RE: On the topic of atheism.

[Ritu]

Robert Seeberger wrote:

 OK!
 That's fair then.
 I urge everyone (who cares about the subject) to provide some sort of
 justification for their beliefs.

Without getting into the details of my beliefs or how they have changed
and enlarged over the years, I'll start with stating that I believe in
the existence of God. Organised religion has always seemed like too much
work to me but the notion of God is one which I enjoy.
And that is the only justification I have ever been able to come up with
for my belief: I *enjoy* the notion and, therefore, I have adopted it.

It seems to me that everything else just boils down to this one fact.
There have been times when I have felt the presence of God and there
have been times when I have seen Her in Her creation but looking back, I
have never been able to say for sure that my perceptions and my analysis
of them hadn't been coloured by what I *wish* to believe. There have
been recurring experiences that cannot be explained in terms of present
day science but that still doesn't necessitate the presence or existence
of God. The reason for these experiences, if it is ever found, may have
nothing to do with God.

Also, given two of the characteristics of human groups, i.e. a need for
order and a tendency towards chaos, it is easy to appreciate the
necessity which would anyway have given rise to such a notion,
regardless of the facts.

Still, I believe. And, as far as I can tell, the *only* reason I believe
in God is because I want to. I think it would be wonderful to have a
conscious entity which has all the answers to all the questions. From a
different point of view, I enjoy the idea of there being somebody who,
when looking upon the universe and all its myriad wonders, can lean back
in satisfaction and say, 'Now, *that* was well-designed, even if I say
so Myself'. 

Now if there were proof positive that God doesn't exist, I'd effect a
change in my belief system, although with regret. But as far as I know,
all we have is an absence of evidence. To interpret that as evidence of
absence seemed to require as much of a leap of faith as the belief in
God. And frankly, I have more fun with the latter [ I have same attitude
towards other issues, the existence of aliens, fr'ex]. Also, about the
only difference adopting the notion of god makes to my life is that some
people tend to think of me as a kook. That, imho, is insufficient reason
to give up an intriguing concept. At least that is what I decided at the
end of the 4-5 year period when I experimented with atheism and I still
feel the same way.

Ritu
GCU All Questions Are Welcome

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Re: Too much TV...

[Alberto Monteiro]

William T Goodall wrote:

So on Friday's  Buffy rerun, ep 3.12 'Helpless' Dominic Keating 
(Voyager) appeared as Blair, a Watcher's Council flunky who got killed. 
So that was amusing.

I never saw Buffy Season 3: Fox has re-run Seasons 1 e 2 twice this
year, and then they jump to Season 5 and 6.

BTW, who is Faith and when did she appear in the Series? Last
Angel episode (4.13) begins with Wesley getting Faith from Prison.

OTOH, shouldn't a new Slayer have been activated when Buffy
died at the end of Season 5?

And today's episode of _The Chronicle_ featured a Vampire Slayer
who hated this designation, preferring being called Vampire Hunter :-)

[the world in _The Chronicle_ is so similar to the Jossverse -
with vampires, demons, ghosts, spellcasters, aliens, etc - that I
can imagine that a crossover would be appropriate]

Alberto Monteiro I guess I am watching too much TV

PS: remember the predictions that I did in the chat room, regarding
future events in _Buffy_ and _Alias_? The first happened in Ep 7.12,
the latter was strongly suggested in Ep 2.18]. Yes, I am watching too 
much TV...


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Re: Irregulars query: air pressure in spinning habitats

[Robert J. Chassell]

Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote

If R=5km, m=4.85e-26, g=9.8, k=1.381e-23, T=300, and we note that
h must be in km, then

   P/P0 = exp[ -0.115 h ] exp[ +1.15e-2 h^2 ] ,  h in km, R=5km, h = R

For Rama, with R=8km,

   P/P0 = exp[ -0.115 h ] exp[ +7.17e-3 h^2 ] ,  h in km, R=8km, h = R

For the earth, the equivalent formula is quite similar (as David
predicted)

   P/P0 = exp[ -0.115 h ] exp[ +1.81e-5 h^2] ,  h in km, h/6370 is small

Using these corrected formulae, my calculations for the pressures are
as follows.  On Rama, the surface (i.e., rim) pressure comes to 462
mb, which is thin but doable.  This is good.

The main problem is that the pressures calculated for Earth disagree
with the figures I have for a pilot's standard atmosphere.  In areas
without clouds, the earth's actual atmosphere is best represented by a
dry adiabatic lapse rate, which gives a higher pressure than the
values calculated using Erik's formula.

At what altitude to clouds form in a spinning space habitat?  Presume
it is built for humans' comfort.  This means

The surface (i.e., rim) acceleration is 10 m/s^2, 
the pressure is one bar,
the temperature is 20 degrees Celsius, and 
the relative humidity is 50%.

Under these conditions on earth, the dewpoint is 10 degrees Celsius
(using the usual rule of thumb of a drop of 10 degrees being a
decrease of half in relative humidity; a detailed calculation done
using the calculator provided by 

http://nimbo.wrh.noaa.gov/greatfalls/atmcalc.html

gives a dewpoint of 9.3 degrees Celsius and a wetbulb temperature of
13.9 degrees Celsius; but let's assume a dewpoint of 10 degrees).

With the usual assumptions of a dewpoint/temperature convergence of
8.2 or 8 deg C per km, the cloud bases occur at 1.2 km to 1.25 km or
about 4000 feet altitude.

Under the equivalent conditions, at what altitude do cloud bases occur
in a spinning space habitat?


Here calculations without the temperature information:

For a 5 km spinning space habitat

[This is the Emacs Lisp function I used.  You can check the numbers.
I evaluate it in my mail buffer and then add table headers and such.]

(mapconcat
  '(lambda (h)
 Calculate air pressures in a spinning space habitat, radius 5 km
 (format %f \n
 (let ((e 2.718181828))
(* (expt e (* -0.115 h)) (expt e (* 0.0115 (* h h)))
  '(0 1 2 3 4 5)  )

   Pressure
   Altitude ratio

0.0 km  1.00rim (i.e., `surface')
1.0 0.90
2.0 0.83
3.0 0.79
4.0 0.79
5.0 0.75central spin axis


For Rama

(mapconcat
  '(lambda (h)
 Calculate air pressures in Rama, radius 8 km
 (format %f \n
 (let ((e 2.718181828))
(* (expt e (* -0.115 h)) (expt e (* 0.00717 (* h h)))
  '(0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8)  )

   Pressure  Pressure  Calculated pressure
   Altitude ratiogiven in
   book
0.0 km  1.000   462 mbrim (i.e., `surface')
1.0 0.898   415
2.0 0.818   378
3.0 0.755   349
4.0 0.708   327
5.0 0.673   311
6.0 0.649  300 mb   300
7.0 0.635   294
8.0 0.631   291   central spin axis

(Calculated pressure is 462 times Pressure-ratio)

for Earth

(mapconcat
  '(lambda (h)
 Calculate air pressures on Earth
 (format %f \n
 (let ((e 2.718181828))
(* (expt e (* -0.115 h)) (expt e (* 0.181 (* h h)))
  '(0 1 2 3 4 5 5.5 6 7 8)  )

   PressureStandard
   Altitude ratio  atm (from one or other FAA handbook)

0.0 km  1.001013 mb   Earth's surface
1.0 0.89 980
2.0 0.79 760
3.0 0.71 700
4.0 0.63
5.0 0.56
5.5 0.53 500
6.0 0.50
7.0 0.45
8.0 0.40

-- 
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com  GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Irregulars query: air pressure in spinning habitats

[Erik Reuter]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 10:23:53AM +, Robert J. Chassell wrote:

 The main problem is that the pressures calculated for Earth disagree
 with the figures I have for a pilot's standard atmosphere.  In areas
 without clouds, the earth's actual atmosphere is best represented by
 a dry adiabatic lapse rate, which gives a higher pressure than the
 values calculated using Erik's formula.

For earth, that is not just my formula -- as I said, one of my
textbooks gives

p/p0 = exp[ -h/hc]

and they do a curve fit to experimental data to find that hc = 8.5km.
And they show a graph of curve fit and experimental data, and the fit
looks pretty good.

You don't say how much lower the formula is compared to the data you
are looking at. The curve fit in my textbook looks to have less than 5%
error, and it may be better than that (it is hard to read the graph very
precisely). What accuracy were you expecting?

 Under these conditions on earth, the dewpoint is 10 degrees Celsius
 (using the usual rule of thumb of a drop of 10 degrees being a
 decrease of half in relative humidity; a detailed calculation done
 using the calculator provided by

 http://nimbo.wrh.noaa.gov/greatfalls/atmcalc.html

 gives a dewpoint of 9.3 degrees Celsius and a wetbulb temperature of
 13.9 degrees Celsius; but let's assume a dewpoint of 10 degrees).

 With the usual assumptions of a dewpoint/temperature convergence of
 8.2 or 8 deg C per km, the cloud bases occur at 1.2 km to 1.25 km or
 about 4000 feet altitude.

That link doesn't give any formulas. I looked at the Javascript and
it is full of magic numbers. I'm not sure how those algorithms were
derived, but they certainly do not appear to be straightforward physical
formulas. With such a complicated system, so much depends on the
assumptions and approximations that are made. This is not fundamental
physics -- it is a highly applied branch of science. If you don't make
assumptions that are valid for the system being modeled, the results
will be nonsense. Not having studied atmospheric science myself, I don't
know the assumptions that were made to come up with these results. Do
you?

PressureStandard
Altitude ratio  atm (from one or other FAA handbook)
 
 0.0 km  1.001013 mb   Earth's surface
 1.0 0.89 980
 2.0 0.79 760
 3.0 0.71 700
 4.0 0.63
 5.0 0.56
 5.5 0.53 500
 6.0 0.50
 7.0 0.45
 8.0 0.40
 

Above one km, it seems the error is less than 5%. I consider that not
too bad given the simplicity of the formula and assumptions that were
used, compared to the actual atmosphere. Is it surprising to you that
the formula is a little off (10%) near the surface?  I can think of many
reasons why the assumptions made in deriving the formula don't hold
exactly near the surface.

It seems to me that you are expecting to calculate all of these
parameters from first principles of physics, but it also appears to me
that the actual numbers used in practice that you quote are not derived
from fundamental physics alone, but also have some phenomenological
constants (fudge factors) included to make the formulas better fit
actual measured data. This is not unusual when modeling such a complex
system.  Of course, it makes it difficult to calculate the corresponding
values for a habitat, since we don't have any experimental data to fit
to.


-- 
Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED]   http://www.erikreuter.net/
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LXG (no spoilers)

[TomFODW]

Well...there are a _few_ semi-spoilers at the end.

I was very disappointed with this movie. I thought it was surprisingly poorly 
made - the cinematography was dim and blurred, the editing was choppy, the 
action sequences were staged in a way that you could not actually see what 
people were doing, there were huge gaps in the narrative, at times you could 
understand what people were saying, and the story made very little sense. Also, a 
lot of the larger scale outdoor scenes looked fake, as if purposely supposed to 
appear like paintings or sketches rather than an attempt to at least fool you 
into thinking it was real. Maybe that was intentional, to emphasize the comic 
book origins?

For a movie these days to look and sound bad is an amazing and dubious 
achievement.

There was some entertainment value in the movie, but I just did not find it 
as enjoyable as I had been hoping. I do not expect it will do very well.

For one thing, a summer movie needs to appeal to younger people. And among 
them, who the hell has ever even HEARD of any of the characters in this movie? 
(Heck, how many ADULTS know who Allan Quartermain, Captain Nemo, Dorian Gray, 
Mina Harker, and even Tom Sawyer are?) If you stopped 100 twenty-year-olds and 
asked them to identify Allan Quartermain, I bet not even a single one could 
tell you who he was. 

I loved the LXG comic book, I think it was a grand conceit; I think the movie 
is a huge letdown.


Spoilers (of a sort; some are more like nitpicks):










What is the fascination this summer with Mongolia? Charlie's Angels: Full 
Throttle opens up in Mongolia for no reason that makes sense, and LXG concludes 
in Mongolia for no reason that makes sense. You're manufacturing all these 
super arms - why in Mongolia? How the hell could you even build that factory 
there? How the hell are you going to get all those tanks back to Europe? I didn't 
see any roads in the snow leading to/from the fortress. Put the damn thing in 
Africa or Asia Minor or Eastern Europe. Makes a whole hell of a lot more sense.

And where did all those scientists come from? They are never mentioned at any 
previous point in the film. Were there even that many scientists in the world 
in 1899? Okay, I know this isn't our world, but still.

How can Nautilus move through the canals of Venice? The thing's as big as a 
city block. When it surfaces right next to the dock in London, it should blow 
right through the wooden planks. It should swamp anything near it. 

How does the invisible man send telegraph signals from the little scout ship 
back to Nautilus without being detected? And how does he survive on that ship 
for the days it takes it to get from Venice to Mongolia? How does an invisible 
man eat - and, more importantly, go to the bathroom?

How can a vampire stand in the sunlight and not burst into flames? And what's 
the deal between her and Dorian Gray? Some backstory is implied but seems to 
have been edited out.

Seeing Mr Hyde suddenly turn out to be a rather okay guy is kind of silly. If 
Jekyll can control him - why didn't he do so earlier?



Tom Beck

www.prydonians.org
www.mercerjewishsingles.org

I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the 
last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle
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Re: Reading lists.

[Ray Ludenia]

Julia Thompson

 I also avoid the Barbie aisle in the toy department.  (And yes, I intend
 to continue this when my daughter is 5, and she will live a life
 deprived of Barbie, and she'll just have to *deal*, the way I did, and I
 don't think it hurt me in the long run.)

I have known a number of parents who said this. It is a difficult task you
have set yourself! I wish you more success than most of these parents
had. :-)

Regards, Ray.

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Re: Too much TV...

[William T Goodall]

On Monday, July 14, 2003, at 02:11  am, Alberto Monteiro wrote:

William T Goodall wrote:
So on Friday's  Buffy rerun, ep 3.12 'Helpless' Dominic Keating
(Voyager) appeared as Blair, a Watcher's Council flunky who got 
killed.
So that was amusing.

I never saw Buffy Season 3: Fox has re-run Seasons 1 e 2 twice this
year, and then they jump to Season 5 and 6.
S
P
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Season 3 is one of the best, you'll enjoy it when you get to see it.


BTW, who is Faith and when did she appear in the Series? Last
Angel episode (4.13) begins with Wesley getting Faith from Prison.
Faith is the Slayer called after Kendra the Vampire Slayer gets killed 
in episode 2.21 'Becoming' Part I  . Kendra being the Slayer called 
after Buffy dies at the end of season 1 and is resuscitated by Xander.

Faith arrives in season 3 of Buffy. She also appears in some later 
Buffy seasons, and in important crossovers with Angel. And that's 
enough about that...

OTOH, shouldn't a new Slayer have been activated when Buffy
died at the end of Season 5?
Apparently the line passes from Kendra to Faith. Since Buffy has 
already died before, nothing happens when she dies again.

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs.  -- Robert Firth
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Buffy/Angel [was: Too much TV...]

[Alberto Monteiro]

 S 
 P 
 O 
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 P 
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 BTW, who is Faith and when did she appear in the Series? 
 Last Angel episode (4.13) begins with Wesley getting 
 Faith from Prison. 
  
 Faith is the Slayer called after Kendra the Vampire Slayer 
 gets killed in episode 2.21 'Becoming' Part I  .  
 
They translated the title to Metamorphosis [!!!].  
 
 Kendra being the Slayer called  
 after Buffy dies at the end of season 1 and is resuscitated 
 by Xander. 
  
 Faith arrives in season 3 of Buffy. She also appears in 
 some later Buffy seasons, and in important crossovers 
 with Angel. And that's enough about that... 
  
Is she the girl that Angel visits at the end of Episode 2.01? 
He goes to prison to visit a girl, I thought she was a 
vampire, but she had a reflex in the prison mirror that 
separated her from Angel. 
 
  
 Apparently the line passes from Kendra to Faith. Since Buffy has  
 already died before, nothing happens when she dies again. 
  
Then we must hope that Faith dies so that Dawn becomes 
a Slayer? O:-) 
 
Alberto Monteiro 
 
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Re: Buffy/Angel [was: Too much TV...]

[William T Goodall]

On Monday, July 14, 2003, at 02:55  pm, Alberto Monteiro wrote:

S
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BTW, who is Faith and when did she appear in the Series?
Last Angel episode (4.13) begins with Wesley getting
Faith from Prison.
Faith is the Slayer called after Kendra the Vampire Slayer
gets killed in episode 2.21 'Becoming' Part I  .
They translated the title to Metamorphosis [!!!].

Kendra being the Slayer called
after Buffy dies at the end of season 1 and is resuscitated
by Xander.
Faith arrives in season 3 of Buffy. She also appears in
some later Buffy seasons, and in important crossovers
with Angel. And that's enough about that...
Is she the girl that Angel visits at the end of Episode 2.01?
He goes to prison to visit a girl, I thought she was a
vampire, but she had a reflex in the prison mirror that
separated her from Angel.
Yes, that was Faith.


Apparently the line passes from Kendra to Faith. Since Buffy has
already died before, nothing happens when she dies again.
Then we must hope that Faith dies so that Dawn becomes
a Slayer? O:-)
Alberto Monteiro

You'll just have to wait and see what happens :)

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in
Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me 
-- you can't get fooled again.
 -George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 
17, 2002

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Re: Brin: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy

[Robert J. Chassell]

Recently, Clay Shirky wrote an essay on how to create and maintain
long-lived groups among people who communicate with each other
electronically.  Interestingly, although Shirky does not say so
specifically, his main focus parallels that of David Brin, who wrote
an essay on disputation arenas.

Shirky focuses on groups:  how to enhance their success and longevity.
Brin focuses on civilization: how to gain from the Internet a benefit
as great as those we have harvested from four marvels of our age --
science, democracy, the justice system, and fair markets.

For both, a key underlying theme is that members of a group must be
accountable.

Shirky's essay is called, A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy

http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

and Brin's essay is called Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict
and Competition for Society's Benefit

http://www.davidbrin.com/disputationarticle1.html

First, I will try to summarize Shirky's thesis, then Brin's.

By `groups', Shirky means many-to-many two-way conversations, not the
one-to-many action of broadcasters or the one-person-to-one-person
two-way action of a telephone conversation.  (He says that telephone
`conference calls' do not work well.  This is my experience, too.)

Shirky's thesis is that people in groups must develop reputations, be
rewarded for doing well, be freed from exploitation, and be given
enough time to converse.

Shirky points out that with computers, we enjoy a new technology:

Prior to the Internet, the last technology that had any real
effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the
table.

Shirky goes on to say,

... if you are going to create a piece of social software designed
to support large groups, you have to accept three things, and
design for four things.

The three items you need to accept are a part of the universe, like
gravity.  You cannot avoid them.  You can start out be ignoring them
or by pretending they are not issues, but they will catch up with you,
just as gravity does.

The three characteristics of long-lived group interaction are:

  * First, you cannot completely separate technical and social issues.

As Winston Churchill once said of the Houses of Parliament, `we
shape our buildings and our buildings shape us.'  People choose
which tools to provide and use; and in turn those tools enable or
prevent the system from working well; and lead the members of a
group to want to defend or gain more use of the tools, or not.

Shirky gives as an example, a bulletin board system called
Communitree that was started in the 1970s.  It was founded ... on
the principles of open access and free dialogue.  At first it
worked fine.  But then some boys started causing trouble and the
people who had set up Communitree could not ... defend themselves
against their own users.

As Shirky says,

... you could ask whether or not the founders' inability to
defend themselves ... was a technical or a social problem.
Did the software not allow the problem to be solved?  Or was
it the social configuration of the group that founded it ...?
... in a way, it doesn't matter 

  * Second, some members of a group will emerge who care more about
the group more than the average member.

If the tools are available, these members will take care of the
group and ensure its continuation.  If the tools are not
available, those whose actions destroy the group will succeed.

Shirky points out that the core group in Communitree, the bulletin
board founded in the 1970s,

... was undifferentiated from the group of random users that
came in. They were separate in their own minds, because they
knew what they wanted to do, but they couldn't defend
themselves against the other users.

Shirky then goes on to say,

But in all successful online communities that I've looked at,
a core group arises that cares about and gardens effectively.

  * Third, the core group has rights that trump individual rights in
some situations.

This goes against the libertarian view that is quite common and
against the principle that one person should have one vote, with
no entrance requirements.  But if you do not prevent some people
from destroying a group, they will destroy it.

For example, Shirky talks about a proposal in the early 1990s to
create a Usenet news group for discussing Tibetan culture.  The
proposal was voted down.  In large part, this was because many in
or from mainland China did not consider Tibet a country, but
simply another region of China.  So, since Tibet was not a
country, it did not need a news group for discussing its culture.

As Shirky says,

... because the one person/one vote model on Usenet said
Anyone who's on Usenet gets to vote on any group,
sufficiently contentious 

Re: Reading lists.

[Bryon Daly]

Julia Thompson wrote:
I also avoid the Barbie aisle in the toy department.  (And yes, I intend
to continue this when my daughter is 5, and she will live a life
deprived of Barbie, and she'll just have to *deal*, the way I did, and I
don't think it hurt me in the long run.)
I never paid much attention to Barbie issues, but I suddenly realize I have 
a daughter now who will likely one day be wanting a host of Barbie dolls, 
Barbie beach houses, Barbie Corvettes, etc.  So I'm curious, why do you wish 
to deprive your daughter of all things Barbie? I take it your parents didn't 
let you have Barbie dolls, either?  Were you traumatized at the time?

-bryon

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Brin: movie ripoffs.

[d.brin]

My friend Paul Preuss probably won't be suing the guys who made THE 
CORE.  Still, the possibility glimmers as we stack up comparisons and 
things stolen from his book CORE.  (Oh, and several scenes and thing 
clearly borrowed from EARTH.)

It makes me wonder if someone sometime should set up a whistleblower 
site - akin to some of the urban legends sites - that simply posts 
point by point comparisons between movies and books.  Do any of you 
know of such a site already in existence?

A comparison is below.  WOuld any of you care to hunt up Paul's book 
and do your own comparison?

db





=

Comparing Core, a 1993 novel by Paul Preuss, with The Core, a 
Paramount picture released in April 2003, Directed by Jon Amiel, 
Produced by David Foster, screenplay by Cooper Layne et al.

In both the novel and the movie, Earth faces sudden peril because of 
an extraordinarily quick collapse of the planet's magnetic field.

In both book and film, plucky scientists propose to penetrate deep 
into Earth's core, setting off bombs in the core to restart the 
field-generating dynamo.

In both book and film, a hermit-like innovator works alone to invent 
the superhard, refractory material essential to withstand the heat 
and pressure of the deep Earth.

In both the novel and the movie, nefarious government agencies spy on 
these efforts because of their schemes to use earthquakes as weapons.

The producers of the film chose to make the delivery system of their 
nuclear bombs a deep-diving ship carrying a human crew.  While this 
makes for colorful drama onscreen, the utter impossibility of the 
approach is a groaner that may have helped defeat the film at the box 
office. Preuss's novel is intended as plausible fiction and does not 
use a crewed vessel. Nevertheless the extrapolation from his deep 
drilling project is blatant.

Some specific points:

… The unnaturally rapid collapse of the Earth's magnetic field is 
original to the novel and copyrighted.

… A specific kind of hard, refractory material is original to the 
novel and copyrighted. The screenplay uses terms from the novel 
relating to this material, but takes them out of context and renders 
them senseless, indicating that the idea did not have a common, 
independent origin.

… The entire sequence of a dive into a deep trench in the Western 
Pacific, including underwater earthquakes, whale sightings, etc., was 
taken from the novel in a way that cannot plausibly have had a 
common, independent origin.

… The proposition that the Earth's collapsed magnetic field can be 
restored by setting off bombs in the liquid core is original to the 
novel and copyrighted.

… Both novel and screenplay have as subplots the military use of 
earthquakes as weapons; in both cases spies for the military are part 
of the drilling operations. (In both, the spies are even of Slavic 
origin!) This strains coincidence.



The producers of The Core appear to have attempted to spread out 
their borrowings in order to take the best ideas wherever they lie, 
and possibly to disperse any actionable similarities. Another blatant 
source of appropriated copyrighted material is described below.



Comparing Earth, a 1991 novel by David Brin, with The Core, a 
screenplay by Cooper Layne et al.

This novel and the movie share the notion of the planet's core 
becoming a threat because of human meddling.

In the Preuss novel, the initial calamity was natural.  In the Brin 
novel, and in the movie The Core, catastrophe was triggered by a 
human-made object dropped deep into the Earth, requiring human 
intervention to correct and eliminate the first cause.

There are variances in The Core between the initial script, the 
released version of the film, and the story told by publicity 
previews, but all three are relevant. Previews tell of a mission to 
eliminate the deep manmade object object causing disaster on the 
surface.

The most blatant borrowing from Earth is a pivotal dramatic sequence, 
early in both the book and the movie, in which a woman space-shuttle 
pilot, pondering her failed marriage, must suddenly turn her 
attention to saving her ship after the vessel is crippled by the beam 
or field of influence of some human-triggered calamity in the core of 
the planet. Every last detail mentioned in the previous sentence is 
specific to the novel and copyrighted. Every detail appears 
miraculously in the script of The Core.

Also overlapping is the shuttle pilot's subsequent role as the 
co-protagonist, co-survivor, and love interest of the male scientist 
lead.

The novel Earth partly involves the unprecedented and innovative idea 
of interacting with the planet on the level of software.  In 
publicity for The Core - though not in the released version of the 
film - a character relates that he is going to computer-hack the 
Earth.

Other overlaps with Earth include the theme, at the end of both the 
novel and the movie, of fighting the fallacy of government secrecy by 

Re: Reading lists.

[Julia Thompson]

Ray Ludenia wrote:
 
 Julia Thompson
 
  I also avoid the Barbie aisle in the toy department.  (And yes, I intend
  to continue this when my daughter is 5, and she will live a life
  deprived of Barbie, and she'll just have to *deal*, the way I did, and I
  don't think it hurt me in the long run.)
 
 I have known a number of parents who said this. It is a difficult task you
 have set yourself! I wish you more success than most of these parents
 had. :-)

My mother managed it.  Dan is of the same opinion regarding Barbie
dolls.  It'll be a little tough around some of the relatives (one of
Dan's cousins wife in particular) but we'll do our best.  My mother
won't be a problem; getting the point across to Dan's mother may not so
easy.  We'll see.

Julia

whose mother refused to support a doll in a lifestyle that she couldn't
afford for herself
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RE: The limits of vision

[Chad Cooper]

I thought that they got some of it right. I found this part most funny:

The purpose of this improved Zworykin-Von Neumann automaton is to predict
the weather with an accuracy unattainable before 1980. It is a combination
of calculating machine and forecaster. The calculator solves thousands of
separate equations in a minute; 

Now that's funny. We do billions per sec, and it still is not enough. You
can buy 7 Teraflops out of the box, and its still not enough to accurately
predict weather.


the automatic forecaster carries out the computer's instructions and
predicts the weather from hour to hour. In 1950, 
meteorologists had no time to deal with the 50-odd variables that should
have been mathematically handled to predict the 
weather 24 hours in advance.

50-odd variables funny!


Following suggestions made by Zworykin and Von Neumann storms are more or
less under control. It is easy enough to spot a 
budding hurricane in the doldrums off the coast of Africa. Before it has a
chance to gather much strength and speed as it 
travels westward toward Florida, oil is spread over the sea and ignited.

Yeah, like that would be allowed. The 50's seemed to lack any sort of idea
about environmentalism.


There is an updraft. Air from the surrounding region, which includes the
developing hurricane, rushes in to fill the void.  The rising air condenses
so that some of the water in the whirling mass falls as rain.

That would have to be one big damn fire!


I found the reference to Orwell helicopter corporation a bit strange..
Orwell? Like George Orwell?

What we call robotic factories they call intelligence integrate industrial
production . I find this interesting because they seemed to lack the proper
language to describe robotic automation. They also mentioned using endless
punch cards to program the robotic process. 


and lastly, It takes no more than a minute to transmit and receive in
facsimile a five-page letter on paper of the usual business size. Cost? Five
cents.

Hehehe...  They never envisioned spam!

NFH


-Original Message-
From: Robert Seeberger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 1:32 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The limits of vision


http://architecture.mit.edu/house_n/web/resources/articles/life
inthefuture/MIRACLES%20OF%20THE%20NEXT%20FIFTY%20YEARS.htm

The year 200 as viewed from 1950



xponent
Almost Maru
rob


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Re: Reading lists.

[Alberto Monteiro]

Bryon Daly asked: 
 
 So I'm curious, why do you wish  
 to deprive your daughter of all things Barbie? 
 
Barbie is a white-supremacist doll :-) 
 
Alberto Monteiro 
 
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Re: Brin: movie ripoffs.

[Alberto Monteiro]

d.brin wrote: 
  
 My friend Paul Preuss probably won't be suing the guys 
 who made THE CORE.  Still, the possibility glimmers as 
 we stack up comparisons and things stolen from his 
 book CORE.  (Oh, and several scenes and thing  
 clearly borrowed from EARTH.) 
  
I think this can cause some problems. Copy from one 
is plagiarism, copy from many is research :-) 
 
They probably can claim that they were taking ideas 
from many books so they can escape being accused of 
stealing from only one. 
 
Alberto Monteiro 
 
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Re: Reading lists.

[Julia Thompson]

Bryon Daly wrote:
 
 Julia Thompson wrote:
 
 I also avoid the Barbie aisle in the toy department.  (And yes, I intend
 to continue this when my daughter is 5, and she will live a life
 deprived of Barbie, and she'll just have to *deal*, the way I did, and I
 don't think it hurt me in the long run.)
 
 I never paid much attention to Barbie issues, but I suddenly realize I have
 a daughter now who will likely one day be wanting a host of Barbie dolls,
 Barbie beach houses, Barbie Corvettes, etc.  So I'm curious, why do you wish
 to deprive your daughter of all things Barbie? I take it your parents didn't
 let you have Barbie dolls, either?  Were you traumatized at the time?

Not badly.  I ended up playing with Barbie dolls at other girls' houses,
and ended up thinking that it was stupid to have a whole ton of Barbie
stuff by the time I was 7 or 8.

One of my cousins had a bunch of Barbie stuff before she was 4.  My
mother, while visiting, looked at the catalog my aunt had for Barbie
stuff; my cousin had over $20 worth of clothing, etc. for her Barbie,
and this was around 1965.  And my cousin wasn't getting $20 worth of
enjoyment out of the stuff, or appreciating it.  That was when my mom
decided to eschew Barbie.  (That cousin is a few years older than I.) 
Another household with cousins of mine included a couple of girls, and
they didn't have very much in the way of Barbie stuff, if any, and they
seemed quite content with what they *did* have, which included a
furnished dollhouse with a doll family and electric lights that worked
(that someone, maybe their grandfather, had built for them).  (These
cousins were a little closer to me in age, but still older than I was.) 
And the cousins I saw the most often growing up were actually second
cousins, and they didn't have very many toys at all that I remember (but
the youngest was at least 3 years older than I was), but they were
really good at finding stuff outside to play with, and the oldest once
made a swing for my sister and myself, out of a board and a length of
rope, and tied it to a tree limb, and that was *really* cool.  So, as
far as my cousins went, the ones with the least stuff (especially the
least Barbie stuff) seemed to have the most fun.  (But they had more
dogs than any of the rest of my cousins, and a better place for riding
bikes, and a beach very close to their house, where they could get into
wet seaweed fights)

Julia
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Re: Reading lists.

[Alberto Monteiro]

Julia Thompson wrote: 
 
 My mother, while visiting, looked at the catalog my aunt 
 had for Barbie stuff; my cousin had over $20 worth of 
 clothing, etc. for her Barbie, 
 and this was around 1965. 
 
My daughter's Army of Barbies was bought when I could 
get them by US$1.99; now they are ten times that and 
br currency is 1/3 its value, so no more Barbies. 
 
Alberto Monteiro the near-bankrupt 
 
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RE: Reading lists.

[Horn, John]

 From: Alberto Monteiro [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 
 Bryon Daly asked: 
  
  So I'm curious, why do you wish  
  to deprive your daughter of all things Barbie? 
  
 Barbie is a white-supremacist doll :-) 

My daughter's army of Barbie includes quite a few multi-cultural Barbies.
Nita has made a point of trying to get them.

I really hate to think of the amount of money we've spent on Barbie's for
Laura.  Argh!

 - jmh
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Re: Brin: movie ripoffs.

[Jan Coffey]

--- d.brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 
 My friend Paul Preuss probably won't be suing the guys who made THE 
 CORE.  Still, the possibility glimmers as we stack up comparisons and 
 things stolen from his book CORE.  (Oh, and several scenes and thing 
 clearly borrowed from EARTH.)
 
 It makes me wonder if someone sometime should set up a whistleblower 
 site - akin to some of the urban legends sites - that simply posts 
 point by point comparisons between movies and books.  Do any of you 
 know of such a site already in existence?
 
 A comparison is below.  WOuld any of you care to hunt up Paul's book 
 and do your own comparison?
 
 db
 
 
 
 
 
 =
 
 Comparing Core, a 1993 novel by Paul Preuss, with The Core, a 
 Paramount picture released in April 2003, Directed by Jon Amiel, 
 Produced by David Foster, screenplay by Cooper Layne et al.
 
 
 In both the novel and the movie, Earth faces sudden peril because of 
 an extraordinarily quick collapse of the planet's magnetic field.
 
 In both book and film, plucky scientists propose to penetrate deep 
 into Earth's core, setting off bombs in the core to restart the 
 field-generating dynamo.
 
 In both book and film, a hermit-like innovator works alone to invent 
 the superhard, refractory material essential to withstand the heat 
 and pressure of the deep Earth.
 
 In both the novel and the movie, nefarious government agencies spy on 
 these efforts because of their schemes to use earthquakes as weapons.
 
 The producers of the film chose to make the delivery system of their 
 nuclear bombs a deep-diving ship carrying a human crew.  While this 
 makes for colorful drama onscreen, the utter impossibility of the 
 approach is a groaner that may have helped defeat the film at the box 
 office. Preuss's novel is intended as plausible fiction and does not 
 use a crewed vessel. Nevertheless the extrapolation from his deep 
 drilling project is blatant.
 
 
 Some specific points:
 
 … The unnaturally rapid collapse of the Earth's magnetic field is 
 original to the novel and copyrighted.
 
 … A specific kind of hard, refractory material is original to the 
 novel and copyrighted. The screenplay uses terms from the novel 
 relating to this material, but takes them out of context and renders 
 them senseless, indicating that the idea did not have a common, 
 independent origin.
 
 … The entire sequence of a dive into a deep trench in the Western 
 Pacific, including underwater earthquakes, whale sightings, etc., was 
 taken from the novel in a way that cannot plausibly have had a 
 common, independent origin.
 
 … The proposition that the Earth's collapsed magnetic field can be 
 restored by setting off bombs in the liquid core is original to the 
 novel and copyrighted.
 
 … Both novel and screenplay have as subplots the military use of 
 earthquakes as weapons; in both cases spies for the military are part 
 of the drilling operations. (In both, the spies are even of Slavic 
 origin!) This strains coincidence.
 
 
 
 The producers of The Core appear to have attempted to spread out 
 their borrowings in order to take the best ideas wherever they lie, 
 and possibly to disperse any actionable similarities. Another blatant 
 source of appropriated copyrighted material is described below.
 
 
 
 Comparing Earth, a 1991 novel by David Brin, with The Core, a 
 screenplay by Cooper Layne et al.
 
 This novel and the movie share the notion of the planet's core 
 becoming a threat because of human meddling.
 
 In the Preuss novel, the initial calamity was natural.  In the Brin 
 novel, and in the movie The Core, catastrophe was triggered by a 
 human-made object dropped deep into the Earth, requiring human 
 intervention to correct and eliminate the first cause.
 
 There are variances in The Core between the initial script, the 
 released version of the film, and the story told by publicity 
 previews, but all three are relevant. Previews tell of a mission to 
 eliminate the deep manmade object object causing disaster on the 
 surface.
 
 The most blatant borrowing from Earth is a pivotal dramatic sequence, 
 early in both the book and the movie, in which a woman space-shuttle 
 pilot, pondering her failed marriage, must suddenly turn her 
 attention to saving her ship after the vessel is crippled by the beam 
 or field of influence of some human-triggered calamity in the core of 
 the planet. Every last detail mentioned in the previous sentence is 
 specific to the novel and copyrighted. Every detail appears 
 miraculously in the script of The Core.
 
 Also overlapping is the shuttle pilot's subsequent role as the 
 co-protagonist, co-survivor, and love interest of the male scientist 
 lead.
 
 The novel Earth partly involves the unprecedented and innovative idea 
 of interacting with the planet on the level of software.  In 
 publicity for The Core - though not in the released version of the 
 film - a character relates that he is going to 

Re: Brin: movie ripoffs.

[Jan Coffey]

--- Alberto Monteiro [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 d.brin wrote: 
   
  My friend Paul Preuss probably won't be suing the guys 
  who made THE CORE.  Still, the possibility glimmers as 
  we stack up comparisons and things stolen from his 
  book CORE.  (Oh, and several scenes and thing  
  clearly borrowed from EARTH.) 
   
 I think this can cause some problems. Copy from one 
 is plagiarism, copy from many is research :-) 
  
 They probably can claim that they were taking ideas 
 from many books so they can escape being accused of 
 stealing from only one. 
  

Disny and WB would definatly sue if you made a cartoon about a mouse named
nicky and a bunny named biggs.

Or how about Alian Terminator a movie about a T-14 cybernetic unit sent
back through time to kill a woman before she could spawn an insect like alian
that was growing in her stomach. 

Marvel and DC would have a problem if you made a movie about Bat-gent and
Spider-boy 2 supper heroes that battle a ridieling clown and a goblin like
mutation, both dressed in green.

It's theft and something sould be done!

=
_
   Jan William Coffey
_

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Re: Too much TV...

[Jon Gabriel]

From: William T Goodall [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Brin-L [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Too much TV...
Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 01:23:34 +0100
...and not enough actors :)

So on Friday's  Buffy rerun, ep 3.12 'Helpless' Dominic Keating (Voyager)
Not Voyager.  He plays Malcolm on Enterprise.

Jon
GSV Nitpickers Anonymous


Le Blog:  http://zarq.livejournal.com

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Re: Too much TV...

[Alberto Monteiro]

Jon Gabriel wrote: 
 
 So on Friday's  Buffy rerun, ep 3.12 'Helpless' 
 Dominic Keating (Voyager) 
  
 Not Voyager.  He plays Malcolm on Enterprise. 
 
Enterprise::Malcolm also plays the Evil Overlord/Demon 
in a series whose name I don't remember, and that seems 
like a Highlander ripoff 
 
Alberto Monteiro I guess I am watching too much TV  
 
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Re: Too much TV...

[William T Goodall]

On Monday, July 14, 2003, at 09:28  pm, Alberto Monteiro wrote:

Jon Gabriel wrote:

So on Friday's  Buffy rerun, ep 3.12 'Helpless'
Dominic Keating (Voyager)

Not Voyager.  He plays Malcolm on Enterprise.
Just testing :)


Enterprise::Malcolm also plays the Evil Overlord/Demon
in a series whose name I don't remember, and that seems
like a Highlander ripoff
The Immortal. One season. Cancelled.

The TV series of Highlander seems to have been the graveyard for a few 
careers...

Alberto Monteiro I guess I am watching too much TV

Only if it's more than 24 hours/day...

--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs.  -- Robert Firth
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Re: LXG (no spoilers)

[Adam C. Lipscomb]

Tom wrote:


 Well...there are a _few_ semi-spoilers at the end.

*snip*

 I loved the LXG comic book, I think it was a grand conceit; I think
the movie
 is a huge letdown.


 Spoilers (of a sort; some are more like nitpicks):









The thing that's been bothering me is the Tom Sawyer thing - if Tom
Sawyer was in his teens before the Civil War, why is he so young in
1899?  Has he been cryogenically frozen or something?  Or is no
explanation given on the basis that no one really cares how old Tom
Sawyer should be?

Feh.  Might go see this when it hits the dollar theatre, but they've
already excised the elements from the comic that I found most
appealing, and I doubt I'll be able to divorce myself from the comic
enough to enjoy what's left.

Adam C. Lipscomb
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read the blog.  Love the blog.
http://aclipscomb.blogspot.com

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Re: Reading lists

[Julia Thompson]

Halupovich Ilana wrote:
 
 Joan Vinge - there is another book about Sparks and Moon - World's
 End. I read and liked Psion and Catspaw and I read somewhere that
 there is another book in those series called Psiren, but I was unable
 to find it.

_World's End_ goes between _Snow Queen_ and _Summer Queen_.  Not as epic
as the other two, but still reasonably good.

 Killashandra series - there are Killashandra, Crystal Singer and Crystal
 Line, but I don't remember the exact order, anyway, I saw them all in
 one book couple of years ago.

If it were all one book and a paperback at that, that would be a
reasonable price for the lot of them.  :)  (Crystal Singer was the first
book I bought myself that I paid more than $2.50 for -- it was $2.95.)

 And speaking of several books in one - Did anybody read Octavia Butler
 Lilith's Brood ?

Isn't that the Xenogenesis Trilogy, starting with _Dawn_, then
_Imago_, then _Adulthood Rites_?  I bought the individual books in
paperback awhile back, enjoyed them all, and got the compilation for my
sister for Christmas one year.  She really liked it.  (Once I got her to
actually read a Butler novel, she was all over them.  It's not very easy
to get her to read science fiction as opposed to fantasy)  I've
liked everything by Butler that I've read.

Julia
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Re: Gotta raise the BS flag on this one

[Reggie Bautista]

Tom Beck wrote:
Another ponderable is the fascination British sci-fi shows have with the 
Old
West. I can't think of a BritSF show that didn't try an oater (The
Gunfighters, Living in Harmony). Maybe Blakes 7 didn't; don't recall. 
Most of them
are stinkers. The only decent one is Red Dwarf's Gunfighters of the
Apocalypse.
I thought the one in The Prisoner was pretty good.  Was there a bad episode 
of The Prisoner?

Reggie Bautista

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Re: Reading lists.

[Russell Chapman]

Bryon Daly wrote:

I never paid much attention to Barbie issues, but I suddenly realize I 
have a daughter now who will likely one day be wanting a host of 
Barbie dolls, Barbie beach houses, Barbie Corvettes, etc.  So I'm 
curious, why do you wish to deprive your daughter of all things 
Barbie? I take it your parents didn't let you have Barbie dolls, 
either?  Were you traumatized at the time?
I had a mother-in-law who volunteered at a charity thrift shop, so she 
got first pick of all the stuff coming in.
We had quite a collection of bits and pieces, most of which have now 
been donated back to the charity shop.
Still have a really cool campervan and a jeep in the play room, but 
they'll soon be passed on to my niece.
(My oldest daughter is 20 and my youngest daughter 13, so Barbie's are 
behind us now).

Cheers
Russell C.


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Re: The limits of vision

[Russell Chapman]

Chad Cooper wrote:

What we call robotic factories they call intelligence integrate industrial
production . I find this interesting because they seemed to lack the proper
language to describe robotic automation. They also mentioned using endless
punch cards to program the robotic process. 

I liked the guys ready to go and replace a vacuum tube as soon as it blew...

Actually, not having seen solid state electronics was probably the root 
of most of the misses in the article. Not counting medical stuff, if we 
didn't have the transistor, the world would be a lot closer to what he 
described.

Cheers
Russell C.
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Re: Reading lists.

[Reggie Bautista]

rob wrote:
 I expect that I will keep repeating myself on this subject occasionally,
 until I get a reality check that will tell me if I am alone in believing
 John C Wright, author of The Golden Age and The Phoenix Exultant is the
 hottest new author since Brin hit the scene.
Tom replied:
I'm a big fan of Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space, Chasm City,
Redemption Ark) and Charles Stross.
The Golden Age is okay, but didn't excite me as much as it obviously did 
to
you.
I have a stack of books on my desk right now.  The book on top is what I'm 
currently reading, _The Dosadi Experiment_ by Frank Herbert.  Under that are 
the next books I'm planning on reading.  The first two are _The Golden Age_ 
and _Revelation Space_.  I guess I'm a little behind...

Reggie Bautista
So Many Books, So Little Time Maru
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Re: Reading lists.

[TomFODW]

 (My oldest daughter is 20 and my youngest daughter 13, so Barbie's are
 behind us now).
 

They're into Malibu Stacy now?;)

(Either that or they're buying real clothing for themselves, which is even 
more expensive. g)



Tom Beck

www.prydonians.org
www.mercerjewishsingles.org

I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the 
last. - Dr Jerry Pournelle
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Re: Too much TV...

[Reggie Bautista]

Alberto wrote:
I guess I am watching too much TV
William replied:
Only if it's more than 24 hours/day...
Speaking of TV, has anyone else here watched the first few episodes of Dead 
Like Me, the new series on Showtime?  It's funny, quirky, and in spots just 
a little scary...

Reggie Bautista
But Mostly Funny Maru
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Hunting Bambi? Misogeny Rears Its Ugly Head

[Robert Seeberger]

Bizarre Game Targets Women: Hunting for Bambi

http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1356380nav=168XGqk0

(Video onsite)

It's a new form of adult entertainment, and men are paying thousands of
dollars to shoot naked women with paint ball guns. They're coming to Las
Vegas to do it. This bizarre new sport has captured the attention of people
around the world, but Channel 8 Eyewitness News reporter LuAnne Sorrell is
the only person who has interviewed the game's founder.
George Evanthes has never been hunting. Originally I'm from New York. What
am I going to hunt? Squirrels? Someone's cats. Someone's dogs? I don't think
so, said Evanthes. Now that he's living in Las Vegas , he's finally getting
his chance to put on his camouflage, grab a rifle and pull the trigger, but
what's in his scope may surprise you. He's not hunting ducks or even deer.
He's hunting woman. Naked women.

I've done this three times, says Nicole, one of the three women allowing
themselves to be shot at. I've done this seven times, says Skyler, another
woman participating. I've done it seven times, says Gidget the third
woman.

Hunting for Bambi is the brain child of Michael Burdick. Men pay anywhere
from $5000 to $10,000 for the chance to come to the middle of the desert to
shoot what they call Bambi's with a paint ball gun. Burdick says men have
come from as far away as Germany. The men get a video tape of their hunt to
take home and show their friends.

Burdick says safety is a concern, but the women are not allowed to wear
protective gear -- only tennis shoes. Today while the Eyewitness News
cameras were rolling, one woman chose to wear bikini bottoms but normally
all they wear is their birthday suits.

Burdick says hunters are told not shoot the women above the chest, but
admits not all hunters follow the rules. The main goal is to be true as
true to nature as possible. I don't go deer hunting and see a deer with a
football helmet on so I don't want to see one on my girl either, said
Burdick.

The paint balls that come out of the guns travel at about 200 miles per
hour. Getting hit with one stings even with clothes on, and when they hit
bare flesh, they are powerful enough to draw blood.

Evanthes shot one of the women and says, I got the one with the biggest
rack.

Gidget is the one who took the paint ball shot to the rear. She says, It
hurt. It really hurt. I didn't think it was going to be that bad. When asked
if she cried she says,yeah, a little bit.

So why do women agree to strip down and run around the desert dodging paint
balls? Nicole says it's good money. I mean it's $2500 if you don't get hit.
You try desperately not to and it's $1000 if you do, said Nicole.

Michael Burdick, the founder of HuntingForBambie.com, explains the game to
three women early one Monday morning. You have to collect four flags
throughout the course. Some are easy for you and some are not easy, said
Burdick.

The woman begin stripping down to their tennis shoes and start running to
dodge the paint balls that go buzzing by.

We got a hit, said George Evanthes, who just shot and hit one of the women
in the behind. It was sexy. Let's put it that way, said Evanthes.

The women who take part in this bizarre game get paid $2,500 if they escape
unscathed. Even if a paintball hits them, they walk away with $1,000.

As you can see this is not lethal, and it wasn't meant to hurt anybody.
Just good clean fun, said Evanthes.

Burdick says the majority of the men who pay the $5000 to $10,000 to play
the game are the submissive, quite type. For the individual who's used to
saying 'I can't go out with the boys tonight' or the wimp of America, it's a
chance for him to come out and vent his aggression and really take charge
and have some fun.

Marv Glovinsky is a clinical psychologist. He says Hunting for Bambi is
every man's fantasy come true. You might think of all men as little boys
who have never grown up, so they entertain their adolescent fantasies and
they go through life being adolescents on the hunt.

But Glovinsky says this so called game that mixes violence with sexuality
can be dangerous for men who can not distinguish fantasy from reality, and
acting out the violence in this game could lead to them acting out real
violence.

If you're blurring reality and fantasy and you can't make the distinction
and you're emotions over power your intellect or your higher mental
function, your going to get into trouble, and if you have a control problem
to boot, that's really going to cause problems. Problems, he adds, like
beating, raping or even hunting women with a real gun.

Hunter Evanthes disagrees, This is just a game.  Get serious, get real.
But some worry it's a game, which may have consequences that go far beyond
the playing field.

xponent

Ladies Night Maru

rob


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Re: Reading lists.

[Reggie Bautista]

Russell C. wrote:
(My oldest daughter is 20 and my youngest daughter 13, so Barbie's are 
behind us now).
My wife is 28 and she still buy Barbie dolls periodically, usually the 
collector Barbies.  Her other vice, of course, is Legos.

Reggie Bautista
Legomaniac Maru
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Re: Reading lists.

[Russell Chapman]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

(My oldest daughter is 20 and my youngest daughter 13, so Barbie's are
behind us now).
They're into Malibu Stacy now?;)

(Either that or they're buying real clothing for themselves, which is even 
more expensive. g)

That's nothing - one of them is looking at wedding dresses!   
Aaagh... Now I wish it was wedding Barbie...

Cheers
Russell C.
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Re: Reading lists.

[Reggie Bautista]

I wrote:
 I guess I'm a little behind...
Erik replied:
Better to be a little behind than a big ass!
Big ass, smart ass, it's all good... :-)

Reggie Bautista
Baby Got Back Maru
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Re: Reading lists.

[Robert Seeberger]

- Original Message - 
From: Erik Reuter [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: Reading lists.


 On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 06:20:42PM -0500, Reggie Bautista wrote:
  I guess I'm a little behind...

 Better to be a little behind than a big ass!


Aint this just the perfect opening for a schoolyard free for all?
G


xponent
The Nadir Of Wit Maru
rob


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Re: Reading lists.

[Russell Chapman]

Reggie Bautista wrote:

My wife is 28 and she still buy Barbie dolls periodically, usually the 
collector Barbies.  Her other vice, of course, is Legos.
Repeat after me : Lego is not a vice. Lego is not a vice. Lego is not a 
vice.
(It is, after all, a constructive hobby)

(And e-Bay has transformed Lego collecting and building)
Cheers
Russell C.


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Re: Hunting Bambi? Misogeny Rears Its Ugly Head

[Russell Chapman]

Robert Seeberger wrote:

Marv Glovinsky is a clinical psychologist. He says Hunting for Bambi is
every man's fantasy come true.
Then he's not a very good one - or I'm a disgrace to manhood. This 
creeps me out!
I'd like to have a try at paintball, against other armed players, 
wearing fatigues and goggles. Hitting a naked defenceless person that is 
going to at best hurt enough to make them cry, or at worst seriously 
injure or blind them? That's sick.

Russell C.

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Re: Reading lists.

[Reggie Bautista]

I wrote:
My wife is 28 and she still buy Barbie dolls periodically, usually the 
collector Barbies.  Her other vice, of course, is Legos.
Russell replied:
Repeat after me : Lego is not a vice. Lego is not a vice. Lego is not a 
vice.
(It is, after all, a constructive hobby)
Playing with Legos is certainly not a vice.  Buying them in bulk, on the 
other hand...  Actually, to my wife's credit, she usually only buys them 
when the go on clearance.  But to paraphrase the old saying (because I don't 
remember it verbatim), she's saving us so much money she's going to bankrupt 
us if she isn't careful :-)

(And e-Bay has transformed Lego collecting and building)
Anita has mostly stayed away from e-Bay, but our friend Mike has gotten some 
pretty good deals on Legos there.  Have you done much Lego buying or selling 
on e-Bay, Russell?

Reggie Bautista

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Re: Reading lists.

[Julia Thompson]

Reggie Bautista wrote:
 
 Russell C. wrote:
 (My oldest daughter is 20 and my youngest daughter 13, so Barbie's are
 behind us now).
 
 My wife is 28 and she still buy Barbie dolls periodically, usually the
 collector Barbies.  Her other vice, of course, is Legos.

An adult collecting Barbies is very different from a little girl being
given them.

Legos are a *vice*?  Oh, dear  I thought they were a wholesome sort
of toy!

(Our big vice is SF/fantasy art.  Still need to get the stuff we bought
at AggieCon in March to the framer)

Julia
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Re: Reading lists

[Reggie Bautista]

Ilana wrote:
 And speaking of several books in one - Did anybody read Octavia Butler
 Lilith's Brood ?
Julia replied:
Isn't that the Xenogenesis Trilogy, starting with _Dawn_, then
_Imago_, then _Adulthood Rites_?  I bought the individual books in
paperback awhile back, enjoyed them all, and got the compilation for my
sister for Christmas one year.  She really liked it.  (Once I got her to
actually read a Butler novel, she was all over them.  It's not very easy
to get her to read science fiction as opposed to fantasy)  I've
liked everything by Butler that I've read.
I've always heard good things about Octavia Butler but have never gotten 
around to reading anything she has written.  Where's a good place to start?

(As if my to read stack wasn't tall enough already ;-)

Reggie Bautista

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Re: Brin: A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy

[d.brin]

Robert's summery of the group and disputation papers was wonderfully 
cogent and well-done, worthy of a fine book review or an A+ term 
paper.

As for comparisons with THE CORE... don't just say that you saw em... 
write em down!  Ideally specific, the more the better!

Thanks folks.  Thrive.

With cordial regards,

David Brin
www.davidbrin.com
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Re: Hunting Bambi? Misogeny Rears Its Ugly Head

[Robert Seeberger]

- Original Message - 
From: Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 8:05 PM
Subject: Re: Hunting Bambi? Misogeny Rears Its Ugly Head


 --- Russell Chapman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Then he's not a very good one - or I'm a disgrace to
  manhood. This
  creeps me out!
  I'd like to have a try at paintball, against other
  armed players,
  wearing fatigues and goggles. Hitting a naked
  defenceless person that is
  going to at best hurt enough to make them cry, or at
  worst seriously
  injure or blind them? That's sick.
 
  Russell C.

 It certainly is.  This smells like a hoax - I wonder
 if someone read The Most Dangerous Game and decided
 to have some fun with a reporter.

I watched the video from the site.
It looks to be real enough.
Of course it *could* be a hoax, but that really is the Las Vegas TV news so
it probably isn't one.

Its pretty disgusting watching those aging beerbellied horndogs chasing and
shooting bimbette wannabes.
It reminds me of the oeuvre of the Jerry Springer Show.

xponent
Trailer Trash On Parade Maru
rob


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Re: Lego

[Russell Chapman]

Reggie Bautista wrote:

Anita has mostly stayed away from e-Bay, but our friend Mike has 
gotten some pretty good deals on Legos there.  Have you done much Lego 
buying or selling on e-Bay, Russell?
Lots... Some kits were fun to build, but I didn't want to keep them. 
(esp if there's lots of kit-specific parts - I don't like those). But 
eBay gives you access to kits (esp Technic, which is all my son and I 
buy) that you don't see in stores, as well as cheap kits from people who 
have built them. There's often the odd treasure trove of collections 
from people getting rid of the Lego they've had sitting in the cupboard 
for years, with no idea that they are still popular. Parents cleaning 
out cupboards after teens have left home are a great source...

I've never had a missing brick yet, and I've bought more used kits than 
new. I've gotten a couple really really cheap because they were missing 
instructions, but then I just download them and print them out at work...
I suppose I could just view them on the laptop beside the kit, but I've 
never tried that.

Today on eBay:
LEGO (6542):  Bulk Bricks, Lots (1362), Bricks (120), Figures (210), 
Parts  Pieces (862)
Other, Mixed (170), Duplo, Primo, Baby (226), Robotics, Mindstorm (86), 
Sets (2018)
Castle (119), Space, Mars (170), Star Wars (608), Trains (76), Other (1049)
Technic, Bionicle (477), Other LEGO (2396)

That's a really big Lego shop, and that's just the US. Australia and the 
UK also have vast selections, and presumably others...

Cheers
Russell C.


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Re: Reading lists.

[Reggie Bautista]

George wrote:
BTW, Mr. Vinge has come up with two brilliant and frightening concepts,
being Bobbled and being Focused.
That's just how I usually describe a couple of concepts from John Cramer's 
_Einstein's Bridge_.  The concepts are Reading and Writing but they 
don't exactly mean what you think they will.

_Einstein's Bridge_ starts out really pulpy, but about halfway through, the 
book takes a *serious* left turn and becomes a whole different story than 
what you thought you were going to be reading.  After that point, it becomes 
hard SF with interesting things happening with genetics and a fascinating 
alternate interpretation of quantum physics called the Transactional 
Interpretation (TI).  The original paper on this interpretation was written 
by Cramer and published in Reviews of Modern Physics, and is available 
online at:
http://mist.npl.washington.edu/ti/

Does anybody on the list have an opinion on TI as opposed to the standard 
Copenhagen Interpretation?

Reggie Bautista

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Re: Sandy Kofax

[Bemmzim]

In a message dated 7/6/2003 10:08:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
writes:

 
 
 --- Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I remember seeing Ryan in his later Houston years. 
  IIRC, he had one losing
  season (well maybe it was a 15-14 season) when he
  led the league in ERA.
  He would lose a number of 2-1 and 1-0 ballgames.  It
  was amazing.
  
 
Those were the games Koufax won.

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Re: Sandy Kofax

[Bemmzim]

 I did.  I think that was ridiculous.  If you think
 Sandy Koufax was the best pitcher of all time, you're
 simply wrong.  There is no serious argument for this. 
 If you think he was the most dominant pitcher on a
 per-game basis you're also wrong, but at least you
 have a case and we can talk about it.  Arguing that he
 was better than Seaver or Clemens is foolish.  He
 didn't pitch for long enough.
 
He did not have their longevity. He did not have the benefit of modern techniques and 
attitudes for protecting a pitcher's arm
  Note that Pedro is clearly not the best pitcher ever
 either.  The most dominant on a per-game basis? 
 Probably yes.  But not the best ever.  Too many
 injuries, too short a career.
 
 But as for all your post season arm waving, Bob.  Tell
 me - how many pitches per game did Koufax throw?  In a
 very tough game, probably 120. 
Are you sure about this? Koufax threw lots of complete games. In 61 he had a 200 pitch 
game. He pitched more than 9 innings on many occaisons. Even granting that he may have 
made fewer pitches per inning (but that would mean he simply got batters out more 
quickly - and this is somehow a bad thing?). He pitched over 250 innings in 61 and 184 
in 62 (the year he almost lost a finger to gangrene after injury an artery in his left 
hand while batting early in the year). After that he pitched over 300 innings per year 
from 63-66. Now maybe Pedro has more pitches per batter but he still only throw about 
200 innings per year. So clearly Koufax threw more pitches.
 
So if Pedro were throwing
 off a 20 mound, in Dodger Stadium, with a strike zone
 twice the size of todays, against batters who couldn't
 hit the ball out of the park if you let them use golf
 balls - what do you think he would do? 
Who can tell. You have to put him back in that era. He won't have the same arsenal of 
pitches as he does now. He won't have the benefit of modern atttitudes towards 
pitches. 

You assume that ther relative futility of hitters in that era was a reflection of both 
pitchers advantage and lower skill level. Let me offer another reason. It wasn't that 
the pitchers were better. It was that all of the pitchers were good. After all there 
were only 16 teams and each team had a 4 man rototation. So hitters had to bat against 
only 64 pitchers. There were no patsies on the mound. No guys who could get no one 
out. Now there are 30 teams and each team has a 5 man rotation. That means there are 
150 pitchers in rotations. The dilution of pitching talent is an important cause of 
the improved hitting in the current era. Great pitchers always have the advantage. 
That is why pitching trumps hitting in the World Series. Koufax and Pedro would have 
very similar stats if they were contemporaries. The difference would have been who won 
the important games. Koufax won them, Pedro and Maddux and until recently Clemens have 
not.

  Your argument, Bob, boils down to Koufax was better
 because those old time players played the exact same
 game players do today.  That pitching in Dodger
 Stadium off a 20 mound and pitching in Fenway Park
 off a 10 mound are identical.  That pitching to
 little guys who don't lift weights and think a double
 is a career highlight is the same as pitching to Mark
 McGwire and Barry Bonds.  Teams hit 200 HRs per season
 routinely nowadays.  How many teams Koufax pitched to
 could do that?  
 
There is no doubt that the game has changed and that pitchers face different 
challenges. Current hitters can be fooled on pitches and still muscle them out of the 
park. But this only goes so far. A strike out is still a strike out whether the hitter 
is Barry Bonds or Bobby Richardson.

 Frankly, if this argument were about anyone except
 Koufax, _you_ wouldn't take you seriously. 
 Particularly since by _your_ standards, Gibson was
 better than Koufax, so where's your argument?
Uh - Gibson admitted (grudgingly) that Koufax was the best pitcher ever from 62-66. So 
who am I (or you) to disagree.
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Re: Sandy Kofax

[Bemmzim]

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Well Koufax, Bob, a pretty knowledgeable baseball guy,
 said that Pedro was better than he was.  That's worth
 something too, don't you think?

He's just being modest. But yes I would take that very seriously.
 
 Bob, I have some idea of what a phenomenally
 accomplished doctor you are. 
Don't believe everything you hear from impressionable young men. It is all smoke and 
mirrors. 
 
 I'm just asking that you
 to apply the same sort of rigorous thinking to
 something that is much easier to analyze - if you put
 your emotions aside.
 
 Let's say I was a pharma rep for GSK trying to sell
 you on Zocor.  If I came to you and told you how great
 Zocor was, I'm guessing that you would demand the
 clinical data.  If I hemmed and hawed for a while, and
 then finally admitted that, well, the clinical data
 says that Lipitor is stronger, what would you say?  If
 I told you about how these great doctors (from before
 Penicillin was invented, or the role of cholesterol in
 heart disease was discovered) all thought Zocor was
 stronger, that might impress you a little bit, I
 guess.  And I could tell you stories about that time
 Lipitor didn't do anything for my friend's cholesterol
 problem, but Zocor cleared it right up.  But if the
 MM data said that Lipitor has better life-extending
 results (which I think it does) and the clinical data
 said that it was stronger at lowering LDL and raising
 HDL (which I'm pretty sure it is) then would you
 prescribe Zocor to your patients just because I told
 you it was wonderful?  I hope not.
You raise an interesting point; one that goes beyond the fun of two bull headed people 
arguing for its own sake. What is the nature of proof? Now clearly anecdotal evidence 
is not as good as quantitative measure but the difficulty is in determining what you 
are trying to quantify. The drug analogy is edifying. It is the best case scenario for 
this sort of comparison. it is relatively easy to set up an experiment where the 
effects of a drug can be measured objectively. In your example we would use 
cholesterol level as our primary outcome. But this would actually be just a surrogate 
for our real outcome, reduction of heart attacks and strokes. Since measuring the true 
outcome is trickier more expensive and too time consuming we use surrogates. That is 
fine but this requires a judgement on what that surrogate should be. In this case in 
addition to primary outcome measure we would need to have secondary measures (e.g side 
effects). We would need to make some subjective judgements about which outcome is most 
important. Things are even more complex in my field where it is difficult if not 
impossilbe to measure some outcomes. Diagnostic efficacy sensitivity specificity 
positive and negative predictive value are all used to assess the value of diagnostic 
imaging tests. But I remain deeply skeptical that these tools tell us much that we 
don't know from daily clinical experience. Most of the science I have done might best 
be described as the art of medicine. I use statistics in my work but I know that 
sometimes they fail to provide clear information. Several years ago I reviewed a very 
complex paper on imaging of Multiple Sclerosis submitted to the New England Journal of 
Medicine. It concluded that MR was not all that useful in detecting and characerizing 
MS when compared to clinical evaluation. They had the stats to prove it. But my own 
experience told me this was simply wrong. I understood the data and knew why the 
authors had come to an erroneous conclusion but the fact of the matter was that the 
paper did not reflect clinical reality and subsequent experience showed this to be 
correct. I am no genius nor am I someone who automatically trusts my judgement above 
others but I knew that the conclusions of the paper were wrong because of my direct 
experience in interpretting studies and dealing with neurologists. 

 
 You said that Pedro and Koufax both had the best ERA
 possible.  But that's not really true, is it?  Gibson
 had a better ERA than Koufax at least once - much
 better.  
Gibson had the single greatest season a pitcher can have (68). Is ERA was about one 
run difference from Koufax. So my point is I think correct. 1.5-2.0 is about the best 
you can do. Rarely you can do a bit better.

Since I may time out on gd aol I'll continue in the next post


  There's one yardstick for you right
 there.  No pitcher has put up numbers that even
 vaguely resemble Pedro's at his peak during the last
 few years.  But there were pitchers who put up numbers
 that were comparable to (or better than) those of
 Koufax.  Gibson, IIRC, won 26 games in 1968.  Now, W-L
 for pitchers aren't particularly informative, but,
 well, how often did Koufax do that?
 
 Now, here is the player page for Koufax at the
 Baseball Prospectus Web Site:
 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/koufasa01.shtml
 
 And here is the player page for Pedro:
 

Re: Sandy Kofax

[Bemmzim]

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Well Koufax, Bob, a pretty knowledgeable baseball guy,
 said that Pedro was better than he was.  That's worth
 something too, don't you think?

He's just being modest. But yes I would take that very seriously.
 
 Bob, I have some idea of what a phenomenally
 accomplished doctor you are. 
Don't believe everything you hear from impressionable young men. It is all smoke and 
mirrors. 
 
 I'm just asking that you
 to apply the same sort of rigorous thinking to
 something that is much easier to analyze - if you put
 your emotions aside.
 
 Let's say I was a pharma rep for GSK trying to sell
 you on Zocor.  If I came to you and told you how great
 Zocor was, I'm guessing that you would demand the
 clinical data.  If I hemmed and hawed for a while, and
 then finally admitted that, well, the clinical data
 says that Lipitor is stronger, what would you say?  If
 I told you about how these great doctors (from before
 Penicillin was invented, or the role of cholesterol in
 heart disease was discovered) all thought Zocor was
 stronger, that might impress you a little bit, I
 guess.  And I could tell you stories about that time
 Lipitor didn't do anything for my friend's cholesterol
 problem, but Zocor cleared it right up.  But if the
 MM data said that Lipitor has better life-extending
 results (which I think it does) and the clinical data
 said that it was stronger at lowering LDL and raising
 HDL (which I'm pretty sure it is) then would you
 prescribe Zocor to your patients just because I told
 you it was wonderful?  I hope not.
You raise an interesting point; one that goes beyond the fun of two bull headed people 
arguing for its own sake. What is the nature of proof? Now clearly anecdotal evidence 
is not as good as quantitative measure but the difficulty is in determining what you 
are trying to quantify. The drug analogy is edifying. It is the best case scenario for 
this sort of comparison. it is relatively easy to set up an experiment where the 
effects of a drug can be measured objectively. In your example we would use 
cholesterol level as our primary outcome. But this would actually be just a surrogate 
for our real outcome, reduction of heart attacks and strokes. Since measuring the true 
outcome is trickier more expensive and too time consuming we use surrogates. That is 
fine but this requires a judgement on what that surrogate should be. In this case in 
addition to primary outcome measure we would need to have secondary measures (e.g side 
effects). We would need to make some subjective judgements about which outcome is most 
important. Things are even more complex in my field where it is difficult if not 
impossilbe to measure some outcomes. Diagnostic efficacy sensitivity specificity 
positive and negative predictive value are all used to assess the value of diagnostic 
imaging tests. But I remain deeply skeptical that these tools tell us much that we 
don't know from daily clinical experience. Most of the science I have done might best 
be described as the art of medicine. I use statistics in my work but I know that 
sometimes they fail to provide clear information. Several years ago I reviewed a very 
complex paper on imaging of Multiple Sclerosis submitted to the New England Journal of 
Medicine. It concluded that MR was not all that useful in detecting and characerizing 
MS when compared to clinical evaluation. They had the stats to prove it. But my own 
experience told me this was simply wrong. I understood the data and knew why the 
authors had come to an erroneous conclusion but the fact of the matter was that the 
paper did not reflect clinical reality and subsequent experience showed this to be 
correct. I am no genius nor am I someone who automatically trusts my judgement above 
others but I knew that the conclusions of the paper were wrong because of my direct 
experience in interpretting studies and dealing with neurologists. 

 
 You said that Pedro and Koufax both had the best ERA
 possible.  But that's not really true, is it?  Gibson
 had a better ERA than Koufax at least once - much
 better.  
Gibson had the single greatest season a pitcher can have (68). Is ERA was about one 
run difference from Koufax. So my point is I think correct. 1.5-2.0 is about the best 
you can do. Rarely you can do a bit better.

Since I may time out on gd aol I'll continue in the next post


  There's one yardstick for you right
 there.  No pitcher has put up numbers that even
 vaguely resemble Pedro's at his peak during the last
 few years.  But there were pitchers who put up numbers
 that were comparable to (or better than) those of
 Koufax.  Gibson, IIRC, won 26 games in 1968.  Now, W-L
 for pitchers aren't particularly informative, but,
 well, how often did Koufax do that?
 
 Now, here is the player page for Koufax at the
 Baseball Prospectus Web Site:
 http://www.baseballprospectus.com/cards/koufasa01.shtml
 
 And here is the player page for Pedro:
 

Re: Sandy Kofax

[Bemmzim]

  If we use your metrics - that is, just against the
 other players of his time, ignoring park effects,
 difficulty, everything - then why isn't Gibson the
 best ever?  His 1968 season was better than anything
 Koufax ever did, phenomenal though Koufax was.
It was the best season ever in my opinion

  If Koufax had five seasons so much better than everyone
 else that they automatically qualify him as the most
 dominant pitcher ever - why didn't he win five Cy
 Youngs?  Randy Johnson has five.  Clemens has six. 
 Maddux won _four in a row_.  Pedro won three in a row,
 and probably deserved more.


 You mentioned postseason performance.  The first
 question, of course, is how many Division Series did
 Koufax have to pitch his team through?  How many
 League Championship Series?  So yes, he did very well
 in the World Series.  But in terms of pure postseason
 performance, did he do anything as impressive as Randy
 Johnson last year?  
Well I would consider the post season record of each pitcher not just world series 
record. Koufax might have benefitted from more opportunities to pitch. Would have had 
more wins.

Lots of
 people claimed that Barry Bonds couldn't hit in the
 clutch because of his poor postseason performance. 
 Do you still think so after last year?  Willy Mays, I
 would point out, _sucked_ in the postseason.  Does
 anyone blame him for it?  No, of course not.  Players
 who people like are clutch players, and players who
 people don't like aren't, and that's as far as it
 goes.

 I would never blame a great player for not coming through in the clutch but I do 
 credit those that do. I think it useful in comparing the very best with each other. 
 In the end the goal is to win important games and those who achieve this deserve 
 more credit than those that do not. I am not suggesting that the success of an 
 athletes career is determined by championships. I think that is silly. I don't like 
 Patrick Ewing but he had a phenominally successful career as a Knick.

The same thing with injuries.  It's true that Maddux
 has much better medical care available to him than
 Koufax did - not that he's ever needed it, but
 certainly it's true.  But Koufax had better medical
 care than Walter Johnson.  Which one was more durable?
 Koufax was legendarily fragile during his own era.
He was fragile and not fragile. He was in pain and had all these odd treatments (the 
oil and the ice baths) that have only added to his legend but he almost never missed a 
turn. The guy pitched over 300 innings his last 3 years in the league. He would have 
been better taken care of now.

 
  Furthermore, Koufax had what Maddux and Pedro don't -
 a high pitching mound, and the chance to take it easy
 against at least half the batters in the other teams
 lineup.  Don't you think that decreased his chance of
 injury?
I don't think he ever took it easy. He threw a lot of pitches; however you slice it 
way more than guys do now.
 
 If statistics only told us what we know to be true,
 then they would be useless anyways.  It's only when
 they tell us something that is contrary to our
 perceptions that they are useful.  In this case, the
 statistics are saying something that you don't like,
 Bob, but that doesn't mean they're wrong.  Now, if
 they declared that Andy Pettite was the greatest
 pitcher ever, then clearly we'd have to cook up some
 new statistics.  
He is definitely second to Koufax. But by the way, I love Andy and would certainly 
over value him but I did not love Koufax. I hated him. 

That would be absurd.  But it's
 certainly reasonable to say that Pedro's 1999 season
 was the most dominant ever.  It's also reasonable to
 say that Gibson's 1968 season was.  Or one of Koufax's
 great ones.  It just so happens that Koufax's don't
 seem to quite make the grade against Pedro's best, and
 Koufax's career clearly doesn't quite make it against,
 say, Seaver or Clemens.  That doesn't make him
 anything less than a phenomenal pitcher - one of the
 best of all time.  Just not _the_ best.
 
 My judgement remains that one must add in performance in the post season. When this 
 is added in I think Koufax is right there. But of course you have listed many ways 
 that one can judge a player. All are valid and none has priority.

One last thing: In one post you talked about how Koufax would have been rated had he 
not been Jewish. I answered this but could not send the message. I agree that this has 
affected people's judgement of him. Many sports writers (especially in NY are or were 
jewish and this increased their admiration and affection for Koufax. But you must 
realize that being a jewish hurt rather than helped in his career. It was the 50s and 
anti-semitism was more open. He faced resentment from many of his team mates and 
opponents. Alston missed used Koufax horribly throughout his career almost certainly 
slowing his progress. Many think that he was an antisemite. At the very least he did 
not know how to deal with a 

Re: Sandy Kofax

[Bemmzim]

  If we use your metrics - that is, just against the
 other players of his time, ignoring park effects,
 difficulty, everything - then why isn't Gibson the
 best ever?  His 1968 season was better than anything
 Koufax ever did, phenomenal though Koufax was.
It was the best season ever in my opinion

  If Koufax had five seasons so much better than everyone
 else that they automatically qualify him as the most
 dominant pitcher ever - why didn't he win five Cy
 Youngs?  Randy Johnson has five.  Clemens has six. 
 Maddux won _four in a row_.  Pedro won three in a row,
 and probably deserved more.


 You mentioned postseason performance.  The first
 question, of course, is how many Division Series did
 Koufax have to pitch his team through?  How many
 League Championship Series?  So yes, he did very well
 in the World Series.  But in terms of pure postseason
 performance, did he do anything as impressive as Randy
 Johnson last year?  
Well I would consider the post season record of each pitcher not just world series 
record. Koufax might have benefitted from more opportunities to pitch. Would have had 
more wins.

Lots of
 people claimed that Barry Bonds couldn't hit in the
 clutch because of his poor postseason performance. 
 Do you still think so after last year?  Willy Mays, I
 would point out, _sucked_ in the postseason.  Does
 anyone blame him for it?  No, of course not.  Players
 who people like are clutch players, and players who
 people don't like aren't, and that's as far as it
 goes.

 I would never blame a great player for not coming through in the clutch but I do 
 credit those that do. I think it useful in comparing the very best with each other. 
 In the end the goal is to win important games and those who achieve this deserve 
 more credit than those that do not. I am not suggesting that the success of an 
 athletes career is determined by championships. I think that is silly. I don't like 
 Patrick Ewing but he had a phenominally successful career as a Knick.

The same thing with injuries.  It's true that Maddux
 has much better medical care available to him than
 Koufax did - not that he's ever needed it, but
 certainly it's true.  But Koufax had better medical
 care than Walter Johnson.  Which one was more durable?
 Koufax was legendarily fragile during his own era.
He was fragile and not fragile. He was in pain and had all these odd treatments (the 
oil and the ice baths) that have only added to his legend but he almost never missed a 
turn. The guy pitched over 300 innings his last 3 years in the league. He would have 
been better taken care of now.

 
  Furthermore, Koufax had what Maddux and Pedro don't -
 a high pitching mound, and the chance to take it easy
 against at least half the batters in the other teams
 lineup.  Don't you think that decreased his chance of
 injury?
I don't think he ever took it easy. He threw a lot of pitches; however you slice it 
way more than guys do now.
 
 If statistics only told us what we know to be true,
 then they would be useless anyways.  It's only when
 they tell us something that is contrary to our
 perceptions that they are useful.  In this case, the
 statistics are saying something that you don't like,
 Bob, but that doesn't mean they're wrong.  Now, if
 they declared that Andy Pettite was the greatest
 pitcher ever, then clearly we'd have to cook up some
 new statistics.  
He is definitely second to Koufax. But by the way, I love Andy and would certainly 
over value him but I did not love Koufax. I hated him. 

That would be absurd.  But it's
 certainly reasonable to say that Pedro's 1999 season
 was the most dominant ever.  It's also reasonable to
 say that Gibson's 1968 season was.  Or one of Koufax's
 great ones.  It just so happens that Koufax's don't
 seem to quite make the grade against Pedro's best, and
 Koufax's career clearly doesn't quite make it against,
 say, Seaver or Clemens.  That doesn't make him
 anything less than a phenomenal pitcher - one of the
 best of all time.  Just not _the_ best.
 
 My judgement remains that one must add in performance in the post season. When this 
 is added in I think Koufax is right there. But of course you have listed many ways 
 that one can judge a player. All are valid and none has priority.

One last thing: In one post you talked about how Koufax would have been rated had he 
not been Jewish. I answered this but could not send the message. I agree that this has 
affected people's judgement of him. Many sports writers (especially in NY are or were 
jewish and this increased their admiration and affection for Koufax. But you must 
realize that being a jewish hurt rather than helped in his career. It was the 50s and 
anti-semitism was more open. He faced resentment from many of his team mates and 
opponents. Alston missed used Koufax horribly throughout his career almost certainly 
slowing his progress. Many think that he was an antisemite. At the very least he did 
not know how to deal with a 

Re: Reading lists

[Julia Thompson]

Reggie Bautista wrote:

 I've always heard good things about Octavia Butler but have never gotten
 around to reading anything she has written.  Where's a good place to start?
 
 (As if my to read stack wasn't tall enough already ;-)

I'll say _Wild Seed_.  It's a stand-alone.  Most of her other novels are
1 in a series.  If you start with something that's part of a series and
don't quite like it, someone will tell you you need to really read the
next 1, or 2, or N to really appreciate it.  :)

Julia
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RE: Hunting Bambi? Misogeny Rears Its Ugly Head

[Horn, John]

 From: Robert Seeberger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

 
 I watched the video from the site.
 It looks to be real enough.
 Of course it *could* be a hoax, but that really is the Las 
 Vegas TV news so
 it probably isn't one.

The jury is still out on Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/outrage/bambi.asp 

My bet is hoax but who knows?

 - jmh
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