. They also want to visit
Milo Nordyke, whom they know by his work. Their phone is
212 864-5320, but whoever transmits the message should be persistent.
You can also send MAIL to me, and I'll be persistent.
∂16-Apr-85 2342 JMC klass.1
To: RA
The news stories in AFGHAN.NS[F84,JMC] go with this letter along with my
letter to Mr. Fuller of Associated Press and the reply from one of the
vice-presidents. The news stories should be put in two batches, those
before and after the exchange of letters. Omit the New York Times stories.
The spooling should be /NOHEAD, because I don't want to make it too
obvious how the stories were collected. Copies of all to Sidney Hook.
∂17-Apr-85 0035 JMC Uday Reddy
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA, yao@SU-SCORE.ARPA, papa@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
subramanian@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Uday Reddy, REDDY@utah-20, 801 581-8378 is one of the logic programming
candidates. He is deciding on a September job, and I told him Stanford
almost certainly will be too slow for that, but we'd keep him on the
list. He will be coming through on his way to India on Sunday the 28th
and Monday the 29th. I think we should ask him to give a talk on Monday.
I may be called for jury duty on Monday, so I'll talk to him on Sunday.
∂17-Apr-85 0916 JMC SRI report request net address?
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Is there a net address at SRI from which reports can be requested?
David Warren's abstract machine report may be relevant to the Qlisp project.
∂17-Apr-85 1007 JMC report request
To: twalker@SRI-AI.ARPA
An abstract prolog instruction set, TN 309, David Warren, Oct 1983
Nils Nilsson said you were the right person from whom to request a
copy of the above report --- two copies if you can spare them.
Please send them to
Professor John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Stanford California 94305
Thank you.
∂17-Apr-85 1543 JMC
To: CLT
Les will tell me tomorrow what I can afford.
∂17-Apr-85 1742 JMC re: Socrates
To: LIBRARY@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 17 Apr 85 11:48:30-PST.]
I am not aware of anyone who looks especially like me. How is your
bureaucracy coming with library keys?
∂17-Apr-85 1823 JMC uniform access to memory
To: squires@USC-ISI.ARPA
CC: overbeek@ANL-MCS.ARPA, RPG@SU-AI.ARPA, LES@SU-AI.ARPA,
CLT@SU-AI.ARPA, fateman@UCB-VAX.ARPA
As you know the Qlisp project is based on acquiring a machine in which the
processors have uniform access to memory. Given this access, we see
reasonably clearly how to get good performance with large numbers of
processors for symbolic computations. For the Qlisp project itself, which
involves 10 or so processors, suitable machines are available at least to
test the concept.
As you also know providing uniform access to memory is a nuisance
to hardware designers. They find it much more convenient to localize fast
access to memory and expect programmers to organize their programs
accordingly. While some computations lend themselves to this approach
no-one has proposed a way of getting uniformly good performance, and some
of us believe that getting such performance out of large numbers of
processors may not be feasible for many tasks. Even when it is possible
it will involve ad hoc measures for particular kinds of computations that
will become more complex as the number of processors increases.
This is our group's view from the Lisp standpoint. What triggers
this message is a conversation with Ross Overbeek in which he said that
parallel logic programming leads to the same view of the importance of
uniform access to memory. He can correct me if I have misunderstood him,
but it seems that a clear path to achieving good parallelism in logic
programming languages also involves such machines.
For this reason I hope the DARPA strategic computing plan will
include ambitious projects for providing uniform access to memory with
large numbers of processors.
If the point is considered doubtful, I am prepared to take part in
discussions.
∂18-Apr-85 1045 JMC re: Knowledge as an obstacle (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I am unable to think of any example in the last 50 years in which
any major disagreement between two groups about the correct interpretation
of Marxism has been won by anyone in any way except with guns. Can anyone
else?
∂18-Apr-85 1110 JMC
To: SMC
Contact Ewerts photo 727-3686. What to do with Pentax?
∂18-Apr-85 1615 JMC
To: LES
Please call me, office or home.
∂18-Apr-85 1625 Mailer failed mail returned
To: JMC
In processing the following command:
MAIL/su
The following message was aborted because of a command error,
namely, nonexistent recipient(s):
halpern.ibm-sj@csnet-relay
r m
------- Begin undelivered message: -------
∂18-Apr-85 1625 JMC Sato's name and location
Your letter puts him in Kyoto. He is actually at the computer
science Department of Tokyo University, and his first name
is Masahiko. He is an associate professor.
------- End undelivered message -------
∂18-Apr-85 1625 JMC Sato's name and location
To: halpern.ibm-sj@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Your letter puts him in Kyoto. He is actually at the computer
science Department of Tokyo University, and his first name
is Masahiko. He is an associate professor.
∂18-Apr-85 2256 JMC re: No More Joe Bob!! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - In my opinion editors are entitled to include what they please
in their newspapers. They can even cut it selectively, but a columnist
or the syndicate marketing his column may also put whatever restrictions
are mutually agreeable in their contract. However, it is also legitimate
to criticism them for narrow mindedness or obsequiousness to people who
object to certain material. In the present case, it seems evident
that the editor of the Dallas newspaper and almost certainly the
Chronicle also are obsequious to liberal opinion. No major newspaper
has in recent years be defied liberal opinion on what is printable in
the way that many newspapers defy the Government when it objects to
printing military secrets.
Up to and including the 1950s the right in politics and opinion was
vociferous in trying to squelch jokes that it considered in bad taste
while the left favored "irreverence" and free spirits. Now the tide
has turned and the left demands that newspapers cut out columns that
violate their standards.
Curiously there is one comedian who defies the liberal opinion by
making jokes about homosexuals. He is Eddie Murphy and gets away
with it because he is black. One would imagine that his race
would be irrelevant to his being allowed to make jokes about
homosexuals, but since liberals tend to regard all "prejudices"
as coming in a package, he confuses them. Since the article I
read only reported that there were protests which he made further
jokes about and was too sanitized to even hint at what he actually
said, I can't give an independent opinion of his taste.
Perhaps I am misperceiving the relative intolerance of the left
and right. Does anyone else have an opinion?
∂18-Apr-85 2301 JMC Subject: Mail to PC's. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Use your friendly local dinosaur.
∂19-Apr-85 0045 JMC - What precisely is wrong with being mainstream? While some great
To: JMC
innovators were treated badly, even more were popular in their own
times. Newton was honored, and Einstein was promptly offered
professorships.
∂19-Apr-85 0046 JMC re: censorship, etc. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - What precisely is wrong with being mainstream? While some great
innovators were treated badly, even more were popular in their own
times. Newton was honored, and Einstein was promptly offered
professorships.
∂19-Apr-85 1110 JMC reply to message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 19-Apr-85 09:22-PT.]
Tonight is the 20th anniversary CSD dinner that your had already decided
not to attend. However, if you get back in time you might be interested
in Goto's talk at 12:05 at the Chemistry Gazebo. He will talk about the
NTT Tao language that combines Lisp, Prolog and Smalltalk features.
I'll call just before.
∂19-Apr-85 1111 JMC re: vacation
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 19-Apr-85 08:58-PT.]
That will be fine. I'll be in L.A., so it's a convenient time.
∂19-Apr-85 1114 JMC re: vacation
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 19-Apr-85 08:58-PT.]
Will you be back on the 3rd or on the 4th of June?
∂19-Apr-85 1115 JMC a brief comment
To: RPG, CLT, LES
∂19-Apr-85 0938 overbeek@anl-mcs a brief comment
Received: from ANL-MCS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Apr 85 09:37:51 PST
Return-Path: <overbeek@anl-mcs>
Received: by anl-mcs.ARPA ; Fri, 19 Apr 85 11:36:17 cst
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 85 11:36:17 cst
From: overbeek@anl-mcs (Overbeek)
Message-Id: <8504191736.AA19751@anl-mcs.ARPA>
To: jmc@su-ai.ARPA
Subject: a brief comment
I sent off copies of a number of research reports on our
early work on the HEP. Most of the examples in our C tutorial
are either very trivial or numeric. However, they do illustrate
exactly how we think the portable task dispatching mechanism should
be implemented. We have used these techniques to implement
a portable version of the Warren abstract machine for use on
multiprocessors. We plan on having OR-parallelism operable this
month, so we will have concrete results soon.
I agree that globally-shared memory will be highly-desirable
for most symbolic processing. The programmer will pay a substantial
penalty for even "clusters that are loosely-coupled", where the processes
in a cluster share a common memory.
I disagree with your comments on the HEP. Although I have reservations
about the HEP, I believe that the distinction between program and
data memory need not seriously impair the implementation of a LISP
compiler. I realize that I speak from relative ignorance here, but let
me explain my outlook. First, I believe that a portable implementation
can be based on the strategy of intrerpreting code for an abstract
machine. Our experience in Prolog implementation leads us to
believe that you can get within a factor of 2 of compilation
into native code using this approach. On the other hand, if you
feel that compilation to native code is critical, it would be
fairly straightforward to hide the distinction of memory types.
For example, it would be a minor matter to implement routines of
the form "claim a block of program memory" and "move a block of data
from data memory to a designated location in program memory". With
these (and a few routines to hide this operation from the main
body of code in the compiler), one need hardly be aware of the
distinction in memory types (and I believe that there are sound
reasons for making such a distinction in the case of the HEP).
The Sequent is certainly an adequate machine for exploring
parallelism, and I do not mean to advocate the HEP. However,
I believe that the major objection revolves around cost. The
actual machine does offer a convenient environment to explore
parallelism, and we are moving a fairly substantial effort
onto it with minimal grief.
If we can be of any assistance, please feel free to call or to
have Gabriel call.
∂19-Apr-85 1503 JMC
To: w.wildman@LOTS-A
>Goad,Chris (sil: 493-0145) Silma is his company
∂19-Apr-85 1547 JMC Applications of circumscription paper
To: VAL@SU-AI.ARPA, grosof@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, SJG@SU-AI.ARPA,
nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Rutie is sending you the version I presently plan to submit to Artificial
Intelligence. It takes into account some of the criticisms several of
you have made, but I would be grateful for a last look. I hope to
submit it late next week.
∂19-Apr-85 1621 JMC Qlisp
To: CLT, LES, RPG
∂19-Apr-85 1620 fateman%ucbdali@Berkeley Qlisp
Received: from UCB-VAX.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 19 Apr 85 16:20:01 PST
Received: from ucbdali.ARPA by UCB-VAX.ARPA (4.24/4.45)
id AA28076; Fri, 19 Apr 85 16:01:15 pst
Received: by ucbdali.ARPA (4.24/4.45)
id AA01600; Fri, 19 Apr 85 16:02:01 pst
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 85 16:02:01 pst
From: fateman%ucbdali@Berkeley (Richard Fateman)
Message-Id: <8504200002.AA01600@ucbdali.ARPA>
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
Subject: Qlisp
A Sequent processor has been installed at Berkeley, and is probably
accessible via the arpa net. (it is on an internal ethernet).
∂19-Apr-85 1624 JMC re: Qlisp
To: fateman%ucbdali@UCB-VAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri, 19 Apr 85 16:02:01 pst.]
Thanks for the information about the Sequent. I have distributed it.
∂19-Apr-85 2323 JMC re: No More Joe Bob!! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - My opinion is that the Administration is substantially telling
the truth about Nicaragua and that the liberals are substantially lying.
When Ortega said he was a Marxist-Leninist, I believe him.
I remember those who assured us that the Chinese communists weren't
really communist and those who said the same about the Vietnamese
communists. They repeat their disinformation about Nicaragua.
However, even when differences of opinion are as strong as that,
there is no reason to despair of freedom of speech because some people
believe other people with opinions so strongly differing from one's own.
∂20-Apr-85 1819 JMC re: No More Joe Bob!! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Ortega didn't say he was a Marxist. He said he was a
Marxist-Leninist. In the political language of today, that
means a supporter and user of the political methods of the
Soviet Union.
∂21-Apr-85 0111 JMC Joe Bob dies and is resurrected
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
a004 0046 21 Apr 85
BC-Industry News, Advisory, 2nd Add,0580
Discontinues Satirical Column, Writer Resigns
DALLAS - A writer whose syndicated satirical column, ''Joe Bob Goes
to the Drive-In,'' was canceled by the Dallas Times Herald earlier in
the week after it caused heated protests by the city's black
community, has resigned.
The columnist, John Bloom, resigned Friday during a luncheon with
Will Jarrett, editor of the Times Herald, and announced he would
continue writing the column by the fictional Joe Bob Briggs.
The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, through which about 50 newspapers
had been receiving the drive-in movie review column, also canceled.
However, Bloom's agent, Vicky Eisenberg, said Joe Bob has been picked
up by Universal Press Syndicate.
In announcing Tuesday that the column was being canceled, Jarrett
had said the newspaper would continue to carry another column written
by Bloom under his own name.
''I think John's position was that he realized that in view of the
flap this week that anything he did in his regular column would be
misunderstood, scrutinized, and put him and the paper in an unfair
situation,'' Jarrett said Friday.
The cancellation announcement followed a heated meeting between the
newspaper's editors and black community leaders about the column,
which is written under the name Joe Bob Briggs.
Joe Bob purports to be a Texas redneck, and calls women ''bimbos''
and Mexican-Americans ''Meskins.''
The Times Herald said on its front page Tuesday that the April 12
column ''offended many readers,'' and added: ''The Times Herald
deeply regrets that the column was published. It was a misdirected
attempt at satire. A great deal of insensitivity was reflected in the
column. We apologize.''
Two days later, the newspaper announced it will hire two high-level
editors and 10 new reporters from the minority community.Jarrett said
he had set a Jan. 1 goal for hiring the 12 minority employees.
''These steps will address what all of us perceive as an
underrepresentation of minorities in our newsroom,'' said Tom
Johnson, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the
Times Herald. ''This problem is not isolated in the Times Herald; it
exists in many newspapers across the nation.''
∂21-Apr-85 0956 JMC re: No More Joe Bob!! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - More news on Joe Bob. The capitalization of one phrase is mine.
n010 0724 21 Apr 85
BC-PRESSNOTES
By ALEX S. JONES
c.1985 N.Y. Times News Service
The cancellation of The Dallas Times Herald's most widely syndicated
column came last week in a meeting between the editor and an angry
crowd that went to the newspaper to denounce the column as racist.
Both the newspaper's staff and the community are divided over
whether the cancellation was a display of admirable sensitivity to
the wishes of a minority group or a dangerous precedent of an
editor's yielding to pressure.
The canceled column was ''Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In,'' a weekly
satire written by John Bloom, who also writes columns under his own
name THAT ARE GENERALLY CONSIDERED TO BE PROGRESSIVE. Joe Bob Briggs,
Bloom's creation, is a loudmouthed Texan with biases against just
about everybody.
Joe Bob's weekly blasts, often compared to those of Archie Bunker,
outraged and delighted readers of The Times Herald and 50 other
newspapers that subscribed to the column through The Los Angeles
Times Syndicate.
On April 12, the column lampooned ''We Are the World,'' a hit song
whose profits go to Ethiopian relief efforts, with a parody called
''We Are the Weird.'' The column was particularly offensive to
blacks, and The Herald ran a front-page apology last Tuesday.
But at a stormy meeting that afternoon with the newspaper's top
editors, a crowd of several hundred people protested that an apology
was not enough. After about an hour, Will D. Jarrett, the editor,
said the column would be canceled.
''They were right,'' Jarrett said later in the week. ''I wish we had
killed it a long time ago.'' He defended his making a decision on the
spot, saying, ''It was not a First Amendment issue.''
But the circumstances of the cancellation were disturbing to some.
''The way it was handled was scary,'' said A.C. Greene, who has been
a columnist for The Times Herald and now writes a column for a rival
paper, The Dallas Morning News. ''If I were on the staff, I would
conclude that apparently the paper is not going to back me up if
enough people come in raising hell.''
On Thursday, in a move praised by black leaders and others, The
Herald announced the cancellation of the only other Joe Bob column, a
sports commentary called ''Jock Talk With Joe Bob,'' and said the
paper would hire two high-level editors and 10 new reporters from
minority groups.
Bloom has resigned from The Times Herald effective Saturday,
according to Vicki Eisenberg, his agent. She said that he would
continue to write the Joe Bob Briggs column but that it would be
handled by Universal Press Syndicate.
∂21-Apr-85 1618 JMC re: No More Joe Bob!! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - None of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore are
blessed by an abundance of natural resources, and the Soviet Union has
this abundance. In each of the first group the standard of living is
advancing rapidly and the level of political tolerance considerably.
However, there are also capitalist failures, so not only capitalism is
involved. However, the socialist record is uniformly bleak. As for
peasants seeing the loss of freedom as the loss of freedom to starve, in
China, the Soviet Union, Vietnam and Cambodia the peasants seem to have
kept and enlarged that freedom. There are plenty of former Vietnamese
peasants among the refugees in California as well as former members of
other social classes.
My personal tendency is to be an optimist about human nature, so
were there no practical evidence, I would be inclined to believe
theoretical arguments that socialism would work. However, with more than
50 examples of countries whose leaders claim to espouse many varieties of
socialism and none of them working, and in all four divided countries,
Germany, China, Korea and Vietnam the socialist half working worse except
militarily, the empirical evidence outweighs any theory. Why do the
supporters of the Sandinista regime expect its socialism to give more
freedom or prosperity than Vietnam or Cuba or Tanzania?
∂21-Apr-85 1634 JMC re: Marxist-Leninists (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I must confess I forgot that the Maoists also call themselves
Marxist-Leninists, and I certainly don't wish to adjudicate among the
different varieties of communists. However, the context in which
Ortega used the term strongly suggests that he meant it in the Cuban
and Soviet sense.
Today's news has a proposal by Ortega for a cease fire and an abolition
of censorship if only the U.S. will agree not to support the contras
any more. If he would throw in elections with full media access for
the opposition and the freedom to hold meetings without their being
broken up by leftist mobs this would seem to be a good deal. However,
the contras would require some assurance that they could survive while
the reforms were being implemented.
I propose the following to the Democrats in Congress. Let there be
negotiated a written agreement between the Sandinistas and either
(preferably) the contras or with the U.S. Part of the terms of the
agreement include dismantling of the contra military apparatus.
However, the Democrats should agree that after a year Congress vote
on whether the Sandinistas have kept their part of the agreement.
If not the Democrats must agree in advance to vote for any CIA
or military activity the Administration proposes. For the contras
to re-establish themselves may be difficult if they regard themselves
as betrayed by the U.S., but it may be a reasonable risk.
∂22-Apr-85 1320 JMC re: Your daughter Suzan
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 22-Apr-85 11:53-PT.]
That's Susan.
∂22-Apr-85 1329 JMC re: Who is lying about Nicaragua?
To: MOGUL@SU-SCORE.ARPA, su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 22 Apr 85 12:17:00-PST.]
The Carter Administration gave the Sandinistas $75 million which is a
third of what you advocate. It didn't make them democrats or keep them
out of the arms of the Soviets and Cubans. Why do you call the contras,
who include original Sandanista supporters, terrorists? Do you call all
anti-Government rebels terrorists, whatever the government - e.g. El
Salvador and Afghanistan? Should the El Salvador government negotiate
with its rebels?
∂22-Apr-85 1651 JMC Subject: Japan in the News (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Professor North seems have pandered to the prejudices of the
protectionists and the anti-technologists. I'll bet he has no evidence
to prove that technological advancement produces aggression. Indeed
backward societies are also aggressive - both internally and externally.
Moreover, the decade referred to ended four years ago.
Of course, the Stanford Daily may have got it wrong. I'm curious how
Glenn Trewhitt happened to be looking at a 1971 Stanford Daily.
∂22-Apr-85 2111 JMC contra support
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
n105 2042 22 Apr 85
BC-LATIN-REBELS
Rebels Said to Build Popular Support
By JAMES LeMOYNE
c.1985 N.Y. Times News Service
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Despite serious political and military
problems, guerrillas fighting the Nicaraguan government have achieved
a base of popular support, and their war is likely to continue
whether or not Congress votes to give them assistance, according to
Nicaraguan refugees, rebels and Western diplomats in the region.
Visits to rebel bases and Nicaraguan refugee camps in the last month
indicate that the guerrillas are growing in number and that they have
been able to pose a significant threat to the Sandinista Government.
Their principal support seems to lie in northern Nicaragua, where the
level of fighting and the number of exiles fleeing to Honduras appear
to indicate that something close to civil war is being waged.
Two Salvadoran guerrilla officials who have spent considerable time
in Nicaragua said in separate interviews that they believed the
anti-Sandinista rebels were a serious problem. One of the Salvadorans
has been involved in organizing the left for over 20 years.
The Salvadorans said they believed the rebels would wage a long war
that would not lead to a military victory but would considerably
weaken Nicaragua.
''I have told the Nicaraguan comrades that they are in a situation
like Mozambique with South Africa,'' one of the Salvadoran leftists
said. ''The war will go on, and with American economic pressure they
can slowly be strangled.''
The existence of a degree of popular support for the guerrillas has
become clearer in recent months as the rebel forces have swelled,
even though American fianancing has been cut off.
Accounts from Nicaraguan refugees and recent rebel recruits in
Honduras gathered in the last month also indicate that the rebels
have greater support than is generally realized, principally among
the conservative farming communities across northern Nicaragua.
The clearest indication of the rebels' appeal, according to both
guerrilla officials and Western diplomats in the region, is that the
Sandinistas have felt compelled in the last two months to relocate
more than 30,000 peasants sympathetic to the guerrillas to camps in
Goverment-controlled territory.
''The Sandinistas think Reagan created the rebels,'' said a
Nicaraguan exile leader, Arturo Cruz, in an interview in Costa Rica.
''They are wrong. The insurgency will continue because citizens of my
country are in an armed fight.''
Cruz, a former Nicaraguan ambassador to Washington, has lobbied for
aid to the rebels and called on the Nicaraguan government to
negotiate an end to the conflict.
The guerrillas do not appear capable of militarily defeating the
Sandinistas and, with their backers concentrated in the rural north,
it seems unlikely that they can hope for the sort of broad
insurrection that brought the Sandinistas to power in 1979.
What seems more likely is a prolonged, bitter fight in which each
side counts on committed backers and Nicaragua remains polarized. The
rebels seem capable of inflicting considerable damage on the
Nicaraguan economy and of maintaining political pressure on the
government.
Rebel officials say they have made an effort in the last year to
wage a small-unit guerrilla war, thereby avoiding heavy casualties.
They do not, and probably cannot, control fixed positions inside
Nicaragua, but say they are holding rear-guard areas in Jinotega and
Zelaya provinces.
A separate indication of the Nicaraguan government's problems is the
rapidly increasing flow of exiles fleeing across Nicaragua's borders
to Honduras and Costa Rica. According to a United Nations official in
Costa Rica, more than 1,000 Nicaraguan refugees have entered the
country in the last two weeks, half as many as officially entered in
all of 1984.
Many of the refugees are middle-class students who have fled the
draft in Nicaragua and have no desire to fight for the rebels. But
hundreds of others are peasants, many of whom can be seen training at
the main rebel camp on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border.
The rebel group that appears to be growing stronger is the
Nicaraguan Democratic Force. It is principally led by former members
of the Nicaraguan National Guard, but its rank and file is a
14,000-man army composed mostly of peasants who express deep
grievances against the Sandinista government.
Rebel soldiers, dozens of whom spoke in interviews with a reporter
during a visit to their camp last month, offered a sharply competing
and considerably more conservative vision of how Nicaragua should be
ruled than the socialist program offered by the Sandinistas. The
rebels criticized rationing, membership in the political militia,
state control of crops and prices and government friction with the
Roman Catholic Church, all of which they attributed to the
Sandinistas.
A measure of the seriousness with which the Nicaraguan government
takes the rebel threat is its expenditure of more than 40 percent of
this year's budget on defense. The war dominates Nicaraguan politics
and has badly dented the economy, according to Western diplomats in
the region and several press reports from Managua.
A key issue that has divided rebel groups is the nature of their
leadership, particularly the presence of former National Guard
officers in the Nicaraguan Democratic Force. Human rights violations
have also been a point of contention within the rebel movement.
Interviews with officials from all major rebel groups indicate that
a majority believe that the movement needs new leadership. Cruz was
the person most frequently mentioned as capable of uniting the
rebels, but he has so far refused to take a leading role in the armed
movement.
Although the rebels themselves say they have been badly hurt
militarily by the cutoff in United States aid, Western diplomats who
monitor the guerrillas say they still enjoy some advantages. The
rebels are able to operate out of secure sanctuaries in Honduras, and
they have a veteran combat force that fights on terrain that it knows
well. One diplomat in Honduras said the rebels had not waged as wide
a campaign of sabotage as they are capable of.
nyt-04-22-85 2340est
***************
∂22-Apr-85 2304 JMC re: LABREA
To: JOCK@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 22 Apr 85 21:47:14-PST.]
Ask Len - or perhaps even his secretary.
∂23-Apr-85 1036 JMC reply to message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 23-Apr-85 10:14-PT.]
OK about no supper tonight. The Chudnovskys are coming (probably tomorrow).
Let's take them to dinner on Thursday.
∂23-Apr-85 1406 JMC re: SAIL disk usage
To: JJW@SU-AI.ARPA, ME@SU-AI.ARPA, Bosack@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message from JJW rcvd 23-Apr-85 13:15-PT.]
Clearly what needs to be done is to be able to use LaBrea's 4 gigabytes.
What's the plan.
∂24-Apr-85 1014 JMC re: Uday Reddy
To: ashok@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 24 Apr 85 08:48:00-PST.]
Please call Reddy and arrange his visit including a talk on Monday.
Try to make sure Andy and Nils can make it. Except for the possible
jury duty I can make it at any time on Monday.
Uday Reddy, REDDY@utah-20, 801 581-8378
∂24-Apr-85 1128 JMC re: circumscription article
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 24-Apr-85 11:21-PT.]
Thanks for the comments. I was aware of many of the weaknesses you point
out, but I doubt that I will be able to fix most of them. Sure, talk to
Minsky. I have no prediction of how much you will have in common.
∂24-Apr-85 1512 JMC reply to message
To: MINSKY%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 24 Apr 1985 17:17 EST.]
I look forward to the apparition of Drexler. I have seen his stuff in the
L-5 magazine, and I tend to agree with him about the superior promise of
asteroids. I guess I also met him at one of Pournelle's meetings.
∂24-Apr-85 1534 JMC re: [John McCarthy <JMC@SU-AI.ARPA>: re: Uday Reddy ]
To: ashok@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 24 Apr 85 15:28:22-PST.]
You worry too much. My secretary can place the phone call for you and
so can Andy's. Since Reddy applied to the Department and said nothing
special about confidentiality, nothing special is required. It is customary,
however, not to identify speakers as job seekers in bulletin board
announcements.
∂24-Apr-85 1659 JMC re: Nominations
To: AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 24 Apr 85 16:54:37-PST.]
I suggest you phone them and tell them that Nils and I suggested them,
but if they are interested, they should be members.
Also, David Chudnovsky who has or will phone you is a very competent
guy, although a bit of a worrier.
∂24-Apr-85 2336 JMC
To: ME
Sometimes some random military type TALKs from Germany - he seems harmless.
∂24-Apr-85 2359 JMC re: Boise complaints?
To: PALLAS@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 24 Apr 85 17:23:17-PST.]
I have had single character changes in files sent from SAIL. This
was in a 30 page file.
∂25-Apr-85 0009 JMC re: Nicaragua - VICTORY! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I'm quite sure a 22 cent stamp will not suffice, and I fear that no
stamp will make much difference with Ortega. MRC's expectations remind me
of corresponding expectations about Vietnam. If they are not met, and
Nicaragua hardens into a totalitarian state, I fear the following will
happen. Liberals will say that if only we hadn't opposed Ortega, he
wouldn't have become totalitarian. (Ortega's conception of what he wants
to do in Nicaragua probably is little influenced by American actions, but
by his Marxist-Leninist conception of Nicaragua. His relations with the
U.S. are tactical.) When a similar situation arises again in some other
country, a new generation of suckers will say "Give them a chance". Of
course, the contras may not fade out just because Congress wants them to.
Their conception of what they want to accomplish is (I hope) determined by
their conceptions of Nicaragua and not by what the U.S. wants.
∂25-Apr-85 1001 JMC mailing list change
To: emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Please put jmc-lists@su-ai instead of jmc@su-ai for me on the
mailing list called RESEARCHERS. I prefer receiving mail sent via
mailing lists at that address. For individually addressed MAIL, I'm
still jmc@su-ai.
∂25-Apr-85 1053 JMC re: Uday Reddy
To: ashok@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 25 Apr 85 10:43:11-PST.]
OK for the csd mailing list.
∂25-Apr-85 1150 JMC
To: kessler@UTAH-20.ARPA
Dick Gabriel says you would know if Cray Lisp has bignums.
∂25-Apr-85 1227 JMC
To: JMC
416 929 9471 Carol Ann Davidson, Canadian Broadcasting
∂25-Apr-85 1529 JMC
To: RA
Don't bother about PC magazine.
∂25-Apr-85 1903 JMC
To: LES
address of Lafayette Restaurant in Yumyum is 290 Pacific.
∂26-Apr-85 0030 JMC re: 'Successful unsupported revolutions' (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It is my understanding that the U.S. did not aid the French
revolution. The French revolution began in 1789, the year of our
constitution. In 1793 Edmond-Charles Genet was appointed charg'e
d'affaires to the U.S. - from Britannica. "He was instructed to
seek repayment of part of the American debt to France - or at the
very least - to obtain credit for purchasing the supplies need for
the war against Great Britain.
Nevertheless, Tenet soon exceeded his diplomatic authority.
Hailed as "Citizen Genet" by Americans who supported the revolution,
he intrigued to to draw the U.S. into the war on France's side.
By arming privateers in U.S. ports for use against the British,
he brought France to the brink of war with the U.S. and risked the
loss of France's sole source of credit abroad. In August 1793, Pres.
George Washington, who was firmly committed to a policy of neutrality
in the European conflict requested that Genet be recalled. Realizing
that he faced arrest if he returned to France, Genet chose to remain
in the U.S.; he married the daughter of George Clinton, governor of
New York, became a U.S. citizen, and settled down to farming".
∂26-Apr-85 1413 JMC
To: RA
The Pony owes me $80.00 and Les $8.20.
∂26-Apr-85 1453 JMC re: Sit in outside of Kennedy's office (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - The indefinite continuation of such a protest is coercive and immoral.
The Stanford trustees are legally entitled to determine its investment
policy.
∂26-Apr-85 1645 JMC re: interview
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA, YAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA, ashok@SU-SUSHI.ARPA, papa@SU-SCORE.ARPA,
NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message from NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA sent Fri 26 Apr 85 15:37:47-PST.]
And so the first of the many possible bureaucratic delays consequent on
the move has occurred.
∂27-Apr-85 0941 JMC re: Rare metals for aircraft & South Africa (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - There is no reason to suppose that any country that "has absolutely
no relations with South Africa" actually uses no South African raw
materials. They buy it through dealers and don't ask dumb questions
about whether any part of it has South African origin.
∂27-Apr-85 1323 JMC reply to message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 27-Apr-85 13:03-PT.]
That's fine. Got any special idea about tomorrow? I can try again
for smoked pork chops, but what if I fail?
∂27-Apr-85 1349 JMC reply to message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 27-Apr-85 13:48-PT.]
It will be so.
∂27-Apr-85 1900 JMC letter
To: RA
Please decorate policy.1[let,jmc] and also find out the address (and
phone if you can) of David Brock who is a senior history major at
U.C. Berkeley.
∂27-Apr-85 1917 JMC re: Sit in outside of Kennedy's office (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I have been asked about the connection between my criticism of the
threat to picket the President's office 24 hours a day until the
university gives in and my statement that the Trustees have the legal
right to determine the University's investment policy. To protest the way
someone uses his legal rights is a legal exercise of free speech and
presumptively moral. To threaten to annoy someone until he gives up one
of his legal rights is immoral and may be illegal. Whether it is illegal
is probably moot, since the university knows better than to try to enforce
its legal rights in such matters.
My comment is an attempt to persuade some of the supporters of the protest
to limit its time period to not much beyond that required for everyone
to know about it. After that it changes from an exercise of free speech
to an exercise in harassment.
∂27-Apr-85 1933 JMC re: COKE IS DEAD (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - RPG should know that while the nominal goal of businesses is to
make money, the stockholders and other investors often wonder whether
management is single-minded about it. In the case of Coca-Cola,
it would be interesting to ask whether some high executive has gotten
bored with its tradition and is exercising an urge to "fix it" even
if it "ain't broke". On the other hand, I agree that the statement
In fact, this just shows you that the same ideology that would
do business with the apartheid regime would also be willing to destroy one
of America's cultural institutions, Coke, for a fast buck
has no obvious rationale. The idea that companies should decide on
their own moral grounds with whom they will do business has all
sorts of consequences. Suppose, for example, that the moral majority
launched a campaign to pressure all businesses into refusing to sell
products or services to abortion clinics.
∂28-Apr-85 1538 JMC re: Cambodia, Vietnam, and Political Discussion
To: EDWARDS@SRI-AI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun 28 Apr 85 15:17:40-PDT.]
I don't remember precisely what I said, but I suppose I was mainly referring
to hunger under Pol Pot. Moreover, I don't have precise references. I have
read views of a book by William Shawcross (a leftist) about the efforts of
the Western relief agencies to feed Cambodians and I suppose it will describe
the situation in sufficient detail. I would believe him on the amount of
hunger, though I suppose he still substantially adheres to the thesis of
his earlier book that whatever goes wrong in Indochina is basically the fault
of the West. My impression is that there may be rationing and hunger in
Indochina today, but there isn't presently mass starvation.
∂28-Apr-85 1541 JMC note to III
To: RA
To: Doris Hyde
I am not listed as present at the February 20 meeting, but I was there.
∂28-Apr-85 1551 JMC
To: RA
Make that note about III to Lawrence Fordham - address in PHON.
∂28-Apr-85 1730 JMC letter
To: RA
brachm.re1 is to the people listed. Many addresses are in PHON, others
in acm directory or AAAI directory.
∂28-Apr-85 1732 JMC
To: reiter@RUTGERS.ARPA
What is your current mailing address?
∂28-Apr-85 1737 JMC Reiter
To: RA
Please find out by telephoning the computer science department of
the University of British Columbia what is the current address,
telephone number and electronic mail address of of Raymond Reiter.
You can try the office phone number for him in PHON to begin with.
∂28-Apr-85 2217 JMC re: S. Africa and aircraft engines (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Besides the alternatives of "supporting change" and "resisting change"
there is the Swiss policy - staying out of it.
∂28-Apr-85 2240 JMC
To: RA
Please campus mail Prof. Dantzig the address and phone number of Robert Boyer at U. Texas.
∂28-Apr-85 2358 JMC re: where your federal taxes go (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It is indeed unfortunate that defense costs are so high. I have no
real way of judging whether it is too much or too little. In so far as
those who support higher defense bills see communism as a danger and
those who oppose them see communism as benign, I'm with the former.
However, that doesn't really tell us what we need. The Soviet bloc
has one fifth the GNP of ourselves and our allies. If the allies would
do their share, we could reduce our defense costs.
However, MRC's conclusion that "there soon won't be any nation to defend"
is an exaggeration. At present California is in a lot better budgetary
situation than the country as whole and can afford more. By the way
is Deukmejian's task force's $30 billion requirement for a single year
or over a period of years? If the latter, as I suspect, it isn't
comparable with single year federal figures.
I would like to see us spend about three times as much on space exploration
as we are, but again MRC exaggerates when he says "we don't in fact have
a space program".
∂29-Apr-85 1011 JMC
To: LES
Please find out what he has to sell.
∂29-Apr-85 1006 RA Ray Caron
Ray Caron from Flexible Computer Corp. called (415) 593 7044; referal from DARPA.
∂29-Apr-85 1235 JMC reply to message
To: LES, JMC, RPG, CLT
[In reply to message from LES rcvd 29-Apr-85 11:06-PT.]
I think we should tell Flexible that we don't want anything but literature
until DARPA reacts to our proposal. Does anyone have a different opinion?
∂29-Apr-85 1858 JMC Mandelshtam
To: DAC
is the spelling used by the Stanford Libraries. They have lots of his
and her works. Which do you especially recommend?
∂29-Apr-85 1903 JMC
To: library@SU-SCORE.ARPA
How much is cost to convert Math-Comp. Sci catalog to Socrates?
∂29-Apr-85 2346 JMC re: Lifschitz review
To: LES
[In reply to message rcvd 29-Apr-85 19:33-PT.]
Add the phrase:
and other logical problems connected with common sense knowledge and
reasoning.
∂29-Apr-85 2351 JMC re: Smog Control in New Jersey (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Many years ago used cars were substantially more expensive in the
West than in the East. If this is still true it might pay to sell your
car here and buy another in New Jersey.
∂30-Apr-85 1602 JMC papers to send
To: RA
Please send to Prof. Pierre Noyes at SLAC
Ascribing mental ...
Some philosophical ...
Circumscription - A method ...
Applications of circumscription ...
∂30-Apr-85 1630 JMC urgent
To: RA
Please print a copy of sigma.abs[s85,jmc] and campus mail it to Ida Lee.
(See Faculty-Staff Directory). It should go out today.
∂30-Apr-85 1839 JMC SF Opera Fall Season
To: CLT
∂30-Apr-85 1712 ossher@Cascade SF Opera Fall Season
Received: from SU-NAVAJO.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 30 Apr 85 17:11:55 PDT
Received: from Cascade by Navajo with TCP; Tue, 30 Apr 85 17:09:11 pdt
Date: 30 Apr 1985 1708-PDT (Tuesday)
From: Harold Ossher <ossher@Cascade>
To: su-bboards@navajo
Cc: ossher@Cascade
Subject: SF Opera Fall Season
The Fall season of the San Francisco Opera will take place from Sept. to Dec.,
and the time has come to order subscriptions. For a few years, I have been
submitting a group order for interested CS-related people, and will be doing
so again this year. If you are intersted in joining the group, please
contact me (ossher@cascade) by Monday, May 6.
Copies of the brochure giving all the details are (or soon will be) on
the doors of my office (CIS 204) and of MJH 416. Various series are
available, ranging from 4 to all 10 operas, and tickets for these
series range in price from $40 to $668! It pays to subscribe rather
than pick up tickets at the last minute, because many of the
performances are usually sold out.
- Harold Ossher
------- End of Forwarded Message
∂30-Apr-85 2131 JMC
To: ME
Both wires are down
∂01-May-85 1506 JMC
To: CLT, RPG, LES
Motorola proposal to DARPA in my parallel machine file.
∂02-May-85 1733 JMC re: asking advice on materials.
To: CHASK@SU-SIERRA.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 2 May 85 17:17:52-PDT.]
I'm sorry, but I don't know what you are referring to; I didn't mention
the word SCRIPT. Script has been used by Roger Schank for his kind
of frame, but I don't know if this is what you want. If so, I refer
you to his papers.
∂03-May-85 0059 JMC Lisp museum and deleted mail
To: HST
Say more about the Lisp machine. I also have been collecting, and you're
welcome to copy anything I have. As for deleted mail, it depends on
several things. If the mail file existed for a week or so then it
was dumped and can be recovered from tape. ME knows about this.
On the other hand if a file was deleted, then it can be recovered
until the disk is re-used by the UNDELETE command. If a message
was deleted without deleting the file, then nothing can be done
unless, as in the first case mentioned, the file was dumped while
the message was in it.
∂03-May-85 0109 JMC
To: HST
I meant say more about the Lisp museum.
∂03-May-85 1309 JMC
To: JMC
true names
∂03-May-85 1350 JMC Waiting to hear from Stanford
To: ashok@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Could you arrange a visit for him.
∂02-May-85 1610 CL.SHANKAR@UTEXAS-20.ARPA Waiting to hear from Stanford
Received: from UTEXAS-20.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 2 May 85 16:09:21 PDT
Date: Thu 2 May 85 18:10:04-CDT
From: CL.SHANKAR@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
Subject: Waiting to hear from Stanford
To: jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: cl.shankar@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
I'm all ready and eager to visit Stanford, but haven't heard a word
from anyone about it. Any time this month is fine with me, but
the earlier the better, I would guess.
Shankar
-------
∂03-May-85 2103 JMC re: where your federal taxes go (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It seems to me that there is evidence that communism itself is harmful.
In all of the USSR, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba and Nicaragua communism
has been oppressive and an economic failure. There are no counter-examples.
Perhaps MRC will tell us about his favorite communist country, preferably
one that stayed in business for a while. The communist strong suit is
military. They emphasize it and their total controls on information
prevent protest against the measures they use to insure military and civil
obedience. It typically takes a stronger economic base to beat this
advantage.
MRC is mistaken about Vietnam. We withdrew our troops after the "peace
agreement" in 1973. What killed South Vietnam is that Congress refused
to appropriate money for arms for them even at a rate of two percent of
what we had been spending on Vietnam. The "anti-war" movement
came to want a communist victory. Sam Brown, later Carter's Action
administrator, told the North Vietnamese ambassador that they day the
communists captured Saigon was the happiest day of his life. Once a
person or movement gets into a state of mind sufficiently opposed to
its own government, they tend to regard the enemies of their country
as their friends. It is a rather common phenomenon.
∂03-May-85 2104 JMC
To: MRC@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It seems to me that there is evidence that communism itself is harmful.
In all of the USSR, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba and Nicaragua communism
has been oppressive and an economic failure. There are no counter-examples.
Perhaps MRC will tell us about his favorite communist country, preferably
one that stayed in business for a while. The communist strong suit is
military. They emphasize it and their total controls on information
prevent protest against the measures they use to insure military and civil
obedience. It typically takes a stronger economic base to beat this
advantage.
MRC is mistaken about Vietnam. We withdrew our troops after the "peace
agreement" in 1973. What killed South Vietnam is that Congress refused
to appropriate money for arms for them even at a rate of two percent of
what we had been spending on Vietnam. The "anti-war" movement
came to want a communist victory. Sam Brown, later Carter's Action
administrator, told the North Vietnamese ambassador that they day the
communists captured Saigon was the happiest day of his life. Once a
person or movement gets into a state of mind sufficiently opposed to
its own government, they tend to regard the enemies of their country
as their friends. It is a rather common phenomenon.
[JMC - Forwarded to OTHER-SU-BBOARDS from line 163]
∂04-May-85 0226 JMC re: Gay Blue Jeans Day--Monday, May 6 (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - This confirms for me one of my speculations about homosexuality -
namely its aggressive character. What business of theirs is it to
make anyone confront anything? I suspect that the statement "we hope
that we won't offend too many people" is the opposite of the truth.
Whether this aggressiveness is a psychological characteristic of
homosexuality in general or merely of politicized homosexuality isn't
immediately obvious.
∂04-May-85 1111 JMC reply to message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 04-May-85 10:35-PT.]
ok.
∂04-May-85 1455 JMC re: Communism
To: MRC@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: SU-BBoards@SU-SCORE.ARPA
The hypothetical well-run communist-ruled Italian cities won't do for me
as an example of non-oppressive communism. A city government hasn't the
sovereignty to institute public ownership of production, to create a
military establishment, to make arbitrary arrests or to restrict
emigration and integration. I'm sure the communist mayors of these cities
wouldn't claim to have been able to make the fundamental social changes
they advocate. I assume there would be articles about it if they had even
done what might be legal under Italian law - namely to create publically
owned industries that compete with the privately owned ones. It would
be interesting to know if they claim to have made any social changes at all.
∂04-May-85 1707 JMC re: Which raises an interesting question... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - The error of writing a homophone is even sometimes made by Japanese
in writing Chinese characters in spite of the fact that the Chinese
characters have no direct phonetic significance. This is according to two
Japanese I asked about it.
∂04-May-85 2224 JMC
To: RA
I put the list of addresses for brachm.re1 in the LETTER entry for the letter.
∂05-May-85 1412 JMC Scherlis
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA, yao@SU-SCORE.ARPA
We should consider Bill Scherlis for a faculty position and also
as a Forsythe lecturer.
∂05-May-85 1811 JMC re: I'll be at Stanford 1-86 to 6-86
To: ucscc!beeson%ucscd.ucscc.UUCP@UCB-VAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun, 5 May 85 11:00:09 pdt.]
You will probably not be interested in the course I'll be giving next
Winter. It's not on AI but is in the "values, technology and society"
list and is for undergraduates. I don't teach in the Spring. As for
seminars, the attendance is small enough so that they can be scheduled
at the convenience of the participants, and you will surely be welcome.
∂05-May-85 1926 JMC re: comment on my work?
To: ucscc!beeson%ucscd.ucscc.UUCP@UCB-VAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sun, 5 May 85 10:57:41 pdt.]
I tend to be rather thick about reading papers, but I'll give it
a try, and Carolyn and I will go over it together.
∂06-May-85 1036 JMC reply to message
To: RG.JHM@SU-FORSYTHE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 6 May 85 09:04:40 PDT.]
No harm done. I didn't leave because of that. I was aware that the
issue was general, but I couldn't figure out how to discuss it
without reference to the particular case. There was the further
complication in my mind that I think this particular professor may have
been treated unfairly in a far more important way than in regard
to this particular course.
∂07-May-85 0026 JMC re: Boyer-Moore theorem prover
To: Deutsch.pa@XEROX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 5 May 85 17:05:15 PDT.]
Ask CLT@SAIL.
∂07-May-85 1717 JMC space digest
To: cal@SU-STAR.ARPA
Is there a mailing list for space digest, and if so how can
I get JMC-LISTS@SU-AI put on it?
∂07-May-85 2311 JMC an idea whose time has come
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
a017 2314 06 May 85
PM-Washington Times-Nicaragua,0350
Newspaper Leading Effort to Raise $14 Million for Contras
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Washington Times says it will try to raise
privately the $14 million rejected by the House for assistance to the
Contra rebels fighting the leftist Sandinista government in
Nicaragua.
State Department officials had no comment Monday on the Times' fund
drive. However, they have said previously that the administration
neither encourages nor discourages private efforts to aid the
Nicaraguan rebels so long as legal requirements are respected.
A front-page editorial in Monday's editions by Arnaud de Borchgrave,
the newspaper's editor-in-chief, denounced the ''betrayal of
America's friends'' and said ''The Washington Times will launch a
worldwide fund-raising drive to provide the Nicaraguan resistance
with the $14 million in aid - humanitarian aid - that the House
turned down.''
''To start this fund, The Washington Times will make a $100,000
contribution'' to a non-profit, public corporation it intends to form
for the drive, de Borchgrave wrote.
Last year, President Reagan sought a reported $28 million in covert
CIA assistance to the Contras in fiscal 1985, but was forced by
Congress into a tentative compromise - subject to further votes this
year - of half that amount.
Reagan hoped to win additional support for the compromise early this
year when he offered to limit the assistance to humanitarian purposes
only, provided the Nicaraguan government engaged in reconciliation
talks with its opponents. The Senate approved that approach, but the
House rejected aid to the Contras in any form.
''When congressmen refuse $14 million to people who are willing to
fight and die in the struggle against totalitarianism, then the
totalitarian temptation itself cannot be far behind,'' de Borchgrave
wrote.
Some of the majority Democrats in the House who opposed the aid have
talked about reviving the proposal in the wake of Nicaraguan leader
Daniel Ortega's trip to Moscow and new shipments of Soviet military
supplies to his government. Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., D-Mass.,
said Monday, however, that he remains opposed to the program despite
Ortega's latest overtures to the Kremlin.
AP-NY-05-07-85 0212EDT
***************
∂07-May-85 2323 JMC
To: RWW
III 213:390-8611
↓Information International↓5933 Slauson Ave.↓Culver City, CA 90230∞
∂08-May-85 1225 JMC
To: RA
Mike Morgan agreed to my request, so there is no need to send the letters.
∂08-May-85 1242 JMC re: Wednesday meeting -- 9 am
To: DAVIES@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon, 6 May 1985 17:17 PDT.]
That was interesting and we should talk further about what is the best
approach to QLISP programming. Also, please include Lester Earnest
(LES@SAIL) in future seminar invitations, etc.
∂08-May-85 1555 JMC
To: RA
Please decorate policy.1[let,jmc]
∂08-May-85 1729 JMC re: AAP@SUMEX Mailing List
To: DAVIES@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 8 May 1985 16:32 PDT.]
Please change my name on AAP@SUMEX to JMC-LISTS@SAIL. I prefer to receive
messages sent via mailing lists in this way.
∂08-May-85 1807 JMC re: why is JMC silent... (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - MRC has a point. The Pinochet government is undemocratic, and I
didn't approve its coup. I also don't believe its excuses for not
allowing the re-establishment of parliamentary democracy. However, the
only thing I ever did to help annoy it was to sign a Stanford petition
in favor of their releasing Fernando Flores. In spite of my dim view
of hermeneutics I don't regret that. On the other hand the "freedom
fighters" in Chile are (according to U.S. reporters) not liberals
but some flavor of communist, who would be at least as oppressive. I
also don't have MRC's confidence that far less freedom exist there
than in Nicaragua. As to Pinochet being one of OUR thugs, I don't
like to count him as one of mine, and I'm surprised that MRC counts
him as one of his.
Now that I have broken my silence on Chile, let's hear it from MRC
on what is the least obnoxious communist government he knows about -
and please make it a government with sovereignty. If he is at a
loss let me suggest he praise China, and I'm ready on that.
∂08-May-85 2230 JMC re: Chile and non-obnoxious communist governments (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - MRC exaggerates. The number of people the Pinochet regime is
accused of killing is in the high hundreds to the low thousands -
disgraceful indeed. There are plenty of liberals, socialists and
moderate Marxists left. Moreover, it hasn't been shown that the
U.S. was involved in the Pinochet coup. What was shown is that
the CIA contemplated encouraging some action (I forget what kind)
aimed at preventing Allende from taking office. This would have
been wrong, but they didn't do it.
However, I don't want to be put into the position of claiming that
every non-communist regime is better than every communist regime,
so perhaps MRC and I agree and can end this particular discussion.
∂09-May-85 0048 JMC
To: RA
Please make a reservation for 5 at A La Carte for 7pm
∂09-May-85 1020 JMC re: Commies we like (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - The books of Milovan Djilas, a former Yugoslavian Politburo member,
will tell you more than you want to know about Yugoslavia. It's human
rights record is not great; it puts dissidents and nationalists of
its non-Serbian subnationalities in jail. However, it allows emigration.
Its economic record isn't so good either, remaining far below Western
European standards. Its main export is workers - to Western Europe.
On the other hand, it doesn't kill dissidents. We have supported it
militarily off and on since Stalin tried to purge Tito in 1948. As for
"far worse for freedom", one shouldn't rely on a general impression
given by the press, which will often ignore the death of millions
in countries that keep out uncontrolled newsmen and keep up a claim
of perfection.
∂09-May-85 1106 JMC re: Liskov
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 9 May 85 10:32:29-PDT.]
I haven't heard her lecture, but she is certainly one of our
more well-placed graduates, and her work is followed by many. though
not by me.
∂09-May-85 2136 JMC re: [CL.SHANKAR@UTEXAS-20.ARPA: Re: Schedule, May 13, Monday]
To: ashok@SU-SUSHI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 9 May 85 18:52:32-PDT.]
Please make reservations for him, or ask my secretary Rutie to do it.
The Department customarily pays for this, usually by reimbursement
of the visitor later. Ask Nils's secretary, but in any case I guarantee
the payment, i.e. if necessary it can be charged to my American Express
Card, but naturally I don't want to go to the motel if there is some
other way to do it.
∂09-May-85 2317 JMC
To: RPG
I stopped tracking Common Lisp messages, so if there's something important ...
∂09-May-85 2322 JMC
To: RA
todoro.10
∂10-May-85 1041 JMC re: [Anil Gangolli <GANGOLLI@SU-SCORE.ARPA>: late visitor]
To: GANGOLLI@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 10 May 85 10:21:15-PDT.]
Monday at 10:45 would be suitable for meeting Tom Strat.
∂11-May-85 1527 JMC reply to message
To: CLT
[In reply to message rcvd 11-May-85 15:09-PT.]
In that case I'll try Susie and Dan, but I'll check to see if you
feel like joining in later.
∂11-May-85 1730 JMC salvador
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
a258 1626 11 May 85
AM-Salvador-Guerrillas,0467
Salvadoran Guerrillas Launch New Kidnap, Kill And Arson Campaign
By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER
Associated Press Writer
SAN JORGE, El Salvador (AP) - In a new, selective campaign against
grass roots government, leftist guerrillas are kidnapping or killing
village mayors and burning municipal buildings in communities in
eastern El Salvador.
A clandestine guerrilla broadcast Saturday called the kidnapped
mayors ''political prisoners'' and said the abductions are related to
the purported detention of a rebel commander by the government since
December.
The rebels have kidnapped at least nine mayors since April 12, may
have killed two of them, and have freed one. The fate of the others
is unknown.
Guerrillas also burned at least 33 town halls since February, nearly
all in small communities in the eastern provinces. A hand-lettered
sign glued onto the wall of the town hall in San Jorge, 80 miles east
of the capital, is a macabre masterpiece of understatement:
''Activities suspended for lack of materials.''
A rebel force sacked and torched the San Jorge municipal building
two weeks ago and kidnapped the mayor, Mauricio Valenzuela.
Valanzuela, 35, was elected mayor in national elections March 31.
The rebels freed him three days after seizing him, warning him they
would kill him if he was sworn in May 1.
Ignoring the threat, Valenzuela took the oath of office.
Rebels took him from his home, assuring his weeping 12-year-old son
he would not be harmed; made him lie face-down on a nearby road, and
fired two bullets through his head.
The raid indicate a general change in rebel tactics, away from large
military operations to small, specific killings like these that are
spreading terror through eastern El Salvador.
For years residents of villages like San Jorge watched the war swirl
around them as rebel and government armies slugged it out in the
rugged, isolated hills and valleys.
Now, due to the shift in tactics, the villagers are directly
involved in the civil war that has claimed some 60,000 lives since it
began in October 1979, and live in dread of a new raid.
One army report quoted residents of Guatajiagua, whose municipal
hall was burned, as saying the guerrillas told them they want to
kidnap 25 mayors and swap them for rebel commander Nydia Diaz, also
known as Janet Samour Hasbun, whom they claim the army captured in
December along with Maximina Reyes, another guerrilla.
The army claims it has no knowledge of the arrests of Miss Diaz or
Miss Reyes.
In a broadcast monitored here Saturday, the clandestine guerrilla
Radio Venceremos said: ''The situation of all the mayors captured by
our forces can be resolved if (the government) resolves the case of
Commander Janet Samour and our comrade Maximina Reyes.''
AP-NY-05-11-85 1926EDT
***************
∂12-May-85 1920 JMC
To: RA
Please pick up JMC, my resume, from Dover and mail it to Robert Boyer.
∂13-May-85 1448 JMC re: [Reply to message recvd: 12 May 85 19:20 Pacific Time]
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 13-May-85 11:13-PT.]
That's
Prof. Robert Boyer
Computer Science Department
University of Texas
Austin, TX
∂13-May-85 1504 JMC re: seminar
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 13-May-85 14:24-PT.]
That seems ok.
∂13-May-85 1633 JMC
To: DAC
chudno[s85,jmc] Comments on Chudnovsky proposal
1. You can try it out on Kahn. The report of your conversation with
him suggests that he is sympathetic to doing advanced mathematics.
However, he will face certain problems in getting a project approved.
I don't fully understand the situation in DARPA, but I think someone
will ask for the relevance to defense to be spelled out.
Kahn has to prepare a document called a "request for DARPA order"
which explains why DARPA should support the work. General scientific
value has not been considered sufficient.
2. On the second page it says "10**50 terms in the expansion". I
suppose that should be 10**5. In general you should explain the
use of such large numbers of terms.
3. The first paragraph explains the creation of the laboratory. In
general funding agencies are reluctant to support the creation and
maintenance of laboratories. The prefer to support the work of
laboratories for whose creation they are not responible. Therefore,
I think it might work better to describe the laboratory as existing
or to be established, but not suggest that its establishment depends
on them.
4. Kahn has told you how much money he contemplates giving you, and
you have indicated that you can do something useful with it.
From that point of view the proposal is much to grand. It would be
better to take a small number of the topics you have mentioned,
make a more detailed proposal, and make a connection with defense
problems.
I don't think it will do harm to send Kahn what you have as
a kind of overall grand plan, but at least the covering letter should
promise a more narrow proposal.
Remember that Kahn has to make decisions about amounts of
money without to much agonizing. Therefore, you should get someone
at Columbia who knows about such things to prepare a draft budget
for a few hundred thousand per year for a two or three year project.
It should include whatever fraction of your own salaries is wanted,
a Lisp machine plus some ordinary terminals, and the support of
two or three graduate students. You may also want to include some
other Columbia person part time, and maybe a research associate
if there is enough money considering other sources of support.
Don't forget to include some travel.
Remember that capital equipment and travel require their own
sections of the budget. Money is transferable out of these sections
into personnel costs but not the other way. At least this used to
be the rule.
∂13-May-85 1743 JMC re: Chile and non-obnoxious communist governments (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: BACH@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 13 May 85 09:04:31-PDT.]
I ascribe no special credibility to what was said in Europe, especially when
it has an anti-U.S. flavor. I read Le Monde, the Observer and the Guardian
occasionally and am not impressed with their objectivity in such matters.
As for Pinochet's support, the military in a country don't usually require
outside support to stage a coup.
∂13-May-85 1751 JMC
To: CLT
That's depressing.
∂13-May-85 1757 JMC
To: ME
Why should it take 20 minutes for MAIL JMC from CLT to arrive?
∂13-May-85 1758 JMC
To: CLT
Your previous message hadn't arrived when you came in. It took 20 minutes.
∂13-May-85 1805 JMC
To: CLT
Please phone me at home when you get this.
∂13-May-85 1832 JMC re: delayed mail
To: ME
[In reply to message rcvd 13-May-85 18:22-PT.]
Now that I think of it, people were in my office so I mightn't
have noticed the "being queued", and I now believe I was
in the MAIL file, although I hadn't thought so when I inquired. Sorry.
∂13-May-85 2301 JMC selling time
To: john@SU-CSLI.ARPA
I don't know whether this has occurred to you already, but if you are
still interested in selling some computer time, you might ask the
management of SUMEX. That machine is often heavily loaded, has users
who can use other machines without too much difficulty and might have
money - either the installation or some of its paying customers.
∂14-May-85 1223 JMC
To: JMC
Carol Davidson
416 929-9471, Toronto
∂14-May-85 1246 JMC re:
To: CL.BOYER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue, 14 May 1985 12:06 CDT.]
I have sent you (mailed yesterday or today) a vita with a bibliography.
The "Recursive Programs as Functions ..." paper was also published in
a Japanese conference proceedings and is so referenced in the bibliography,
but I suspect the report is more available than the conference proceedings.
As for the time-sharing work, there are several papers mentioned in
the bibliography, but the original proposal that influenced M.I.T. to
move in that direction was contained in a January 1959 internal memo of which I
will send you a copy. There was later confusion about who did what
first occasioned by the fact that the word "time-sharing" was also
in use in other meanings. This led me to suppose that a paper by
Christopher Strachey given at the 1959 ICIP was making the same proposal
for multi-terminal use of a computer.
∂14-May-85 2140 JMC re: Blockading trustees' cars. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - We now see that non-violence has become boring. As has happened so
often before, this self-righteousness has the potential of killing people.
∂14-May-85 2144 JMC
To: goldberg@SU-CSLI.ARPA
jmc - We now see that non-violence has become boring. As has happened so
often before, this self-righteousness has the potential of killing people.
∂15-May-85 1701 JMC re: boring non-violence (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Michel Helft's idea that it is violent for the University not to
kowtow to the protesters is a repetition of a 1960s dishonest position.
In the 1960s it served to help the protesters work themselves up to violence,
beginning with trashing and working up to murders. For example,
one professor's daughter served four years in prison for murder
as part of the Bruce Franklin gang, and at that got off easy.
No-one is obliged to "show respect" to anyone else by talking to them,
and failure to do so isn't violent.
∂15-May-85 1705 JMC re: Blockading trustees' cars. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - It's good that the most of the trustees drove rental cars. Maybe
someone had the decency to tip them off.
∂15-May-85 1714 JMC Subject: boring nonviolence (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - In answer to Bill Moore, so far as I know neither the police nor
the Stanford trustees are fire-bombing any cities. Does Bill Moore
think anti-abortionists may blockade abortion clinics if they feel that
regarding abortion as murder is an "urgent cause"? What does he
think should be done about it? If the anti-abortionists find blockading
ineffective is it ok for them to bomb the clinics. When there is only
one group that feels that non-legal methods are ok to promote their
"urgent cause", the situation is sometimes tolerable? When two opposed
groups take that position, then there is civil war unless the civil
authorities are willing and able to enforce the laws.
∂15-May-85 1726 JMC re: Blockading trustees' cars. (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Jeff Goldberg says, "The action may be punitive. That is, the trustees
were given the benefit of the doubt until the meeting". Let him explain who
has the right to punish whom. What right does the punished person or group
have to punish their punishers? We live in a society founded on the principal
that punishment may be inflicted only by parents, by due process of law - i.e.
on conviction of a crime, by certain institutions acting in loco parentis
- usually with authority delegated by parents, or by other institutions with
the maximum penalty being exclusion from the institution. It took centuries
to eliminate the private right of punishment and retaliation. Does he
really want to reverse this?
∂15-May-85 1740 JMC re: boring nonviolence (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - If someone blocks John Scoggins's car his recourse is to call the
police. Should the University decide that calling the police is a bad
idea, e.g. because Don Kennedy thinks the people blocking Scoggins's car
might provoke the police into behavior that would with the blockers
sympathy, Scoggins could call the police himself. If they don't come,
because the University doesn't want them to, he could sue the blockers if
he can identify any, the University and the police for damages under
common law and, I believe, under the Federal Civil Rights laws. The
University, the police and the blockers might also be guilty of the
Federal crime of conspiracy to deny Scoggins his civil rights. Perhaps
the present Attorney General would approve a prosecution on such grounds,
but there have been times when this civil right was unenforceable.
Should none of the above work, then in my opinion civil law has broken
down, and Scoggins is morally, if not legally, entitled to use such
force as is necessary to free his car. Even in the 1960s we were very
far from that eventuality.
∂15-May-85 1841 JMC "The action may be punitive".
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
Stanford is always behind Berkeley in such matters.
a244 1617 15 May 85
AM-Campus Explosion,0270
Explosion Injures UC Berkeley Student
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - A package left in a computer room on the
University of California campus exploded Wednesday when a student
tried to open it ''out of curiosity,'' and one of his arms was
mangled, witnesses said.
The unidentified student was able to tell engineering Professor D.
J. Angelakos that he had found the package and tried to open it when
it exploded.
''He opened it out of curiosity and it blew up,'' said Angelakos.
''All we know right now is that some kind of device exploded on the
second floor of the building,'' said Sgt. Calvin Handy of the campus
police. He said the blast occurred at about 1:45 p.m. PDT on the
second floor of Cory Hall.
The building, on the north side of the campus, was evacuated and
campus officers searched it.
Three years ago, Angelakos tried opening a package left on the
fourth floor of the same building and it exploded, showering him with
debris and injuring his left hand.
''I was in an adjacent room. I heard a very strong explosion and
then after about two or three seconds I heard a person screaming,''
said C.C. Chen, 29, a graduate student who had been working in the
next room.
''He was screaming, 'Help me, help me.' I went in and his arm was
exploded. There was blood everywhere.''
On Tuesday, a pipe bomb was found in a classroom on the San
Francisco State University campus. It was disarmed and partially
detonated by authorities, and there were no injuries.
AP-NY-05-15-85 1915EDT
***************
∂15-May-85 1914 JMC re: The mysterious message
To: bktotty%mit-teela@MIT-ATHENA.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 15 May 85 22:05:47 edt.]
I didn't design Lisp by accident; it was intentional. Joe Weening is
a graduate student in computer science at Stanford (JJW@SU-AI). He
is presently interested in parallel list processing algorithms.
∂15-May-85 1924 JMC re: Random from MIT
To: JJW
[In reply to message rcvd 15-May-85 19:15-PT.]
He finally sent me a message saying he hoped he wasn't making a fool
of himself, and I politely refrained from replying, "No, it was an act
of God".
∂15-May-85 2144 JMC re: fire-bombing (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - from David Wolverton "Those who don't believe that police would
"fire-bomb a city" apparently haven't been paying attention ... In
Philadelphia ..." This is an exaggeration. The police didn't undertake
to fire-bomb a city, and I suppose Wolverton would even agree that they
wouldn't. Given that a policeman was killed and six firemen wounded in
their last confrontation with MOVE, and that some were wounded before they
dropped their bomb, I agree with the fire chief's decision not to expose
his men to gunfire. Neither police nor firemen have signed up as
gladiators and have only a limited obligation to risk their own lives on
behalf of people shooting at them. Besides that, they are (fortunately)
inexperienced in such operations, and can be expected to make mistakes.
My own guess is that waiting another week might have softened the MOVE
people from lack of sleep, but they had evacuated several blocks, and the
residents were doubtless impatient for the police to get it over with.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out as they had hoped.
Let Wolverton say what the police should have done.
∂15-May-85 2232 JMC re: Bruce Franklin & Death
To: PATTIS@WASHINGTON.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 15 May 85 21:57:23-PDT.]
In fact Kennedy was the one member of the trial committee who voted
against firing Franklin. However, the University case against Franklin
was only on charges of inciting the violation of university rules by
refusing to give up a blockade of the Computation Center. There was more,
but I don't remember it. The Stanford hearings went on for weeks and I
attended only one session, and I remember only the posters of Marx, Lenin,
Stalin and Mao in front of Franklin's table.
Franklin was never legally charged with murder. The basis of my statement
was the following:
Andrea Holman, daughter of Professor Halstead Holman of the Medical School
was convicted of murder (with others) under the following circumstances.
An ordinary criminal prisoner was being transferred from one prison to
another by two unarmed prison guards. Their car was forced off the road
by a gang consisting of members of Franklin's organization Venceremos and
ordinary violent criminals. The two guards were shot and left for dead,
but one survived. The perpetrators were quickly identified from photos,
but weren't caught right away. Their weak link proved to be the criminal
they had rescued. He was in for something much less than murder and
wasn't overjoyed to be associated with one.
He made various demands, but one was to talk to Franklin, which he
did by phone. Later he and one of the Venceremos people were arrested
while crossing the Bay Bridge, and the others were soon caught.
Unfortunately, his telephone conversation wasn't considered evidence
enough to justify and indictment of Franklin in that case.
All the above was in the newspapers and is my only source.
Besides that there is Franklin's contribution to Marxism, and I
still have an article of his in my files. It seems that Marx
was wrong, according to Franklin, in denying the revolutionary
potential of the lumpenproletariat. Exactly what the word meant
to Marx I don't know, but to Franklin it meant criminals, apparently
especially violent criminals. The practical result of this theory,
and the article ascribes no credit to anyone else for it, was that
radical students visited prisons and recruited criminals for their
organizations.
Venceremos was active in this but other radical organizations also
took it up. Curiously American radicals have never managed anywhere
near as many bank robberies, holdups and killings on their own
as they have committed in association with ordinary criminals.
In California, the association between radicals and criminals
resulted in more than 5 murders in connection with George Jackson
in some of which Angela Davis was involved and the assassination
of a superintendent of schools by the Symbionese Liberation Army
which also kidnapped and brainwashed Patty Hearst. In the East
there were bank robberies in Boston, and more recently the Brinks
robbery and killings. I don't know whether Franklin's theory
played any role in influencing other radical groups than his own.
I believe that Venceremos members were involved in other crimes
as well as the murder of the prison guards, including some
intra-radical killings. There was much more in the newspapers
from time to time.
Some time I'll tell you about my (inconclusive) adventure with the
hand grenade in back of the Faculty Club. Also about the fire bomb
thrown into the AI Lab.
∂16-May-85 1955 JMC re: "The action may be punitive".
To: MOGUL@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 16 May 85 12:09:35-PDT.]
I didn't wish to imply that SOSA is in communication with the people behind
the Berkeley bombing, and I hadn't heard about a bombing at SF State.
However, my experience at Stanford in the 1960s and early 1970s shows
me that people who begin with non-violent protests sometimes escalate
all the way to bombing in a very few years
when they don't get their way. Not all individuals
do, but I know quite a few specific individuals who did. The rhetoric
associated with SOSA, especially that characterizing the trustee refusal
to give in as refusal to "conduct a dialog" and as violence repeats the
jargon of 1960s movements who did graduate to violence.
My own experience was with the Mid Peninsula Free University which was
committed to non-violence in its 1967 or 1968 bylaws. By 1970 a
resolution reaffirming that principle received exactly one vote - mine.
Perhaps SOSA will take no further steps in this direction, but the step
from camping in the Inner Quad to blockading the Trustees' cars struck me
as significant.
Inviting Angela Davis to address them suggests unawareness or indifference
to her 1970s activities. These included supplying arms for an attempt to
rescue a prisoner from a courtroom by taking hostages. In the resulting
shootout, the District Attorney of Marin County was paralyzed for life.
Angela Davis herself was found at the SF Airport and presumed to be
waiting for the car with George Jackson, his teen-age brother and the
hostages to arrive. She was acquitted, on the grounds that there wasn't
evidence that she knew what the guns she supplied the day before the
attack were intended to be used for, but my opinion is that she was
guilty.
Finally, I had a conversation with two of the blockaders in which
I said that their activities might bring back the 1960s, and they
said they thought that would be good. I don't know exactly what
they meant by it, but it seemed clear to me that there was no
aspect of the 1960s prominent in their minds to which they took
sufficient exception to offer any assurance that it wouldn't recur.
∂16-May-85 2005 JMC reply to message
To: GOLDBERG@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 16 May 85 15:30:02-PDT.]
Admittedly, self-righteousness as a concept isn't easy to define. In my
opinion it often includes justifying moral shortcuts because of the justice
of the cause. Much of the old-time prohibitionist sentiment had this
character as does much of the present anti-smoker sentiment. (I have
never smoked, and smoke bothers me). I don't consider a company doing
business in South Africa as supporting the S.A. government. Also I
consider secondary boycotts, in which one tries to force others against
their will to attack one's enemies as legitimate.
Preventing people from using their own cars is on the verge of violence
and definitely represents an attempt to provoke violence. Consider
that some of the BBOARD flamers proposed that the trustees simply
back their cars out slowly. It shows that these flamers might succumb
to the provocation.
∂16-May-85 2026 JMC re: kaboom!!! (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - 106mm is four inches, and this refers to the diameter of the shell.
Does anyone have the military knowledge to know if a 106mm recoilless
rifle would fit in a car trunk. My own recollection from the army is
that even a much smaller caliber gun wouldn't fit.
∂16-May-85 2027 JMC re: Electronic Mail to Japan
To: HERSHBERGER@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 16 May 85 16:47:38-PDT.]
Ask Shigeki Goto (SG@SAIL).
∂16-May-85 2141 JMC re: Thee vs. Thou (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - According to Webster's Collegiate "thou" is the nominative case
and "thee" is the objective and dative case as in "Thou must go or
I will give thee a box on the ear". However, meaning 2 of thee
is "ungrammatically for thou in dialect or among Friends". It also
says that Quakers use "thee" in the third person singular and gives
the example, "Thee tells no lies here".
∂17-May-85 2202 JMC re: Multiprocessor project
To: cheriton@SU-PESCADERO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri, 17 May 85 09:41:00 pdt.]
We submitted a proposal which left Stanford a week or so ago. The amount
requested was $5.3 million for three years including the machine, the
subcontracts to Lucid and Berkeley and work to be done here. The machine
in the proposal was the Sequent (2 machines of perhaps 10 and 12 processors
each). However, Steve Squires at DARPA wanted us to be flexible about
the machine and wasn't shocked when told that might cost DARPA more money.
From what he and Bob Kahn have said, I'm optimistic. There will be no
problem about access to whatever machine we get. A copy of the proposal
is available. It is about time for me to telephone Squires and ask how
their consideration of it is coming.
∂17-May-85 2205 JMC re: a better parallel machine
To: fateman%ucbdali@UCB-VAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri, 17 May 85 10:55:39 pdt.]
Stanford sent the proposal about two weeks ago proposing Sequent, but
DARPA wants us to be flexible. Until we get a schedule for money
I don't want to look at any more machines.
∂17-May-85 2207 JMC re: working schedule
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 17-May-85 14:12-PT.]
Sure take a vacation when it suits you. Just keep me informed.
∂17-May-85 2208 JMC
To: LES
It would seem we could start Vladimir's full time appointment soon.
∂17-May-85 1412 VAL working schedule
My classes at San Jose State came to an end, and now I can spend all my time
here. But some time in August or September I'd like to take off for a week or
two, if you don't mind (my wife thinks we need vacation).
- vladimir
∂17-May-85 2224 JMC re: "The action may be punitive".
To: MOGUL@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 17 May 85 15:58:32-PDT.]
The left cannot self-destruct no matter how it behaves, because
leftist ideas will arise anew in the next generation. So would
rightist ideas. Reason and experience can refute some ideas,
but few study history sufficiently intensely and objectively
to be greatly influenced; this includes many historians. There
is some hope that science will eventually develop theories of
society that will achieve consensus, at least among the intelligent
and studious, but that's quite a ways off.
I don't agree with your analysis of the left, but I would be impressed
if you could find a left analysis of the left's mistakes of the 1960s
that elaborates the view you imply. The view that violence is
ineffective for leftists is unfortunately not always true. Pushing
violence to the point of civil war has won for them in some countries
and fundamentally changed others. Mostly these have underdeveloped
countries, but they came very close in Uruguay, formerly called the
Switzerland of South America. The 1960s Maoists didn't even come
close in the U.S. but no-one understands precisely why.
The phrase "fundamental change" is one which always arouses a
negative reaction in me. When left by itself, it is a call for
all who want any change to unite in seeking power. It is a demand
for power with out any commitment about what will be done with it.
What specific fundamental changes do you want to make?
∂17-May-85 2227 JMC Please send Socrates Update to
To: ec.cat@SU-FORSYTHE.ARPA
John McCarthy
Computer Science Department
or electronically to
JMC-LISTS@SU-AI
the latter being preferred.
∂17-May-85 2240 JMC re: recoilless guns (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - The Pentagon will laugh, although I trust they won't all laugh
at once, because who knows what that would do to the building. Instead
of two shells, there is a shell in one direction and a whoosh of gasses
in the other.
∂17-May-85 2353 JMC
To: RA
Please tell Lynn Scarlett that "Not in our Genes" hasn't arrived.
∂18-May-85 2127 JMC reply to message
To: LES
[In reply to message rcvd 18-May-85 21:00-PT.]
I guess June 1 will be ok.
∂19-May-85 2341 JMC
To: kochen@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
What day is our performance at AAAS?
∂20-May-85 1008 JMC re: visit
To: Lindstrom@UTAH-20.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 20 May 85 09:35:30-MDT.]
Unfortunately, I will be away June 6 and 7.
∂20-May-85 1120 JMC
To: kochen@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
I found the announcement; see you there next Wednesday.
∂20-May-85 1240 JMC on-line proposal submission
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
The memorandum takes a conquer-the-world attitude, and this will make
it difficult to figure out how to integrate its ideas with existing
facilities. I suppose I'm good for one meeting on the subject.
∂20-May-85 1304 JMC no proposal from me
To: john@SU-CSLI.ARPA
In response to yours of May 14, I have no present intention
of submitting a proposal for CSLI support having all I can
do to fulfill existing research commitments.
∂20-May-85 1509 JMC re: qual schedule
To: GENESERETH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 20 May 85 14:21:25-PDT.]
The 13th is ok for me except that I have an Academic Senate meeting
at 3:15 which I don't want to miss. On the 14th I'm leaving for
Japan.
∂20-May-85 2053 JMC
To: RA
Do we have our new Palo Alto phone books?
∂20-May-85 2100 JMC re: How computer systems are designed (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I dunno about the advantages of being a clever dog. There is
a Thurber fable about a "pretty smart dog".
∂20-May-85 2357 JMC re: strategic computing project funding
To: FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Mon 20 May 85 23:25:48-PDT.]
I suppose QLISP will be funded out of Strategic Computing.
∂21-May-85 0006 JMC re: Guns without recoil (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - "Recoilless weapons are characterized by their simplicity, lightness and
vented breechblocks. The fire high-explosive and anti-tank ammunition of
unique design. Their cartridge cases are perforated to permit a portion
of the propellant gases to escape to the rear; thier shells are pre-engraved
(i.e. with rotating bands matched to fit the rifling). Recoilless rifles
have lower muzzle velocity and much shorter range than do guns or howitzers
of the same calibre. One of the greatest drawbacks to their tactical use
is the rearward blast tht betrays their location and makes them unsuitable
for use in confined spaces." - from 1967 edition of the Brittanica, vol. 20,
p. 677a.
∂21-May-85 0014 JMC re: Philly firebomb (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Let's apply our 20/20 hind sight. From the fact that automatic
weapons were not found, it can be conjectured that there was a
substantial element of bluff in the threats of MOVE. Therefore,
(a) a single hero might have gone in there and faced them down;
(b) waiting a week (and facing the clamor of the neighbors to
get back in their homes) might have made them sleepy enough to
give in. Now that we understand this, let's have a volunteer
to be the requisite hero the next time there is a similar
situation.
∂21-May-85 1132 JMC
To: RA
Trips look good. Thanks.
∂21-May-85 1326 JMC
To: bosack@SU-SCORE.ARPA
It was wrong to take the XGP down without warning.
∂21-May-85 1500 JMC re: frame problem
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 21-May-85 10:32-PT.]
Why isn't the solution simply to give normality in s higher priority
than normality in result(e,s)?
∂21-May-85 1636 JMC re: united parcel service
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 21-May-85 16:27-PT.]
Why not call Random House?
∂22-May-85 0129 JMC re: Velo-Bind Machine
To: BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 21 May 85 16:10:58-PDT.]
In my opinion we should have a binding machine. However, the kind that binds
with tape may be better, because Velo-bind documents don't fit as well on
shelves.
∂22-May-85 2101 JMC re: number theory
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 22-May-85 09:39-PT.]
The U.S. Government had only accidental connection with Diffie's invention
of the idea of a public key cryptosystem or with the Rivest, Shamir and
Adelman invention of the RSA cipher which involves factorization. It
may be that the researchers were supported by the Government, but they
weren't supported by any project whose purpose was cryptography. I have
also heard that the cryptographic establishment was "flabbergasted" by
the concept of public key systems. However, there is evidence that older
cryptographic work involved extensive mathematics including modern algebra and
perhaps number theory. When uncleared mathematicians and computer scientists
became interested in cryptography, the NSA considered it unfortunate but
quickly discovered that there was no feasible way of preventing a public
literature on mathematical methods in cryptography, although they have
succeeded in keeping anything deep about cryptanalysis (if there is such)
to themselves.
∂22-May-85 2102 JMC re: frame problem
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 22-May-85 10:03-PT.]
My immediate reaction is that we won't be able to "avoid that complication".
∂22-May-85 2106 JMC re: recommendation
To: Jon.Doyle@CMU-CS-C.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 22 May 85 13:54:38-EDT.]
Yes, I'll write. Shall I wait for a request or is there someone in
particular you want me to write to now?
∂22-May-85 2116 JMC re: International Debate (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - As to the debate "Does the survival of the world require
collectivism", notice that it is considered irrelevant and even
uninteresting as to which side is being taken by Stanford and
which by Oxford.
∂22-May-85 2123 JMC re: interview candidate
To: ashok@SU-SUSHI.ARPA, PAPA@SU-SCORE.ARPA
CC: YAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA, JMC@SU-AI.ARPA, nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message from ashok@SU-SUSHI.ARPA sent Wed 22 May 85 21:08:00-PDT.]
Mike Clancy is welcome to more mail.
∂22-May-85 2153 JMC summer support
To: JJW
CC: LES
Yes, I will be able to support you as proposed.
∂22-May-85 2137 JJW Summer plans
I've arranged to visit IDA in Princeton from June 24 to July 26. After
that, as I mentioned before, I'd like to arrange some kind of part-time
support for the rest of the summer.
Lucid has offered me part-time work on their compiler. It would teach me
about the internals of Lisp, but I'm somewhat afraid that it will distract
me too much. You said a while back that you might be able to support me.
Can this still be arranged?
I'm a bit overdue on my reply to Lucid, so I'd like to know fairly soon.
∂23-May-85 1516 JMC Tech Board
To: LES
∂23-May-85 1432 TULEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA Tech Board
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 May 85 14:32:19 PDT
Date: Thu 23 May 85 14:32:13-PDT
From: Kimberly Tuley <TULEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: Tech Board
To: jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
Rodgers from Sequent would like to speak with you re techboard at (603)
626-5700
-------
∂23-May-85 1553 JMC message
To: LES
∂23-May-85 1330 TULEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA message
Received: from SU-SCORE.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 23 May 85 13:29:57 PDT
Date: Thu 23 May 85 13:30:10-PDT
From: Kimberly Tuley <TULEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: message
To: jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
John Machado called - he says that it's urgent that he talk with you -
will be available about 3:00 our time. ph: 703-590-5472
Kim
-------
≤100k and stanford only in 85
there has to be a milestone to terminate task on
6 or 9 month
announcement in cbd soliciting a proposals in this and other areas
and we respond with a proposal to do the rest of the work. This should
include Berkeley and Lucid.
The above is a home number, but he'll be at home tomorrow.
∂23-May-85 1629 JMC re: message
To: TULEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 23 May 85 13:30:10-PDT.]
The number you gave me was correct. While it didn't go through in five
attempts to dial it, the operator got it for me the first time.
∂24-May-85 0855 JMC acknowledgement of support
To: VAL
Your paper for IJCAI should carry an acknowledgement of partial support
by DARPA. It it's too late, don't worry about it, but if there is still
time, Les can help you with the wording.
∂24-May-85 1011 JMC
To: bscott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
How about my hiring Sarah for the week Rutie's away?
∂24-May-85 1047 JMC
To: VAL
Let's talk a bit when you come in or by phone if more convenient for you.
∂24-May-85 1104 JMC re: frame problem
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 21-May-85 10:32-PT.]
Here are some further thoughts about abnormalities in situations that
result from events. In general, we want to examine our intuitions
about what a human would infer from the facts be our guide. This
will help decide what formal devices are convenient. In the blocks
world, it seems that we want to reason non-monotonically about the initial
situation, because we don't want to require more axioms than necessary.
(I'm even doubtful about that. It may be that we want to use "if and
only if" more in descriptions of initial situations, unless our knowledge
of the initial situation is explicitly based on what someone said, in
which case there are conventional conversational non-monotonic inferences
to be made). In any case, it seems clear that the situation that
results from an action should not react back on the initial situation
unless we have an additional source of information about the new
situation and not merely what we have deduced from our general rules
about the event that produced it.
I'm sorry that I have been unavailable to talk about this in the last
few days, but I can now give it high priority.
∂24-May-85 1122 JMC re: Funding for Common Lisp and Benchmarking
To: OHLANDER@USC-ISI.ARPA
CC: Kahn@USC-ISI.ARPA, LES@SU-AI.ARPA, Squires@USC-ISI.ARPA,
Bscott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message from OHLANDER@USC-ISI.ARPA sent 24 May 1985 14:10-EDT.]
All this sounds ok to me. I am forwarding your message to bscott@score,
because she isn't sure that scott@score will reach her. Also I'm forwarding
it to LES@SU-AI. Lester Earnest, who was formerly the Executive
Officer of the Stanford Artificial Inteligence Laboratory and who
left to found Imagen has returned to be the Executive Officer of the
Qlisp (formerly Qlambda) Project. Among other things, he will
settle matters concerned with contracts and proposals.
∂24-May-85 1122 JMC Funding for Common Lisp and Benchmarking
To: LES@SU-AI.ARPA, bscott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
∂24-May-85 1110 OHLANDER@USC-ISI.ARPA Funding for Common Lisp and Benchmarking
Received: from USC-ISI.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 24 May 85 11:10:33 PDT
Date: 24 May 1985 14:10-EDT
Sender: OHLANDER@USC-ISI.ARPA
Subject: Funding for Common Lisp and Benchmarking
From: OHLANDER@USC-ISI.ARPA
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
Cc: Kahn@USC-ISI.ARPA, Squires@USC-ISI.ARPA, Scott@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Message-ID: <[USC-ISI.ARPA]24-May-85 14:10:08.OHLANDER>
John,
There are a number of things to be accomplished in terms of
Common Lisp and benchmarking of lisp machines. Dick Gabriel has
left Stanford but he is willing to carry out some of the tasks
that were originally funded for Stanford to accomplish. Among
the efforts that we need some progress on are: the blue and
yellow pages, verification of Common Lisp compilers, and
benchmarking of new machines. Dick Gabriel is putting together a
tasking statement to address these concerns. The money to fund
this task resides at Stanford. According to our records, $273K
was put out in FY84. An additional $287K has been sent from
DARPA and is either at Stanford or soon will be. There is an
additional $303K to be put out in FY86. What we want to happen
is that Stanford subcontract to Lucid to accomplish the things
that we need, as specified under the original contract. We may
also include some research for Q-Lambda. We all have to converge
on what is to be done with that money as soon as possible. As
soon as we get the proposed tasking statement from Gabriel, we
will be requesting that Stanford arrange to provide the money to
Lucid.
Ron Ohlander
∂24-May-85 1143 JMC Sarah
To: BSCOTT@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 24 May 85 11:11:55-PDT.]
Perhaps she should receive whatever increase you think justified by
experience, inflation and the fact that we now know she can do the work well.
I don't imagine it would be large.
∂24-May-85 1214 JMC yet another postponement
To: woody@MCC.ARPA
Are Monday and Tuesday June 10 and 11 possible. If not I'll have
a difficult decision to make on whether to come the 6th and 7th
or put it off until July after I return from Japan. There's a special
Academic Senate meeting June 6 to discuss an issue important to me.
∂24-May-85 1342 JMC bobrow.1
To: SMC
It is a letter submitting "Applications of circumscription ...". Please
find in a recent issue of Artificial Intelligence their rules for
submission. We may have to modify the form of the paper. Also Bobrow's
address is there.
∂24-May-85 1602 JMC re: AI "Retreat"
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA, Feigenbaum@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA,
Genesereth@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, TW@SU-AI.ARPA,
Rosenbloom@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, Buchanan@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message from NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA sent Fri 24 May 85 15:07:09-PDT.]
Sounds reasonable to me and July 13-14 is ok.
∂25-May-85 1514 JMC re: urgent change
To: POURNE@MIT-MC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Sat, 25 May 85 18:08:26 EST.]
OK, see you Tuesday. Wednesday dinner sounds like a good idea, but
I'm not sure yet. If a decision becomes necessary before Tuesday,
poke me again by net mail.
∂25-May-85 1544 JMC
To: CLT
ok about today and tomorrow
∂26-May-85 1142 JMC monotonic theory of non-monotonic reasoning
To: VAL
Suppose we have a language with names for sets of sentences. Then for
particular notions of non-monotonic inference, we may be able to formalize
the relation (A infers-1 p). Does this seem worthwhile to you?
It may also be worth pointing out that having such a theory does not
obviate the requirement for actually doing non-monotonic inferences,
because at some point one has to commit oneself to what set A of
facts one is taking into account.
I shall be away from Tuesday morning through Wednesday, so unless you
happen to come in Monday, we can talk about these matters on Thursday.
∂27-May-85 1135 JMC Dagobert
To: CLT
"After Dagobert who, prematurely exhausted by his numerous spouses,
died of old age at the age of thirty-four, the Merovingians fell into
utter decay".
∂27-May-85 1754 JMC
To: cl.boyer@UTEXAS-20.ARPA
I'll have some self-praise for you this coming week end.
∂27-May-85 2255 JMC xgp
To: bosack@SU-SCORE.ARPA
What are your intentions w/r xgp. I have a large number of documents
in the computer that depend on it. I cculd have better adjusted to
its loss, if that is your intention, with some notice.
∂28-May-85 0006 JMC dinner time
To: pournelle@MIT-MC.ARPA
The last flight to SF from LA is at ten. If convenient for you it would
be convenient for me to have dinner on Wednesday at a time and place that
would permit me to make it.
∂28-May-85 0009 JMC
To: SMC
I need ten copies of "Applications of circumscription ... " to
∂28-May-85 0010 JMC
To: SMC
... to take with me today when I leave Stanford at 10:45.
∂29-May-85 2358 JMC re: xgp
To: BOSACK@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 28 May 85 11:13:09-PDT.]
There is other software unique to the xgp, but I don't know if anyone
is using it or has been. I suggest you post a system notice inquiring.
∂29-May-85 2358 JMC Computer in Mathematics Conference
To: DAC
∂28-May-85 1508 AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Computer in Mathematics Conference
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 28 May 85 15:07:28 PDT
Date: Tue 28 May 85 15:06:35-PDT
From: AAAI <AAAI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Computer in Mathematics Conference
To: ai.woody@MCC.ARPA, jmc@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: aaaI-OFFICE@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Telephone: (415) 328-3123
Postal-Address: 445 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Woody & John,
I haven't heard a word from David Chudnovksy or Dick Jenks about
their submittal of a letter asking for support for their
conference. If the AAAI will be assisting them, we will need
to accomodate them in next year's budget and naturally have
their request approved by the conference committee.
Do you know anything?
Thxs,
Claudia
-------
∂30-May-85 0001 JMC re: Daniel Lehman
To: vardi@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 29 May 85 10:43:54 pdt.]
I'm here today, though I have a meeting from 3:15. I will also
be here next Tuesday. Isn't Zohar in Israel?
∂30-May-85 0003 JMC Re: Your letter of April 10
To: yao@SU-SCORE.ARPA, papa@SU-SCORE.ARPA, nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
∂29-May-85 1335 udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA Re: Your letter of April 10
Received: from WISCVM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 29 May 85 13:27:31 PDT
Received: from (UDI)WISDOM.BITNET by WISCVM.ARPA on 05/29/85 at
11:02:32 CDT
From: Ehud Shapiro <udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 29 May 85 18:35:43 -0200
To: jmc@su-ai.arpa
Subject: Re: Your letter of April 10
Cc: udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA
Dear John,
Thanks for your letter of April 10, and sorry for my late reply.
I am interested in exploring the possibility of joining your
faculty.
I will be visiting the U.S. twice this summer, in July and in August,
although I have planned to come to the West Coast only in August. Perhaps
we could discuss matters further then, if it fits your schedule.
Sencerely
Ehud Shapiro
p.s. I am sending this letter and resume also air-mail. If you
want any clarification, or would like to start a discussion earlier,
please let me know.
∂30-May-85 0003 JMC re: Your letter of April 10
To: udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed, 29 May 85 18:35:43 -0200.]
August should be ok.
∂30-May-85 0009 JMC re: On-Line English Language Dictionary needed.
To: SALEM@SRI-KL.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue 28 May 85 14:54:04-PDT.]
If get a reply about on-line dictionaries, please let me know the result.
∂30-May-85 1044 JMC re: dinner time
To: POURNE@MIT-MC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu, 30 May 85 04:03:21 EST.]
Yes, and thank you very much. It turns out that there was another flight
at 11:55 that PSA reservations hadn't told me about. I didn't get to talk
about the magazine to Jimmy Vaughn, partly because I had used up my
harangue-power for the day. I'm going to talk further about it with
Barbara Clifford, who is interested in helping editorially, but unfortunately
I don't think she knows enough people, or has the reputation or personality
to be editor.
∂30-May-85 2104 JMC re: Daniel Lehman
To: vardi@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu, 30 May 85 18:06:17 pdt.]
Yes, at 11am.
∂30-May-85 2109 JMC reply to message
To: CN.MCS@SU-FORSYTHE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu, 30 May 85 15:36:12 PDT.]
My actual use of the Math library is more for pure mathematics
than for computer science. In my specialized fields I receive
reports and buy the books. Therefore, keeping the library joint
with math would be to my advantage. West Campus plans should
include the day when people will have on-line access to the books
and articles themselves and not just to catalogs.
∂30-May-85 2121 JMC re: VAX to Czechoslovakia (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Hmm. I had a visitor last year from Czechoslovakia, and he said
they were getting a VAX this year. When I asked him from where, he
declined to say, although I thought he implied it was from the Eastern
Bloc. My recent Russian visitors said that the Russians were making
a VAX-compatible computer. My opinion is that the most important use
of smuggled computers is to imitate or to test imitation peripherals
in order to be sure that programs later imported from the West can
be run on the imitation VAXen. The other possibility is that the
cheap Russian imitation is delayed, and they have been counting on it.
Generally, non-priority East Bloc users have great difficulty getting
dollars, and smuggled machines must be much more expensive than the
cost in the U.S. Another possibility is that they have smuggled
programs of a militarily useful nature, e.g. IC layout programs,
and needed a computer to run them on.
∂30-May-85 2323 JMC
To: LES
How about getting together at 11am with me and Carolyn to do 100k?
∂31-May-85 0243 JMC job
To: ostrom@SU-CSLI.ARPA
I don't know your job situation, but if you might be interested in
running the computer center for an AI company in L.A. please call
me. They have mostly Symbolics Lisp machines and VAXen.
That's 497-4430.
∂31-May-85 1149 JMC re: award
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 31 May 85 11:46:59-PDT.]
No objection. My present problem is to figure out what to say that
isn't the same speech I gave last year.
∂01-Jun-85 0909 JMC re: job
To: ERIC@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 31 May 85 23:21:39-PDT.]
Monday is fine. I'm usually home 857-0672 in the morning and at 497-4430
from late morning. You can also call me at home this weekend if you want.
∂01-Jun-85 1126 JMC re: PUB from PARC
To: JJW
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Jun-85 11:10-PT.]
If you think REM might be interested, I would be grateful if you would
explore it with him. Consult with LES, however.
∂01-Jun-85 2101 JMC re: stereo repair suggestions (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I have had good luck with Pacific Stereo, although I don't think
I've given them anything very difficult.
∂01-Jun-85 2140 JMC re: situation calculus
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 01-Jun-85 21:19-PT.]
I agree that having existence as a predicate is convenient for talking
about creating and destroying objects. However, some of the applications
you are discussing seem to require more formalism than I know about.
For example, it would be desirable to formalize M&C in a way closer
to the English statement of the problem. This would involve saying
that if the cannibals outnumber the missionaries, the missionaries
will be eaten, and have this restrict the solution suitably. Note
that we need to get rid of a solution in which the cannibals row
across and then ferry each missionary across and eat him when he
arrives. This solution does indeed get each missionary and cannibal
across.
Also the problem of volumes of liquid or other bulk substances
that don't maintain their existence as discrete objects has shown
itself resistant to axiomatization up to now.
∂01-Jun-85 2217 JMC
To: ME
Looks like A.P. is down again.
∂01-Jun-85 2219 JMC
To: sf@SU-CSLI.ARPA
Looks like you got purged from SAIL.
∂01-Jun-85 2328 JMC
To: ME
AP seems to be working.
∂02-Jun-85 1505 JMC
To: ME
;#
∂02-Jun-85 1506 JMC
To: ME
I didn't intend ns; # to cause mail to be sent to you.
∂02-Jun-85 1836 JMC
To: CLT
Phone home; I've already shopped.
∂03-Jun-85 0114 JMC
To: CLT
hewitt
∂03-Jun-85 1023 JMC re: qual schedule
To: ROSENBLOOM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA, GENESERETH@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message from ROSENBLOOM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA sent Mon 3 Jun 85 08:55:34-PDT.]
Alas, I'm leaving for Japan on Friday for two weeks.
∂03-Jun-85 1031 JMC
To: CLT
ok, no dinner and coffee later
∂03-Jun-85 2013 JMC The cola discrepancy
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
The discrepancy between the flaming and all but one of the blind tests
is an interesting psychological, sociological and maybe even political
phenomenon. It would be interesting if the flamers would subject themselves
to a blind test.
∂04-Jun-85 0056 JMC re: On blind taste tests (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Surely you jest Mr. Jagadish. A short step beyond your position
is justifying false advertising on the grounds that it increases the
value of the product by making the consumer feel better about it.
Advertising people sometimes even say this and often say something
that amounts to it.
∂04-Jun-85 1213 JMC re: ice cream (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - I'm not sure it's fair for someone with actual knowledge of the
ice cream business to take part in this discussion. It seems much worse
than looking something up in the encyclopedia which I have qualms about
doing.
∂04-Jun-85 1723 JMC re: house initialization
To: SJG
[In reply to message rcvd 04-Jun-85 15:06-PT.]
Do you realize that your mere party is conflicting with the ultimate
(almost certainly actually ultimate) Stanford Artificial Intelligence
Laboratory Olympics and "Orgy" and the soon to be torn down Donald
C. Power Laboratory currently housing CCRMA. How can I miss the
programming contest and sheriff's steeplechase? Anyway if you
persist in your folly, I'll be late.
∂05-Jun-85 0016 JMC
To: CLT
∂05-Jun-85 0011 JJW Ideas on my thesis
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA, RPG@SU-AI.ARPA, ullman@SU-AIMVAX.ARPA
Here's a summary of some of my recent thoughts on parallel Lisp, and
proposals for what to do next. This is a rather long message, so I hope
you have the time to read it.
Two distinguishing characteristics of existing proposals for parallel
Lisps are the language constructs and the target architectures. I do
not propose to introduce new ideas in either of these areas, though for
convenience I'd like to abstract the existing forms into whatever turns
out to be most useful.
As a basis for language constructs, I'm considering those of Qlambda and
Multilisp.
The main abstraction for language features is what I'll call "conditional
futures". Futures are representations of values being computed by
separate processes. They can be passed around just like other data
objects (in the Lisp style of passing pointers), but if a process performs
an operation that requires the value being computed, it will suspend if
that value is not yet available and automatically resume when it is.
Once the value of a future has been computed, a distinction need no longer
be made between the future and the value it represents. Thus, futures are
semantically equivalent to their values; the only difference is
operational, in that futures have the potential of speeding up computation
which does not immediately need to reference the value, but there is also
an associated overhead cost for using futures.
A conditional future consists of a predicate, and a form that computes a
value. If the predicate is true, the result is a future with a new task
spawned to compute the value. If false, the process evaluating the
conditional future itself computes the value, avoiding the overhead.
Neither Qlambda nor Multilisp directly provides conditional futures. In
Qlambda, the conditional predicates are explicit in the QLET and QLAMBDA
forms, but the futures are implicit. Multilisp has explicit futures, but
only unconditional.
Neither of these obstacles is at all important. In Qlambda, we can create
an unconditional future to compute an expression E by writing
(QLET 'EAGER ((X E)) X)
and a future conditional on P to compute E by writing
(QLET (IF P 'EAGER NIL) ((X E)) X)
In Multilisp, the unconditional future is (FUTURE E), and the conditional
future is
(IF P (FUTURE E) E)
I don't want to waste time arguing whether Qlambda or Multilisp has a better
syntax for expressing conditional futures. Obviously in either language one
could define a macro (CFUTURE P E) that would have the desired effect. The
Qlambda primitives and the Multilisp primitives can also be defined in terms
of each other with no runtime performance penalty.
The next question is whether futures are a sufficient basis with which to
do parallel computation. In an applicative language, I claim this is so.
(I will argue for applicative computation in a moment.) To prove this
claim, I will have to show that the introduction of futures into an
applicative program always leads to a computation that takes a minimum
time given enough processors, or can attain the minimum possible on fewer
processors. If the cost (overhead) of futures is zero, this seems fairly
clear to me, though I haven't proved it yet.
(All of this assumes no change in the algorithm itself. The introduction
of parallel algorithms can of course provide even more speedup, but that
sort of high-level decision is left to the programmer. It will be
important to show that applicative Lisp with futures is a good language
for expressing parallel algorithms.)
When there is a non-zero cost for creating futures, then there are some
computations that run faster when less than full parallelism is used.
The trick, then, is to use conditional futures with predicates chosen to
optimize the running time.
That is basically what I want to do. The open question is what, among the
wide range of possibilities, should be used for the conditions. Some
general classes of conditions are: (1) extra variables introduced into the
program, such as the "depth" in the Fibonacci example in the Qlambda
paper; (2) extra information stored in the data, such as the "size" of the
data used in a subcomputation, or some other estimate of the time needed
for the subproblem; (3) information about the current state of the
multiprocessor, to avoid creating more parallelism when there is enough to
keep all processors busy. There must be other possibilities as well.
I am hoping to find some general principles that will guide programmers to
the proper choice of these conditions, or even better, that will enable
compilers and interpreters to choose them automatically. To look for
these general principles, I will need to try test cases, see what works
and what doesn't, and find out why. I don't think I can come up with the
answers in any other way, and at this time I'm about ready to start the
experiments.
Some sort of simulation of the multiprocessor Lisp environment is needed,
since at present we don't have a running multiprocessor Lisp. I would
like to avoid starting from scratch, and there are two existing tools that
could be used. One is the Qlambda simulator written by RPG for the
Symbolics Lisp Machine. The other is the Multilisp simulator written by
Halstead for the VAX.
I don't yet have enough experience with either of these to say which is
better, both in terms of the statistics-gathering facilities available and
speed of execution. If there's a clear winner, I'll use it. There is
also the possibility of running the Multilisp simulator on the S-1 at
Livermore, since it has Unix. (In theory the Qlambda simulator should be
easy to adapt to S-1 Lisp, but no one has yet brought up S-1 Lisp running
under an operating system there.)
My intention is to parameterize the simulation to allow studying the
effects of different costs for the creation of futures and other primitive
operations. If these variables have a direct and simple effect on the
choice of predicates for conditional futures, there's a useful result.
Both of these simulators are geared towards standard von Neumann
processors with a shared global memory. Other architectures for
multiprocessors allow greater expansion before performance starts to
degrade, and these should be investigated. I think the simulators are
flexible enough so that this is fairly simple. The dataflow model of
computation is also very suitable for futures, and will be considered.
Above, I promised to argue in favor of applicative programming. The
use of side effects in conjunction with parallelism is known to make
writing and debugging programs difficult. Applicative programs have a
clean semantics and are equivalent in their sequential and parallel
implementations. Thus, there is a lot to be said for not using side
effects.
On the minus side, it is sometimes hard to express algorithms efficiently
in a purely applicative language, especially when one uses high-order
abstractions like mapping functions and combinators. But this can often
be solved by using "lazy evaluation", which avoids performing parts of
the computation that are not needed for the result.
It may be going a bit far to say that applicative programming with lazy
evaluation is both expressive and efficient enough for all general
programming tasks. But I think a large class of problems do fall into
this category, and for these it is worth the effort to use this style.
On a parallel processor, though, one may not want to adhere to lazy
evaluation all the time. There is potential gain in computing a
subexpression's value by the time it is needed, although there is a
potential loss in computing it if it is never used. (And there is the
danger of running on forever if the program uses the "infinite data
structures" that lazy evaluation allows.)
This leads to an extension of the concept of conditional futures. As
well as deciding whether to compute a subexpression in a separate
process, we can give it a priority (or assign it a fraction of the
available processing power), thus placing it on a continuum between
strict lazy evaluation and full eager evaluation. The assignment of
these priorities is another question that can be studied in experiments.
Summary:
Here are the things that I propose to do.
1. Show that futures are a sufficient construct to express parallel
execution of applicative programs, and that Lisp with futures is a
good language in which to express parallel algorithms.
2. Experiment with various predicates for conditional futures, to see
what performs best using a variety of assumptions about the parallel
architecture.
3. Experiment with priorities for lazy evaluation in conjunction with
conditional futures.
4. Systematize the results, if possible, into guidelines that can be
applied in writing parallel Lisp programs, and in automating the
introduction of these predicates into programs.
∂05-Jun-85 1102 JMC re: AI Retreat Reconsidered
To: NILSSON@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 5 Jun 85 09:24:37-PDT.]
Only July 30 itself is excluded for me.
∂05-Jun-85 1238 JMC
To: RA
Refer such matters to Les:
∂05-Jun-85 1157 RA Ellis Kroptechev film
Florin Fabricy from KQED called re permission to use the above. His
tel. (55) 751 8888. He'll send a release form.
∂05-Jun-85 1329 JMC two questions
To: emma@SU-CSLI.ARPA
1. My account on Turing seems to have been wiped out. I would like to
restore it even though I don't log in often. I prefer the user name
MCCARTHY and the initial password 999 which I will change.
2. If you aren't the right person for this question please forward it.
I'm giving a lecture in the July 15-19 CSLI-ASL meeting. Has the time
of my lecture been determined?
∂05-Jun-85 1539 JMC re: msg
To: TULEY@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Wed 5 Jun 85 15:37:36-PDT.]
Not likely.
∂05-Jun-85 1654 JMC re: airplane problem (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - N01SY for Matt's airplane sounds spectacular to me.
∂05-Jun-85 1700 JMC your mci card
To: wilkins@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
You left it as a bookmark in "Retief: diplomat at arms" in the CSD lounge.
I picked up the book and found it, assuming, as has always been the case,
that science fiction left there was donated for public use. Anyway your
card is in my Rutie's office 360. If you also want the book back, I have
it.
∂05-Jun-85 1704 JMC
To: RA
Perhaps Dave Wilkins will come for his MCI card which I left on your terminal.
∂05-Jun-85 2040 JMC seminar
To: VAL
Let me recommend to you the CSLI seminar today. Unfortunately, I'll
have to miss it because of the Academic Senate meeting.
4:15 p.m. CSLI Colloquium
Redwood Hall ``An Assumption-Based Truth-Maintenance System''
Room G-19 Johan De Kleer, Xerox PARC, Intelligent Systems Lab.
∂05-Jun-85 2042 JMC re: addendum to netmail: uucp/usenet (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - If only these and other turkeys had implemented Dialnet, messages
could be sent anywhere directly by telephone without all this nonsense
of relaying them.
∂05-Jun-85 2047 JMC
To: ME
ns is broken again.
∂05-Jun-85 2139 JMC re: names without denotations
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 05-Jun-85 20:55-PT.]
I think we're exploring rather than deciding, and it seems to me that
your axiom is worth exploring, i.e. seeing what the whole system looks
like. The interesting thing about Baker Street is that it is a real
street even if Sherlock Holmes isn't a real person, so I can say that
I have been on the street where Sherlock Holmes was imagined to have
lived.
∂05-Jun-85 2143 JMC re: names without denotations
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 05-Jun-85 20:55-PT.]
On rereading what you said, I see that you were making essentially
the same point about Baker Street. We could require some intermediary
phrase so that "the street where Holmes lived" doesn't exist while
"the street where Holmes was imagined to live" does.
∂05-Jun-85 2145 JMC re: names without denotations
To: VAL
[In reply to message rcvd 05-Jun-85 20:55-PT.]
Final off-the-cuff remark: Going further into fictitious characters
may require a more elaborate treatment of concepts as objects than
is required for the real blocks world. I suspect that my "Concepts
as objects ... " paper isn't even elaborate enough for this.
∂05-Jun-85 2219 JMC
To: RA
newrep.3
∂06-Jun-85 1035 JMC Re: your mci card
To: RA
Rutie, Please MAIL Wilkins whether the number on the MCI card is what he says.
∂06-Jun-85 1007 WILKINS@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Re: your mci card
Received: from SUMEX-AIM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 6 Jun 85 10:07:46 PDT
Date: Thu 6 Jun 85 10:08:01-PDT
From: David C. Wilkins <WILKINS@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: your mci card
To: JMC@SU-AI.ARPA
cc: winslett@SU-SCORE.ARPA, wilkins@SRI-KL.ARPA
In-Reply-To: Message from "John McCarthy <JMC@SU-AI.ARPA>" of Wed 5 Jun 85 17:00:00-PDT
John
My wife, Marianne Winslett Wilkins, eats lunch every day in the CSD
lounge, so its possible the MCI card you found in the book belongs to me.
Does 856-8850+11614 appear on the card? If so, Marianne (MJH 440), would
be happy to drop by your office for the card.
Hopefully, its mine -- since, otherwise, there is yet another David
Wilkins roaming around to cause confusions such as this one ...
David
-------
∂06-Jun-85 1043 JMC re: point-to-point mail
To: BH
[In reply to message rcvd 06-Jun-85 06:03-PT.]
I'm unconvinced. In the first place, a unix-to-unix protocol instead of
a protocol everyone can adopt is an abomination. Second, at least some
of the forwarding is for the benefit of non-unix machines on local nets.
Third, the cost of a one minute cross country late night phone call is
$0.21, i.e. less than a stamp, and that should be good for 9000 characters
at 1200 baud. Finally, Symbolics is going to an (unfortunately private)
protocol for direct mail between their new machines.
∂06-Jun-85 1138 JMC re: Your talk at the ASL Meeting
To: INGRID@SU-CSLI.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 6 Jun 85 11:06:23-PDT.]
I prefer 10am.
∂06-Jun-85 1906 JMC
To: VAL
Beeson will be here at 11am, and we plan to take him to lunch also.
∂07-Jun-85 0150 JMC re: gwai85
To: HST
[In reply to message rcvd 07-Jun-85 01:40-PT.]
I don't have a substantial new paper in mind except for one which I
am just now submitting to Artificial Intelligence. Some brief remarks
on some topic might be possible.
∂07-Jun-85 1058 JMC
To: LES
It seems the Qlisp start is to come out of the existing clisp money.
∂07-Jun-85 1113 JMC
To: KUO
Make it 2pm.
∂07-Jun-85 1454 JMC re: IGCAI
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 07-Jun-85 14:49-PT.]
I don't know one hotel from another, but I want a nice hotel room as close
as possible to the meetings. However, if they have reserved a block for
officials, etc., the fact that they are giving me an award may induce them
to find a place in the first choice hotel. Otherwise, any will do. Sarah
talked with Steve Crocker, the local arrangements chairman, and perhaps
they made some arrangement.
∂07-Jun-85 1654 JMC SDI inquiry
To: llw@S1-A.ARPA
A (the) San Jose newspaper was referred to me for "the other side" by
CPSR types. I told them that I thought computing and programming would
be a solvable problem, but I didn't know whether AI would be involved.
It later occurred to me that there might be actual experts to whom I
should have referred the reporter. Should I pass the buck on such
matters - and to whom. From some points of view my ignorance may be
an advantage. I am, however, willing to punch holes in anyone's arguments
that some specific computer program is impossible.
∂07-Jun-85 1847 JMC
To: JMM
What is your opinion of the following, especially w/r India-China
comparison?
n041 1112 07 Jun 85
BC-ECON-COLUMN ADV09 (UNDATED 2takes
(FOR RELEASE: SUN., JUNE 9)
(BizDay)
Jagdish N. Bhagwati, professor of economics at Columbia University, is
author, with Padma Desai, of ''India: Planning for
Industrialization.''
By JAGDISH N. BHAGWATI
c.1985 N.Y. Times News Service
India has come alive, imprinting itself on the American mind through
the celluloid images of ''Jewel in the Crown'' and ''A Passage to
India.'' The exotic has been reinforced by the outsized disaster that
overwhelmed the impoverished in Bhopal, as well as by the
assassination of Indira Gandhi and the violence that followed it.
But, on the eve of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's visit here, few
Americans are aware that India is no longer the ''dust and ashes'' of
popular imagination. The Indian economy has progressed without the
dramatic zigzags (such as the Cultural Revolution) that have plagued
China's economy. Far more than China today, India is an economic
miracle waiting to happen. And if the miracle is accomplished, the
central figure will be the young prime minister.
Coming of age in an England no longer dominated by the Fabian
Socialism that influenced his mother, Mrs. Gandhi, and grandfather,
Jawaharlal Nehru, and intuitively sensing India's great potential if
the economy is freed up, Gandhi has seized the moment. He is giving
evidence of new directions, departing sharply from Mrs. Gandhi's
policies of strict bureaucratic control.
His principal economic advisers, two brilliant and pragmatic Sikhs,
symbolize the change. Manmohan Singh, 52, heading the reinvigorated
Planning Commission, is an early and forceful advocate of an
increased outward orientation in economic policy - lowering trade
barriers, encouraging exports and embarking cautiously on external
borrowing and foreign investment to prime the development engine.
Montek Ahluwalia, 41, adviser in the prime minister's Secretariat,
has articulately supported the thesis that growth does matter in
reducing poverty (against the left, which believes that poverty is
better attacked through stronger controls and redistribution of
income). He played a leading role in a recent reduction in income tax
rates, and he has argued successfully for the easing of internal
controls on investment. Under the old system, designed to prevent
concentrations of economic wealth, investment companies with assets
of more than $16 million needed government approval for new
investments. Now, the asset size has been raised to $80 million.
Also, irrational restrictions preventing diversification according to
market dictates have been drastically reduced.
The new government's reforms are designed to free India from the
shackles imposed over four decades by a government that discouraged
trade and foreign investment and relied excessively on bureaucratic
controls of the economy to market approaches.
Under the guidance of Nehru and Mrs. Gandhi, India progressed much.
But it also came to be afflicted by Soviet-style inefficiencies. As a
result, her postwar growth rate of about 4 percent a year, while
substantial, did not rise commensurately with the impressive rise in
her savings and investment rates and in her skill levels.
Because India's policy makers were stubbornly tied to ''export
pessimism,'' they missed the postwar trade opportunity that the Far
Eastern economies seized to reach unprecedented prosperity. Thus,
India's share of world exports fell from 2.4 percent in 1948 to 0.41
percent in 1981. In contrast, South Korea's manufactured exports,
once negligible compared with India's, were four times those of
India's $4.4 billion in 1980.
Controls on investment, production and exports multiplied over the
years to excess. The government's role often degenerated into a
series of ''don'ts,'' as opposed to the activist ''do's'' of the
authorities in the Far Eastern economies. The problem was not an
interventionist government, but that the intervention was of the
wrong kind. While often justified as a way of insuring fairness and
an even allocation of investments, the government bureaucracy may
have accentuated disparities.
Despite these hindrances, India's economy grew strongly in the
postwar years - a further indication of her enormous untapped
potential. Growth rates rose from the relative stagnation of the
pre-independence years to almost 4 percent a year during much of the
postwar period. In the last five years, growth has accelerated to
over 5 percent. To sustain growth, it has raised its gross investment
rate, now financed almost wholly through domestic savings, to 25
percent of its gross national product of $184 billion, up from 10
percent in 1950.
India's planners have successfully used growth to attack the
all-pervasive poverty inherited with independence. A recent study,
tracking the same families between 1970 and 1980, found that the per
capita consumption of the poorest 10 percent of rural households rose
by 128 percent. Other indicators reinforce this conclusion. Life
expectancy, now over 50, has risen by 25 percent in two decades.
Primary education (for students between 6 and 11), was slow to take
off but now shows enrollment of 83 percent of India's children,
compared with 43 percent in 1950. Infant mortality has fallen by 25
percent since 1960.
India has also chalked up remarkable gains in dia's humane and open door po-
licy toward emigration.
Years of agricultural extension, scientific work adapting the Green
Revolution to Indian conditions, and governmental incentives have
also produced results. By 1983, production of food grains had risen
threefold since 1950, to 151 million tons a year. Finally, food is
not imported.
Remarkably, these gains have been made consistent with extremely low
inflation rates. The inflation rate has reached double digits in only
6 of the last 25 years, and averaged 6.2 percent between 1981 and
1985. But the greatest marvel of all is that the Indians have
accomplished this with a highly diverse and populous democracy rather
than with the aid of the iron fist that has surfaced too often
elsewhere.
Whether the prime minister can stay the course, shifting India's
economy decisively into a higher gear, depends on a complex of
factors. Gandhi will have to contain the inevitable opposition from
the radical left within his own party. Bureaucrats nurtured on the
power that controls confer, will be eager for the new initiatives to
founder. Established businesses may wish to preserve the security of
controlled and hence protected domestic markets, seeking less hassle
from the bureaucrats but not the winds of competition that would be
let loose with the end of controls.
If the prime minister fails to impose these economic reforms, a
splendid opportunity to stand tall on the shoulders of his
predecessors will have been lost. If he succeeds, as he well might,
the Indian economic miracle will come to pass.
∂07-Jun-85 2351 JMC re: Okamura (my father-in-law) / address and phone
To: SG
[In reply to message rcvd 07-Jun-85 23:18-PT.]
Almost right. I leave on the 23rd.
∂08-Jun-85 0002 JMC
To: KUO
You may be interested in the second item.
a011 2314 07 Jun 85
PM-Foreign Briefs,0439
VENICE, Italy (AP) - Twenty paintings falsely attributed to Van
Gogh, Degas, Manet and other masters have been seized in an apartment
in nearby Padua, police said.
The owner of the Padua apartment and an antique dealer were picked
up Friday for questioning, the police said.
One of the bogus Degas works had been rejected by a commission of
experts when an art dealer tried to exhibit it at the Venice Antique
Show last October, police said.
---
PEKING (AP) - The government has reunited during the past five years
more than 580,000 couples who had been assigned to government jobs in
different locations, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Married couples who work for the government often are separated for
years at a time because their assignments are in widely scattered
locations.
In 1984 about 86,000 couples were brought back together in 16
provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, the official news
agency quoted the Ministry of Labor and Personnel as saying
However, 285,000 couples still were separated at the end of last
year, the report said.
''This is due to such factors as tight control over moving into
cities, particularly big ones, the reluctance of some people to leave
larger cities for smaller ones, inability to find suitable jobs in
places where their husband or wife works, and the refusal of some
(work) units to grant transfers,'' Xinhua said.
---
RANGOON, Burma (AP) - The chairman of the ruling Burma Socialist
Program, U Ne Win, and his wife left for a medical checkup abroad,
the state radio said.
The broadcast said they were accompanied by Defense Minister Gen.
Kyaw Htin, and Industry Minister U Maung Cho.
The radio did not say where U Ne Win would go but diplomatic sources
here said he left Burma for Europe and would visit West Germany.
Ne Win, 74, retired as Burma's head of state in 1981 citing poor
health, old age, and the desire to see an orderly transition of
power. However, he still is regarded as the key political figure in
the country.
---
PARIS (AP) - An Irish priest kidnapped in Angola on May 26 by
anti-government UNITA rebels has been freed, his religious order
said.
The Rev. John Kingston, 37, has returned to his mission at Malanje
in Angola, said the Rev. Martin Groff, head of missionary work for
the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.
A French monk, the Rev. Jean-Eitenne Wozniak, was killed in the
ambush in which Kingston was captured.
UNITA said in a communique June 1 that it regretted the incident and
promised to let Kingston to return to his mission as soon as
possible.
AP-NY-06-08-85 0214EDT
***************
∂08-Jun-85 0935 JMC re: TECHIE
To: RUOFF@JPL-ROBOTICS.ARPA
[In reply to message sent 8 Jun 1985 0003 PST.]
I suspect your message went astray. I have no present requirement for
a ``techie'' with social sense, and I don't believe Stanford has a
ditch day. Forty years ago I suppose I was a techie, if that's what
you call Caltech students.
∂09-Jun-85 0515 JMC files for Barbara Clifford
To: RA
I have ESPed the following files for her, and she will come by Monday.
If I haven't put them in my out box, retrieve them from the ESP room
or reprint them.
opinio[f83,jmc] Science and Technology Opinion
opinio[w84,jmc] More on Science and Technology Opinion
∂11-Jun-85 1532 JMC
To: RA
If visa application here, leave it in my IN box and I'll do it tonight.
∂12-Jun-85 0033 JMC
To: RA
Application and passport in my out box.
∂12-Jun-85 0846 JMC
To: RA
Please phone when you get in.
∂12-Jun-85 1030 JMC re: Tresidder Nixes Student-run Coffee House (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - My suggestion is that the Coffee House formally expand into the
bowling alley if there is a shortage of space and that LOTS-2 move
somewhere else. Both spaces are "amenity space" rather than academic
business space in origin. Reading in a Coffee House is sufficiently
attractive that I sometimes do it myself even though the Faculty Club
reading room (with no coffee house) is nearby. If students are attracted
to study in the Coffee House, that's reasonable. Making a bare profit,
with no charge for the space, is also reasonable. However, some of the
assertions about the intentions of Tressider management are mere
speculation, and there may be quite different reasons for changing
management, even though grumbles that have been mentioned on BBOARD so far
are trivial.
∂12-Jun-85 1413 JMC
To: RA
mackwo.1
∂12-Jun-85 2142 JMC concepts of fairness
To: su-bboards@SU-AI.ARPA
Notice how airing a one hour rebuttal to a 13 hour series with
the makers of the 13 hour program having a chance to rebut the
rebuttal "is going to have a chilling effect on what public television
does". Also note that the Government giving $30,000 to help make
the rebuttal after giving $1.2 million for the original was "an
indication of pressure" by the White House on the media.
n098 1848 12 Jun 85
AM-AIM 2takes
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
c.1985 N.Y. Times News Service
BOSTON - A Public Broadcasting Service program that will offer a
conservative group an unusual chance to criticize the network's
prize-winning series on Vietnam has touched off a dispute over
whether PBS has given in to pressure from the Reagan administration.
The two-hour program, which will be available to PBS stations
beginning June 26, will include a 57-minute film prepared by Accuracy
in Media, the conservative organization. It will be shown on WNET in
New York on June 27 as part of that station's ''Intercom'' series of
first-person documentaries.
Accuracy in Media, which terms itself a ''media watchdog'' group,
is headed by Reed Irvine, who strongly supported Gen. William C.
Westmoreland in his libel suit against CBS and views PBS as a network
''with a long history of putting on left-wing programs.'' Among the
members of its advisory board are Clare Boothe Luce, Edward Teller
and William E. Simon, the former Treasury secretary.
The group contends that the 1983 PBS series on Vietnam contained
''serious errors and distortions,'' denigrating the role of American
soldiers and underestimating the Communist nature of their opponents.
Charlton Heston, who narrated the Accuracy in Media film,
''Television's Vietnam: The Real Story,'' contends that America's
purpose in Vietnam was ''noble'' but that it was misled by
''disinformation'' from the press and television, which helped lose
the war.
The PBS program will also include interviews with some of the
producers of the original Vietnam series, ''Vietnam: A Television
History,'' in which they are asked to answer these charges, as well
as a panel discussion moderated by Arthur Miller, the Harvard Law
School professor.
PBS officials insist that their decision to air the Accuracy in
Media documentary was made without pressure from the White House.
''We had been interested for a long time in finding a way to do
letters to the editor on television,'' said Barry Chase, the vice
president for news and public affairs at PBS in Washington.
''It wasn't so much that we picked the AIM program but that it
picked us,'' he explained. ''In public television, we just don't have
the resources'' to show responses from all points of view, Chase
said, and when Accuracy in Media came along with a film already
prepared, it offered an interesting opportunity for PBS to present
viewer response.
But Richard Ellison, the executive producer of the original Vietnam
series on PBS, which was made at WGBH in Boston, expressed skepticism
of Chase's explanation.
''I can't prove it, but I suspect there was political pressure from
the administration,'' Ellison said. ''There is a strong right-wing
climate in the country, and these people may have been susceptible.''
He pointed to what he contended were two indications of pressure.
One was that the Accuracy in Media film was partly financed by a
special $30,000 grant from William Bennett, then the chairman of the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Bennett, who has since been
appointed secretary of education by President Reagan, has said he
made the award out of an emergency fund he controlled without going
through the endowment's council.
The endowment, before Bennett's term, had provided $1.2 million for
the 13-hour PBS series on Vietnam, its largest source of funds.
Ellison also pointed out that last December, while PBS officials in
Washington were debating whether to show the Accuracy in Media film,
Bruce Christensen, the president of PBS, received an invitation on
White House stationary to attend ''a briefing and special showing''
of the program. Christensen declined the invitation, which was sent
out by Faith Whittlesey, assistant to the president for public
liaison.
A White House official said the screening was one of several it has
done for films that underscore Reagan's policies. Others were ''The
Silent Scream,'' an anti-abortion documentary, and a forthcoming
movie on the Miskito Indians' fight against the Sandinistas in
Nicaragua.
''I think this is a very serious matter,'' said Ellison. ''It is
going to have a chilling effect on what public television does.''
Ellison is now working on a 10-hour series on the Soviet Union for
WGBH in Boston, in conjunction with the Harriman Institute at
Columbia University, and he is concerned about possible interference
by right-wing groups.
Ellison at first refused to participate in the other hour of the
two-hour, June 26 program, ''Vietnam Op-Ed: An Inside Story.'' But he
later changed his mind and agreed to be interviewed after realizing,
he said, that ''PBS has given the AIM film respectability by putting
it on the air and I couldn't just let it go unanswered.''
But Stanley Karnow, who wrote the script for the Vietnam series as
well as the best-selling book that accompanied it, ''Vietnam: A
History,'' has refused to appear. ''This is a free country,'' Karnow
said, and Reed Irvine, the head of Accuracy in Media, ''can do
whatever he wants.''
''But the question is, why is PBS putting on an extremely one-sided
view,'' Karnow continued. ''There's plenty of room for debate about
Vietnam, so why pick a right-wing lobby group instead of a panel of
historians to discuss the series?''
''It's a dangerous precedent,'' he asserted. ''Is PBS going to let
AIM or any other group respond whenever they have a complaint?''
To insure journalistic balance and rebut criticisms by Karnow and
Ellison, Ned Schnurman, the producer of the overall, two-hour PBS
program and the former producer of the PBS series ''Inside Story,''
is planning a 20-minute introduction to the Accuracy in Media film he
is preparing. He says he hopes that this, in addition to the
interviews and panel debate after the documentary, ''will clear up
the rumors that PBS caved in to political pressure.''
But Schnurman believes the program is an important experiment
''which can also clear up the feeling among many Americans that the
media is unresponsive.''
He wants to focus on three criticisms of the Vietnam series raised
by the Accuracy in Media film: that it made Ho Chi Minh out to be a
Jeffersonian democrat rather than a hardened Communist, that it
suggested many American G.I.s were drug addicts or psychopaths, and
that it made the South Vietnamese all look like prostitutes, cowards
or black marketeers.
Among the participants in the panel discussion are to be Irvine,
the head of Accuracy in Media, Richard Salant, the former president
of CBS News, Col. Harry Summers, an Army historian, Huynh Sonh Thong,
who directs Yale University's Southeast Asian refugee project, and
Lawrence W. Lichty, a journalism professor at the University of
Maryland who helped put together the archival film used in the
Vietnam series.
Lichty contends the Accuracy in Media program is ''a piece of
propaganda'' and says it is hard to answer the film's charges because
most of them are matters of opinion, not fact.
But critics of the Accuracy in Media film concede that Heston lends
the film credibility.
Otherwise, much of it is what television producers call talking
heads, a series of interviews with historians, former American
diplomats in Vietnam, Summers and a South Vietnamese professor. Some
of the points they raise may seem esoteric to viewers not steeped in
Vietnamese history, such as a debate over who was responsible for an
anti-French uprising in 1930.
Interspersed with the interviews and Heston's sonorous voice is
some archival footage from Vietnam, the most arresting of which
includes shots of Jane Fonda on her much-publicized trip to Hanoi in
1972. Looking like a young girl, Miss Fonda is shown joking with
North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners who are scanning the sky for
American planes.
Unlike the PBS series on Vietnam, which forsook an emotive musical
score to try to keep an even tone, the Accuracy in Media film
dramatizes its points with music.
nyt-06-12-85 2213edt
***************
∂12-Jun-85 2149 JMC re: Support Senate Bill 329 (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - MRC seems to think I am committed to agree with Nixon. Actually
I think it was Congress rather than any President that set the speed
limit and did it in a way contrary to the spirit of the Constitution
that reserves police powers to the states - namely by tying enacting
a 55 mph speed limit to the receipt of Federal highway funds.
∂12-Jun-85 2214 JMC WAITS to TEX conversion
To: LES
Take a look at WAITEX.PUB[LET,JMC]. Could you make the rest of the
pubisms to turn off what has to be turned off and to give it an output
format?
∂12-Jun-85 2227 JMC (→17253 30-Jun-85)
To: "#___JMC.PLN[2,2]"
I will be in Japan June 14-23, mostly at Shiba Park Hotel in Tokyo.
From June-23 to June 30, I will be in Alaska, exactly where undecided.
On June 30, I will return.
∂12-Jun-85 2351 JMC
To: RA
Please try to find a letter from J. W. Lloyd and remind me to write.
∂13-Jun-85 1006 JMC schedule today
To: RA
I have exams in the morning and a faculty senate meeting from 3:15pm.
Between 1pm and 3pm, I need to do several things.
∂13-Jun-85 1316 JMC re: Shapiro's visit
To: YAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Thu 13 Jun 85 12:46:27-PDT.]
The only day near IJCAI for which I'm tied up is te 28th of August.
∂13-Jun-85 2053 JMC visit to Japan
To: hplabs!kddlab!nttmecl!ccut!a1458@UCB-VAX.ARPA
Thanks for your offer of help. I will be in Japan from Saturday June 15
to June 23 staying, at least initially, in the Shiba Park Hotel in Tokyo.
I would like to visit you and your advice in finding other people with
whom I would have mutual interests. I have a new paper on circumscription
- slightly modified from the one I gave at the non-monotonic reasoning
workshop at Lake Mohonk, New York. As you know my biggest interest is
formalizing common sense knowledge and reasoning, so if you know of any
people in Japan working on that I would like to meet them. In particular,
has ICOT got started on that yet? We also have a project getting started
for a parallel queue-based Lisp. I'm not yet sure which days I am already
committed.
∂13-Jun-85 2142 JMC re: Prof. Leo Goodman
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 11-Jun-85 09:24-PT.]
Please apologize for me to Professor Leo Goodman, CASBS (Center for
Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences) or 321-8052. Because
of my trip, I will be unable to talk to him or his son until I
return.
∂13-Jun-85 2148 JMC next visit
To: ai.woody@MCC.ARPA, ai.lenat@MCC.ARPA
My committed days in July are the 18th, 26th and 30th. I would like to
make my next visit at a time convenient to you both. I will return
June 30 from my trip to Japan and Alaska.
∂14-Jun-85 0024 JMC
To: RA
Same as before except last digit is 7 instead of 5.
∂14-Jun-85 0928 JMC re: next visit
To: AI.LENAT@MCC.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 14 Jun 85 10:30:36-CDT.]
I'll reserve August 17.
∂14-Jun-85 0939 JMC re: Luck and smoking (from SAIL's BBOARD)
To: OTHER-SU-BBOARDS@SU-AI.ARPA
jmc - Self-righteousness is more dangerous than smoking.
∂14-Jun-85 0950 JMC leaf blowers
To: feigenbaum@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
It seems something was done - according to President Kennedy. Their
use has been restricted, and they have been banned completely from
the Inner Quad - not that that does you and me any good.
∂30-Jun-85 0003 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 in Japan June 14-23, mostly at Shiba Park Hotel in Tokyo.
From June-23 to June 30, I will be in Alaska, exactly where undecided.
On June 30, I will return.
∂30-Jun-85 0127 JMC udp
To: ME
I have a udp with some old files that I don't want destroyed and would
like to put on the file computer when that becomes a reasonable thing
to do.
∂30-Jun-85 0139 JMC re: next visit
To: AI.LENAT@MCC.ARPA, ai.woody@MCC.ARPA
[In reply to message from AI.LENAT@MCC.ARPA sent Fri 14 Jun 85 13:55:34-CDT.]
July 23-24 it is then.
∂30-Jun-85 0141 JMC re: leaf blowers
To: FEIGENBAUM@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Fri 14 Jun 85 12:49:27-PDT.]
I agree that they aren't sufficiently restricted but have done all
I presently intend to. Bruce Wiggin is the man to pressure with
Kennedy the backup.
∂30-Jun-85 0146 JMC
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
Aug 17 and 28 and ijcai are the only dates ruled out for me.
∂30-Jun-85 0147 JMC Talk
To: nilsson@SU-SCORE.ARPA
∂15-Jun-85 2220 udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA Talk
Received: from WISCVM.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 15 Jun 85 22:19:54 PDT
Received: from (UDI)WISDOM.BITNET by WISCVM.ARPA on 06/16/85 at
00:20:05 CDT
From: Ehud Shapiro <udi%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 85 08:16:07 -0200
To: jmc@su-ai.arpa
Subject: Talk
Dear John,
Would you like to schedule a talk for me during my visit at Stanford?
The preferred date is the beginning of the week after IJCAI,
Monday, August 26 or Tueday, August 27. The title of my
talk is:
"The Magic of Partial Evaluation,
or
Meta-interpreters for Real"
An abstract will follow.
Regards,
Ehud Shapiro
≠
∂30-Jun-85 0156 JMC reply to message
To: munnari!mulga.oz!jwl@SEISMO.ARPA
[In reply to message sent Tue, 18 Jun 85 18:15:18 EST.]
I have been abroad and got back tonight. Only Monday am is still
possible for me. Are you there and is that possible? If it is
I'll contact others.
∂30-Jun-85 0158 JMC re: Circuit from PA times
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 18-Jun-85 11:42-PT.]
Ray 774 1521 from Palo Alto times called to let you know that the circuit
ordered is ready.
I don't know what the above is about. Maybe it was for ME.
∂30-Jun-85 0201 JMC re: Fred Ris from IBM
To: RA
[In reply to message rcvd 21-Jun-85 15:07-PT.]
Tell Fred Ris ok.
∂30-Jun-85 1134 JMC
To: DAC
Here is the message I received. If you want to send Kessler a message,
you need to send it to
"kessler%utah-orion"@utah-cs.arpa
Our system needs the quotes in the address in order to not get confused.
PSL is Portable Standard Lisp.
∂25-Apr-85 1156 kessler%utah-orion@utah-cs Cray PSL and Bignums
Received: from UTAH-CS.ARPA by SU-AI.ARPA with TCP; 25 Apr 85 11:56:27 PST
Received: from utah-orion.ARPA by utah-cs.ARPA (4.42/4.40.2)
id AA24310; Thu, 25 Apr 85 12:56:42 MST
Received: by utah-orion.ARPA (4.42/4.40.2)
id AA23427; Thu, 25 Apr 85 12:56:38 MST
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 85 12:56:38 MST
From: kessler%utah-orion@utah-cs (Robert Kessler)
Message-Id: <8504251956.AA23427@utah-orion.ARPA>
To: JMC@su-ai.arpa
Subject: Cray PSL and Bignums
Yes it does (as of about a month ago). The livermore Cray just got
a copy this week (if that is which machine you are planning on using).
Bob.
∂30-Jun-85 1153 JMC
To: JMC
Chudnovsky factorization success
3↑124+1
17 sec on 3081 vs. 1.5 hours on Cray at Sandia