Ray E. Harrell
Wed, 13 Oct 1999 21:02:16 -0700
Sorry Keith But I'm just too busy doing those non-essentials, wish I had time to chat. As for the phones, have you read the recent environmental data on electric fields and cancer? REH Keith Hudson wrote: > Ray, > > I don't think this list has ever had a ban on attachments. When they > appear, it's either a case of thoughtlessness (usually by tyros) or sheer > bad manners. Sensible people never open attachments unless they know > precisely what's in them. When I had a new hard disc a week or two ago my > consultant took away my old one and found two viruses there which were > waiting to be activated. But there was no possibility that I'd ever open > the attachments that contained them. > > At 21:44 11/10/99 -0400, you wrote: > >I believe this list has ban on attachments. > > > >As for web sites, I rarely look since I find the > >content is often more out of context than a dialogue on > >list. > > Oh, what a pity, Haven't you looked at mine? > > An attachment is to me, a footnote which may or > >may not be opened. I often do not open it if the > >person has convinced me that they are doctrinaire or > >predictable in their answers. I make a distinction > >between repetition and predictable because repetition > >can be quite surprising and interesting as the minimal > >soho composers like Reich and Glass have shown. > > Ah! I happen to think that they and many more like them are tricksters -- > the Emperor's new clothes and all that. They're not intentional tricksters, > of course, just misguided and befuddled people. They've been carried away > by their own disciplinary verbosity and snobbery like a very considerable > part of the musical, artistic and literature professions. These professions > have largely had their day. As self-conscious artforms, they've risen and > fallen in bell-shape fashion between about 1000 and 1850. Huge quantities > of music, art and literature will continue to be produced, of course, for > all sorts of occasions and consumer fashions, and there'll be many a > best-seller among them as they touch on something really sensitive in the > public domain, but there'll be nothing new in a technical sense. All the > great discoveries in their respective trades have already been discovered > (and surprisingly few of them -- as in economics, see below). > > >I also find that web sites often take so much energy that > >others don't converse much about their work. I don't even > >give out my web site since I think it is doctrinaire and is > >just plain unsuccessful. It just sits there like a lump with > >a couple of innocuous graphics. > > Well, why don't you make it interesting? If it's got something to offer, > people will find their way to it and news will also spread by word of > mouth. But I agree about Web sites in the main. Most of the Internet is > over-rated and most of it is a complete mess. Even now we haven't a decent > indexing system by which we can make our way dependably to any destination. > I don't think it will ever happen -- at least not for a very long time -- > because sales of the PC are now topping out in mature societies and will be > rapidly overtaken by the mobile phone in the next few years and, although > mobilers will be using the Internet, the devices will be of an easy-to-use, > programmable sort to be able to go to a small number of Web sites such as > shopping for groceries, job vacancies, ticket buying, video films, share > buying, and a few more specific uses, which is what the vast majority of > the public want. > > And, talking of mobile phones -- which, unlike music, is a field where lots > of develoments will occur in the coming years -- the evidence from the > Scandinavian countries is that almost everybody will buy one (Sweden > already has 93% adult coverage) and it's likely that most people will have > several specialist ones (my own business is loss-making now because we sell > only one score to each choir but is aiming towards the time when choral > singers will have hand-held music readers into which they'll be able to > download any music they want -- and then we'll be selling to individuals > again). > > Ray might well ask me: "Well, if you think music has finished developing, > what are you doing publishing music?". To which I reply: "Ah, but choral > and community music will live on because our social instincts are far > deeper than what passes for music today -- the snobberies and artificial > social cachets of the concert hall or the opera house or the youthful > fashions of open-air raves. We have become individualised so much in the > course of this last half-century that there is bound to be a reversion to > community -- of which choral singing will be a part. > > Actually (I think I'd better return to the main purpose of this List or > else Sally or Arthur will tell me off), I think the mobile phone will > probably do more for jobs than anything else. Forget recent economic > theories (often self-contradictory), government policies and other > panaceas. What will do more for jobs than anything else will be accessible > databases of job vacancies. > > I'm tempted to go on to say that the main planks of economic theory have > already been laid by Smith, Ricardo, etc (e.g. specialisation, comparative > advantage, etc -- a very small number of radical discoveries just as in the > arts). What's necessary now is getting rid of protective practices in > education/skill training on the one hand, and the knowledge of job > vacancies on the other. The mobile phone will take care of the latter, > though the former, like trade protection generally, will still take > generations to reform, I'm afraid. > > Keith > > > > >Just a thought, > > > >Ray Evans Harrell > > > > > >Christoph Reuss wrote: > > > >> > So I would say make more and better attachments! > >> > >> REH, no point in argueing about this: Sending attachments to a list > >> violates the official Netiquette, is a waste of bandwidth and > >> clutters up the harddisks of hundreds of users, many of which > >> can't decode the attachment anyway and/or don't even have a > >> clue how to locate/delete the clutter from their harddisk. > >> > >> If someone *needs* to visualize content, then put it on a website and > >> send the URL to the list. > >> > >> Chris > > > > > > > > > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > > Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com > 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England > Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > ________________________________________________________________________