From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Mon Mar 29 18:59:24 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA22285; Mon, 29 Mar 93 18:59:22 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA29589; Mon, 29 Mar 93 18:59:18 PST Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (5.65/4.0) id ; Mon, 29 Mar 93 21:43:28 -0500 Message-Id: <9303300243.AA05079@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu> To: ExI-Daily@gnu.ai.mit.edu Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 21:42:04 -0500 X-Original-Message-Id: <9303300242.AA05071@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu> X-Original-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu From: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Subject: Extropians Digest V93 #0160 X-Extropian-Date: Remailed on March 30, 373 P.N.O. [02:43:26 UTC] Reply-To: Extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: OR Extropians Digest Tue, 30 Mar 93 Volume 93 : Issue 0160 Today's Topics: BRAIN: Sound & Light Machines [1 msgs] Hello out there.... [1 msgs] Life enhancement technique [2 msgs] Life enhancement technique (short & frequent sleep) [1 msgs] MEME: reinforcement (was ANON: Anon.penet.fi no more) [1 msgs] PHIL/HUMOR: Are we hypocrites? [1 msgs] POLI:Repeal the 16th Amendment [1 msgs] RICH: If you act now [2 msgs] RICH: If you do it now [3 msgs] ROOTS: Name origins [3 msgs] TECH: Indexing into video/audio streams [1 msgs] Video Magazines, CD-ROMs, and the 3DO System [1 msgs] Video Magazines--and Extropians Home Tape? [2 msgs] Administrivia: This is the digested version of the Extropian mailing list. Please remember that this list is private; messages must not be forwarded without their author's permission. To send mail to the list/digest, address your posts to: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu To send add/drop requests for this digest, address your post to: exi-daily-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu To make a formal complaint or an administrative request, address your posts to: extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu If your mail reader is operating correctly, replies to this message will be automatically addressed to the entire list [extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu] - please avoid long quotes! The Extropian mailing list is brought to you by the Extropy Institute, through hardware, generously provided, by the Free Software Foundation - neither is responsible for its content. Forward, Onward, Outward - Harry Shapiro (habs) List Administrator. Approximate Size: 50288 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 10:59:09 -0500 From: pcm@cs.brown.edu (Peter C. McCluskey) Subject: RICH: If you do it now X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute freely derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) writes: >Why aren't there video magazines? ... How >come nobody makes magazines on 30-min videotape? I have seen such a magazine (targeted towards gays), although I doubt it achieved a regular publication schedule. The disadvantages are higher cost and reduced flexibility. The advantages escape me. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter McCluskey >> pcm@cs.brown.edu >> Eradicate global namespace pollution! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 11:02:30 CST From: "Christopher L. Weeks" Subject: RICH: If you act now In response to Peter McClusky's not seeing advantages to video format for magazines, I can come up with a few. As was noted, they can be recycled. As the video storage technology increases the size of storage will become manageable and we could maintain huge libraries of our favorite periodicals. Video format would allow for multi-media articles and presentations, the ability to convey body language rather than just tone, and generally show motion. My only real problem/question with the idea is that it is allready done in the form of TV shows. What benefit would be gained by sending out a video tape once per month? It will be a long time before the readers of scholarly journals are ready for that type of change and the popular press is reflected in that media now. There are news shows and talk shows and special interest shows How would a video magazine be different? Christopher L. Weeks c576653@mizzou1.missouri.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 12:29:24 CST From: derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) Subject: RICH: If you act now Christopher L. Weeks asks: > My only real problem/question with the idea is that it is allready done in the > form of TV shows. What benefit would be gained by sending out a video tape > once per month? There are lots of potential advantages: * Specialty markets. Who's going to fund the broadcast of "Kayaking Video Journal" or "Computer Science Interviews"? While there might be a market for things like this, it's too small to broadcast to the whole nation. In the future (say, ten to twenty years), distribution could be done via video "cable". Who's going to be in the best position to take advantage of such specialty programming technologies when they arrive? The video magazine producers cranking out product already! * Non-mainstream material. Broadcast media are subject to strict content regulations, both by the government and the broadcasters. Short programming on non-mainstream topics doesn't exist because nobody can/will broadcast it, not because nobody wants it. * Flexible arrangements. Authors of video material can retain rights to their material that no network would consider, etc -- this is one of the MANY "anti-oligopoly" arguments for video magazines. * Associated materials. Often, it will be desirable to supplement video with written material or other (inexpensive) associated stuff. For example, '3-D Pornography' magazine could include 3-D glasses with the subscription [actually, works pretty well -- remember halftime at the superbowl a few years back?]. * Reference material. Nobody would broadcast ten minutes of tiresome reference and informational footage, but it's easy to tack onto the end of 'Travel Above The Arctic Circle' magazine. * Tape assurance. You know it's on tape. So one could, for example, use the last two minutes of a video magazine to display 480 still photos at one per quarter second. Many (soon, most) VCRs can do a very decent job of displaying stills. Doubtless one could think of more advantages. Early video mags (vidmag? lookazine?) might be 'Cute Cats' for pet-nerds (and other things where video is easy to come by), specialty interview programs (because the production is relatively simple), etc. derek ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 12:12:24 MST From: hammar@cs.unm.edu Subject: RICH: If you do it now derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) writes: >Why aren't there video magazines? ... How >come nobody makes magazines on 30-min videotape? My favorite video store has a half-dozen editions of the video version of Easy Rider magazine. Neil Hammar hammar@unmvax.cs.unm.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 11:22:58 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Video Magazines--and Extropians Home Tape? Derek Zahn writes: >Realizing that I'm probably not going to do it NOW: > >Why aren't there video magazines? I was sipping coffee in one >of the bazillion coffee shops in the Twin Cities over the weekend, >and, while chatting with folk about the Muzik scene there and looking >at one of the pathetic local Muzik rags, I wondered aloud: How >come nobody makes magazines on 30-min videotape? I've seen several versions of video magazines: * scuba diving stores sell a quarterly tape in a magazine format: reviews of equipment, visits to scenic dives, tips on diving, trips to trade shows, etc. * Macintosh and PC shows are broadcast on various PBS stations. "Macintosh TV" is one such show, in a one-hour format that reviews new products, etc. Ditto for the PC side. * the many sports "magazines" may be seen as video versions of "Sports Illustrated." And CNN carries a "fashion magazine" show. * cooking shows and other educational shows are essentially magazines. * "Playboy" magazine has long had a "video magazine"--I think they even call it that. These can be rented, bought, or watched on the Playboy Channel. * "National Geographic" has been doing a video magazine for a dozen years now, longer if you consider pre-VCR television shows. Ditto for "Discovery" and other science shows. * and let's not forget "Hour Magazine," "Entertainment Tonight," and other such shows, some of which have been on since the 70s. These are video versions of "People" magazine. (I think "People" even tried one, but found the niche had already been filled.) These examples are just a few of the many "video magazines" already appearing. Having watched my share of them, let me note some advantages and disadvantages: * Advantages: good visuals, deep immersion experience (can't wait for 3D goggles), voiceovers, etc. * Disadvantages: Hard to find items of interest....laserdisc will be a better format (but almost nobody has them). I almost never look at them twice (the ones I tape, thinking I will look at them a second time), in contrast to paper magazines, which I keep for years and often flip through again (looking for an article). Video conveys less "pure information" than paper. Distribution is also a problem. Magazines have appealing visuals, take up less space, and can be purchased on an impulse for immediate reading. Despite these problems, I predict a growing market. In fact, at the Harry Shapiro party in January, I had my Hi-8 camcorder with me. I talked about making an "Extropians Tape" that people could send short (120 minutes divided by the approximate number of interested subscribers = less than 2 minutes, I suspect) submissions to...interviews with themselves or with others, new gadgets (like the Hip PC), etc. I can take tapes in VHS, S-VHS, Beta, 8mm, or Hi-8 and edit them into a 2-hour master S-VHS tape, from which VHS copies could be made. If there's any interest (Derek?), I could think about doing it some more. Maybe timed to coincide with the Birthday Party? (or make tapes there?). --Tim May P.S. on video magazines. Someone even tried a *reverse* idea: conventional text and pictures was broadcast in the middle of the night for VCR recording. The idea was then to play back the recording in still frame mode. The idea flopped, for several obvious reasons: few bothered to find out the times, few are able to program their VCRs (or can remember to), the subject of the magazine didn't sound interesting to most, few VCRs have good still frame capabilities, and, finally, even with a spectacular still frame (which my S-VHS deck has), the image is just not high enough resolution. -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 11:09:19 -0800 From: Joseph Truitt Subject: Life enhancement technique (short & frequent sleep) In article <9303290419.AA09869@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, drw@BOURBAKI.MIT.EDU (Dale Worley) writes about short, frequent sleep segments. My favorite sleep schedule consisted of about 5.5 hrs/day: 10PM - 2AM, plus a 1.5 hr nap in the late afternoon. After about a week to get used to it, I felt more alert and rested than when I was sleeping 8 hrs/day in one stint. Not only that, but having two dreaming opportunities per day seemed to put me in a consistently open-minded, mellow, and creative mood. I can understand why an artist would like it. Let's see: if I went back to that schedule, I would could extend my waking life by about 36,500 hrs over the next 40 yrs! (2.5 hrs/day * 365 days/yr * 40 yrs). -- Joseph Truitt * BioCAD Corporation * joseph@biocad.com * 415/903-3923 "Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effects when taken in too large a quantity." --Lord Dunsany ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 12:06:13 -0500 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: POLI:Repeal the 16th Amendment X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Andrew S Hall says: > > I was just live chatting with my mother and she proposed a great idea. > With so many people on the Net from all of the states, why not start > a drive to repeal the 16th amendment? Because we lack the political strength to do it. Because had we the political strength, we would be in power and none of this would be an issue. Perry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 12:39:46 -0500 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: Life enhancement technique X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission drw@bourbaki.mit.edu says: > Here's an interesting life enhancement technique that I've not heard > described on the net before: > > Leonardo da Vinci (sp?) trained himself to sleep for 15 minutes every > 4 hours (1 1/2 hours total per day). Apparently a human can do OK > with this little sleep, if it's divided into short segments. Some > sleep researchers convinced a guy to learn this technique. He was a > graphic designer, so it didn't mess up his work too much. After a > while, he actually managed to live well on this schedule, but not > being da Vinci, he didn't have anything to do with all the extra time > (!), and went back to the regular 8 hours a night schedule. Sounds apocryphal. References, please... .pm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 12:33:33 -0500 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: BRAIN: Sound & Light Machines X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission Pardon my question, but are there any proper studies that show that any of this stuff has a real effect on performance? Perry "Stephen J. Whitrow" says: > A single line instruction in GWBasic allows you to generate a continuous > 131 Hz tone. Take the keyboard and tune it in until the C one octave below > 'middle C' exactly matches the 131 Hz from the computer. Now hit the C sharp > a semitone higher (will be 138.8 Hz approximately), and stick the key down > with tape. With these frequencies, you get the benefit of the separation > actually corresponding to real notes on the diatonic scale, which might > enhance any beneficial effect. There would also probably be a gain from using > the 'original' sources rather than introducing degradation of the signal due > to tape wow & flutter, noise etc. I'll try these experiments some day..... > > This provides a 7.8 Hz differential. A book I have (*Accelerated Learning* by > Colin Rose) mentions 7.5 cps as being the 'exact frequency at which the > ionosphere resonates', and refers to this as the Schumann Resonance, also > the frequency of the human mind in a meditative state. > > Incidentally, I note that Microsoft think that Middle C is an octave higher > than it actually is, according to their manual. > > Shifting both channels down a semitone lowers the difference in Hz. > > If you generate 123 Hz on the computer (roughly a B), tune the organ in > so that its B matches (provided it extends just over an octave below Middle > C), then use C on the organ for the other channel; this differential is > around 7.3 Hz. Or raise pitch by a few semitones if it turns out that alpha > waves are better than theta waves. > > Steve Whitrow sjw@liberty.demon.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 14:57:08 CST From: derek@cs.wisc.edu (Derek Zahn) Subject: Video Magazines--and Extropians Home Tape? Warning; this material is only marginally related to extropianism, but DOES have some relevance: * getting people to give you money empowers your self-transformation * video is a still-expanding information technology Tim May points out: > I've seen several versions of video magazines: > > * scuba diving ... > * "Playboy" magazine ... These, and Mr. Hammar's note about the biker vidizine are examples of what I meant, but the other examples, like "Entertainment Tonight" are not -- they have a format reminiscent of a magazine, but I was thinking of subscriber/newsstand distribution of actual tapes of special-interest material. > Distribution is also a problem. Magazines have appealing visuals, take up > less space, and can be purchased on an impulse for immediate reading. This is a concern. Various packaging options could be tried. Also, the cost issue probably isn't a disqualifying factor -- if I can buy 2 hr tapes for under $2 at the discount store, the media is probably acceptably priced. Videos currently sell for lots of money for (I'd say) two reasons: 1) High production costs 2) Low volume (I mean for specialty items like "build your own doghouse") Production costs are in free fall, with the possible exception of decent editing decks (and maybe decent cameras). Still, a video- toaster-equipped Amiga + editing deck + camera + misc is a pretty good video production setup. > In fact, at the Harry Shapiro party in January, I had my Hi-8 camcorder > with me. I talked about making an "Extropians Tape" that people could send > short (120 minutes divided by the approximate number of interested > subscribers = less than 2 minutes, I suspect) submissions to...interviews > with themselves or with others, new gadgets (like the Hip PC), etc. I can > take tapes in VHS, S-VHS, Beta, 8mm, or Hi-8 and edit them into a 2-hour > master S-VHS tape, from which VHS copies could be made. hey, that's a great idea! derek *recording* ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 15:09:49 -0600 From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson) Subject: RICH: If you do it now In <9303290559.AA10385@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, Derek Zahn writes: |> Realizing that I'm probably not going to do it NOW: |> |> Why aren't there video magazines? A relevant anecdote: Robert Anton Wilson sent out an audio tape in lieu of the most recent issue of his "Trajectories" 'zine. It was weak. Robert and Arlen and co. took an extremely relaxed attitude about the contents of the tape, to say the least, and it was nowhere near as informative or interesting as the printed zine; more like passing a joint around in RAW's living room. Unless there's a nice interface and very fast FF/REW, you lose the ability to browse when you go to a linear medium. A net, diskette, or CD magazine with a hyper-something style of interface would do what you want without losing quite so much magazine-hood; and if in addition one uses a portable[1] computer, then all the major aspects of magazine-hood[2] are preserved. ^ / ------/---- extropy@jido.b30.ingr.com (Freeman Craig Presson) / / [1] Note that _porter_ in French is equally used for "to carry" and "to wear", so maybe a wearable computer will need a different term in French? [2] Variety, portability, browsability, read-on-the-john-ability. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 15:48-EST From: Marc.Ringuette@GS80.SP.CS.CMU.EDU Subject: TECH: Indexing into video/audio streams Regarding video magazines, Tim May writes, > Disadvantages: Hard to find items of interest.... > Video conveys less "pure information" than paper. I think this is mostly an indexing and access problem. Video is typically sequential-access with no indexing at all. If we could figure out how to, say, index into video with a database, and to scan over a video in a cleverer way than fast-forward.... This reminds me of my most recent idea for a nifty information-age product. It's a device of the size of a Star Trek TNG communicator badge, which contains a sound recorder, a speech chip, some database software, and a fair bit of memory. The idea is to make any words spoken in your presence indexable and retrievable. The device records the sound going on around you, and simultaneously the speech chip ASCIIfies everything it can and indexes it in a database. A typical interaction: [trying to remember what day you agreed to meet your friend for lunch] "Retrieve, yesterday noon, match "Wanna get together for lunch". [Badge starts replaying your conversation...you listen for half a minute, get to what you wanted, and say "stop".] The main user interface challenge is to make it not completely frustrating to listen to a recording of yesterday's chit-chat. We're all familiar with what a pain it is to watch videos of last year's Christmas party. The problem is to make available the option of indexing into the stream of video or audio, or of "skimming" to what you want. My suggestion for the voice-recorder was to index using a database and then listen to the audio stream; but another reasonable option would be to ASCIIfy the text and display it visually, allowing the user to skim the text by eye. By now, you probably see the connection with the original topic of video magazines: Tim's complaint that video magazines would be less useful for archive purposes is directly related to our inability to index or skim such data. I'm interested in technological solutions to deal with this. Suggestions welcome. -- Marc Ringuette (mnr@cs.cmu.edu). Freely repost/archive any of my messages. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 16:33:32 EST From: sulko-m@acsu.buffalo.edu (Mark A. Sulkowski) Subject: PHIL/HUMOR: Are we hypocrites? From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) >One who thinks "I have a right", or, "I have no right" still clings to the >notion of "a right". One who truly perceives the emptiness of rights sees >no prohibition and needs no permission, nor does that person place >prohibitions or permissions on others. > >The anarchist who says "There are no rights", and then "I have a right to >oppose coercion"; such an anarchist does not have full understanding. >The anarchist who says "There are no rights", and undistractedly acts to >oppose coercion; such an anarchist does have full understanding. Let us meditate on this. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... =============================================================================== | |\ /| | "But we must not follow those who advise us, being men, to | | \\ // | think of human things, and, being mortal, of mortal things, | | \\// | but must, so far as we can, make ourselves immortal..." | | Mark \/enture | - Aristotle, _The Nicomachean Ethics_ | =============================================================================== ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 14:03:15 MST From: hammar@cs.unm.edu Subject: MEME: reinforcement (was ANON: Anon.penet.fi no more) Tim May's reply to my post is a beautiful example of what I was talking about. Part of what I wrote (with emphasis added): > There is a tendancy in any group to reinforce each others >opinions to the point that the in-group tends to loose sight of >the fact that their beliefs are not laws of nature, or even a >matter of serious discusion in the outside world. (Interesting >question for another thread: is this memetic self-defense or a >side-effect of geneticly programmed social instinct (being used >by memes) or a nesessary building block for any social system?) >Every group of believers shows this tendancy to some extent. ^^^^^ >Seriously deviant subcultures (must?) do more of this than ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >mainstream groups, but every group I have spent any time with >does it. (Or is it just more noticable?) My point is not that anonymous posting is bad or that Julf should be shut down, (because I don't believe that anyway) but that the views on this list are an extreme minority. There are six major points of view in the news.admin.policy arguement over shutting down anon.penet.fi. In order, smallest to largest in terms of posters (working from memory instead of real statistics). 1). There is no morally valid reason for an anonymous posting service and Depew did a good thing when he wrote his program to cancel every anonymous post on every computer on the net. 2). The existance of an anonymous posting service is a good thing. 3). All anonymous posters are assholes, anonymous service is inherently a bad thing, and Julf should be shut down or cut off from the net, but what Depew did was even worse. 4). Anonymous posting is useful to some people, and really isn't a major problem. Anyone can fake a header or get an account name that is just a nonsence string on a BBS hooked into the net anyway. 5). Anonymous posting is too easy to abuse, so anonymous service should be shut down or controled more tightly. (Included in this is the opinion that Julf wasn't being a responsable administrator of his service.) 6). Anonymous posting is bad, but forbidding it is worse. Tim chose to report only the arguements of the one side that most Extropians would agree with, in a manner that made it seem as if it were far more important to the main arguement than it was. Then he moved to the other topic I had mentioned, the responce on this list to the BATF raid in Waco. tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) wrote: >As for our views on the BATF raid on the Branch Davidians, our views >are not as extreme as some may think. (Pardon my use of "our views" to >mean the views expressed clearly by many/most on this list.) He then followed with a paragraph of "our views" that would indeed be agreeable to everyone on the list, as well as the majority of the attendees of the Repbulican or Demoratic conventions. He failed to mention a large part of what I saw on the list. (The following "quotes" are only pseudoquotes because I am working from biological memory instead of disk memory. I don't have space to archive everything :-( "I cheered when I heard the final score, 5 BATF dead vs. only 1 cultist." "I cheered too" "I laughed when I saw the statist bullies bawling like babies" Some people did disagree with these types of posts, but the majority of posters seemed to be more tolerant of the cheering section than of their opponants, even when they admitted that they felt both the BATF and the BDs were wrong. Then someone posted a "logical" proof of five or six lines that said all governments are oppressors, therefore everyone who enforces the law is an agent of oppresion and deserves to die. _This_ is exactly what I was refering to about people loosing sight of the fact their opinions are not laws of nature. And it is what I was trying to weaken with my recomendation that some memebers of this list follow the anonymous arguement on the net. I want to make this very clear: I do not object to holding veiws that do not fit with the majority opinion. I do object to loosing touch with what most of the people in the world believe. That path breeds fanatics who are occasionally dangerous to themselves and the people around them and who usually seriously discredit the movement they believe in. The easyest way to discredit the Libertarian party in an arguement, for example, is to point out the existance of the anarchist wing of the party. As another example, the discussion here that ended with the dismissal of the danger of letting anyone own nuclear weapons did little but make PPL based anarchy seem silly. To the commited, it probalby seemed reasonable to put off solving that problem till later. To anyone wavering on the edge, both the question and the responce here were serious reasons to want to keep the state around. Neil Hammar hammar@unmvax.cs.unm.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 16:29:51 -0500 From: "Perry E. Metzger" Subject: ROOTS: Name origins X-Reposting-Policy: redistribute only with permission This is all irrelevant to extropians. Get it off. I'm replying to this thread for the last time. Garrett Goebel says: > Now you'll probably say that Perry's family could have come from Eastern > Europe... but then, it's time for my [nasal voice chime in] history lesson. > Instead of talking about Spain and the Ottoman Empire... let's focus in on > the topic at hand. A German last name and a Jewish ancestory. > > Unlike Spain, France, England, Italy, and most of eastern Europe... the > principalities of the Germanic peoples maintained rather lax restrictions > and regulations on Jews. As a result, a large number of people of Jewish > origin settled in what were then lands of the germanic peoples (today: > Swizterland, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, Chech Republic, > and parts of Poland, Hungary, and Romania) Actually, this is false. The "Germanic lands" were just as barbarous as everywhere else, with a few exceptions (such as the Bishop of Speyer personally intervening to stop the mass butchery of the local Jewish community in the medieval period). The difference is primarily that since there was no single state in the "German lands" there were many different policies towards the Jews and they were never mass expelled from all of them. Jews never voluntarily migrated there -- they were taken as slaves by the Tenth Roman Legion in 44AD to the Rhinelands when they were transfered there from Palestine and spread throughout central Europe over the millenia since. The rather ironic thing is, by the way, that the Jews were in Germany in most cases before the Germans. > These Jewish settlers assimilated for the most part, marriage >practices not withstanding. If Isreal were to adopt an official >Jewish language, the only really logical choice would be Yiddish. >Yiddish was 95% German (at least in the historical period where I'm >at). Yiddish is still prodominantly rooted in Middle High German. >However, at some point (Anton fill me in) many of the ethnically >German Jews began migrating east. At this point Yiddish split into >two branches one remaining prodominantly German the other with >increasing Slavic influence on the Middle High German Yiddish. First of all, its Israel. I've avoided correcting you until now. Second of all, Yiddish to my knowledge never split -- its one language, which is increasingly dying. It was never the language of the bulk of the world's Jews, only of the Jews of central Europe. >At this point it is relative to note that "Metzger" is a name that shows >no signs of a slavic influence. Correct and not correct. You are correct that I had ancestors living in Germany and that I have no slavic ancestors -- you are not correct in thinking you can determine this from my name. Most European Jews got their names during the brief rein of Napoleon's bureaucracy over most of central Europe. Not happy with the naming scheme used by the local Jews, which was "Firstname son/daugher of Fathers Name", the transplanted French bureaucrats decided to force all the Jews to adopt conventional last names. My ancestors on my fathers side, for whatever reason, picked "Metzger". Most Jews refused to pick names, and so were assigned names -- the names were designed on a "one sylable from column A, one from Column B" basis, and the components were intentionally picked so the results would sound as silly as possible (as in "Eckstein"). Any Jews living in Germany around 1800 would have a German last name regardless of their lifestyles or where they had been living before or since. >While I am not familiar with the migrational >history of Spanish Jews (irrelevant to the topic at hand), I have great >difficulties imagining the Ottoman Empire as the sanctuary of them. Well, you are wrong. The ottoman empire is precisely where most of them ended up. Their native language was, by the way, "Ladino", a combination of Hebrew and Spanish, and the language is spoken to this day. > In short, it is logical and reasonable to conclude that 1/2 of Perry's > family tree has its roots in Europe... and a long time at that. In email, > Perry conceeded such Hardly a family secret. My fathers folks were among the ones who'd stayed in the Rhinelands for a couple of millenia. > } So saying Perry is at least half European on the basis of a European > } name is somewhat... hmm... ignorant of how names get passed down > } through the generations. > > You couldn't be further from the truth. You are ignorant on historical > and cultural factors. As evidence, I submit that Perry is indeed 1/2 > of German origin. And as a conclusion, I state that you are wrong. Well, actually, no. Phil was quite right -- all that having the name "Metzger" means is that it is likely that some direct line male ancestor of mine had that name. I could have an arbitrarily small percentage of European ancestry. As it happens, my family is "half" European, but thats not something you can determine from my name. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 16:31:43 CST From: lists@alan.b30.ingr.com (Alan Barksdale (lists)) Subject: Life enhancement technique Perry Metzger says: > drw@bourbaki.mit.edu says: [...] > > Leonardo da Vinci (sp?) trained himself to sleep for 15 minutes every > > 4 hours (1 1/2 hours total per day). Apparently a human can do OK > > with this little sleep, if it's divided into short segments. Some > > sleep researchers convinced a guy to learn this technique. He was a > > graphic designer, so it didn't mess up his work too much. After a > > while, he actually managed to live well on this schedule, but not > > being da Vinci, he didn't have anything to do with all the extra time > > (!), and went back to the regular 8 hours a night schedule. > > Sounds apocryphal. References, please... I once read a reference to a book on this topic: _Sleep_Less_Live_More_ by Matthew[?]. ______________________________________________________________________________ | Tolerance is not the same thing as approval. | | Alan Barksdale -- uunet!ingr.com!b30!alan!alan -- alan@alan.b30.ingr.com | | -- ingr.com!b30!alan!alan@uunet.UU.NET -- afbarksd@infonode.ingr.com -- | ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 18:37:06 EST From: eisrael@suneast.East.Sun.COM (Elias Israel - SunSelect Engineering) Subject: ROOTS: Name origins Garret Goebel writes: > >While I am not familiar with the migrational > >history of Spanish Jews (irrelevant to the topic at hand), I have great > >difficulties imagining the Ottoman Empire as the sanctuary of them. Perry Metzger responds: > Well, you are wrong. The ottoman empire is precisely where most of > them ended up. Their native language was, by the way, "Ladino", a > combination of Hebrew and Spanish, and the language is spoken to this day. Just to underscore this point, it is 500 years ago this year that the Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain. Many of them (if not most of them) migrated to Turkey (then The Ottoman Empire), including my own ancestors, on both my father's and mother's sides of the family. I grew up reading and praying in (and sometimes even understanding) quite a bit of Ladino. Elias Israel eisrael@east.sun.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 18:09:53 -0600 From: "Phil G. Fraering" Subject: Hello out there.... Just wondering, but is there anyone else on this list in the state of Louisiana? What about adjoining states? Any plans to pass through? Phil ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 18:43:59 EST From: lubkin@apollo.hp.com Subject: ROOTS: Name origins First and foremost, he shows his own ignorance of Jewish and cultural history. Perhaps. But there are holes in your version of the story as well. I'm surprised to see this conversation at all, since I thought Perry had adequately described his ancestry. Anyway. The Jews spread far and wide 2000 years ago. Two places they settled were Germany and Spain. The German Jews spoke Yiddish. German Jews moved to Eastern Europe, and took their language with them. Collectively, they are all known as Ashkenazim. They mostly stayed in Europe, until they migrated in large numbers to Palestine and the United States, starting in the late 1800's. They are light-skinned, owing largely to Jewish women being raped by white European men. (Aside 1: This is why they invented the rule in the Middle Ages that you are Jewish if your mother is Jewish.) (Aside 2: There was also an anomalous period in Russian history when a large number of Russians converted to Judaism. So some of the current Ashenazim are their descendants.) They are typically from Germany, Poland, or Russia. Some Austrian. The Spanish Jews spoke Ladino. When Isabella threw the Jews out, they went to various places, including the Ottoman Empire. The only place where their pre-existing culture thrived was in the Ottoman Empire, because of its general religious tolerance. They interbred with the Jews that had already been there, who had retained the Semitic features of their origin. The intermixed group is collectively called Sepharadim, or "Spaniards". They are typically from Arab countries, like Yemen. While the Sepharadim had been living in Palestine quietly for millenia, the Ashkenazic immigrants of the 1800's and 1900's rose to a dominant position in the Jewish society there. When other Sephardic Jews later immigrated to Palestine/Israel, they came as Have-Nots, and a power struggle began that continues to this day, leading to the formation of the Black Panthers in Israel (for the blacker-skinned Sepharadim) and the rise of Menachem Begin in an odd coalition (Likud) of right-wing Zionists (Herut), libertarians (Liberal Party (my father was their Science and Technology Advisor), and other malcontents, voted in by the Sephardic Have-Nots. -- David Lubkin. ========================= lubkin@apollo.hp.com ========================= Nicholas: "You know, a very nice quality you have is that you're a good listener. Which is important to me because of how much I talk." -- Herb Gardner, A Thousand Clowns, 1965 ======================================================================== ------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 18:02:40 -0800 From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Video Magazines, CD-ROMs, and the 3DO System Marc Ringuette writes: >Regarding video magazines, Tim May writes, >> Disadvantages: Hard to find items of interest.... >> Video conveys less "pure information" than paper. > >I think this is mostly an indexing and access problem. Video is >typically sequential-access with no indexing at all. If we could >figure out how to, say, index into video with a database, and to >scan over a video in a cleverer way than fast-forward.... Agreed, such an indexing scheme would help. However, videos are still less "browsable" than magazines, for various reasons. New CD-ROM, CD-I, M-O, etc. technology may help. The Philips CD-I system is off to a very slow start. The Sony "Bookman" has been available (with very slow sales), the various JPEG-compressed video clips (like Quicktime) are slowly building up, and so on. For a while I was getting a CD-ROM every month crammed with multimedia demos, Quicktime movies, demo versions of software, etc. ("Nautilus"). And so it goes. Total consumer confusion! The problem with all these wonderful new systems is clear: the "niche" is already occupied. Consumers don't plan to throw out their VCRs for some new gizmo with only slight advantages (and there's a chicken or the egg danger to early pioneers, as well). "Format wars" are raging again in the audio/music camp, with DCC and MD fighting to replace compact cassettes. (I have two DAT machines, a technologically superior solution that is popular amongst recording engineers, musicians, and serious audiophiles, but is nowhere with consumers.) The format wars over video were largely won by VHS, despite the advantages of Beta. Happily, in the camcorder market, 8mm and it's upward cousin Hi-8 have beaten out VHS-C and VHS. What's my point? * Derek is pretty much stuck for the next several years with VHS tapes played on existing types of VHS decks...miraculous new indexing technologies will *not* be found in mass market machines anytime soon. Even if available today, it would be at least half a decade before anyone could have them in sufficient quantity to distribute magazines for them. * There may be some interesting developments with some version of the CD. Video compressed onto a CD is possible (again, half a dozen approaches are being tried). * Speculatively--and this really deserves a separate thread--I think there *may be* a system/format that may succeed for home delivery of video magazines. That system is the "3DO" machine due out this year (yes, 1993) from a consortium of electronics and video game companies, including Mitsubishi (Panasonic), Electronic Arts, AT&T, and about 30 others. The name is from "audio-video-3DO". (Misc. info: 100 MIPS processor, built-in high speed CD-ROM, ultra high performance graphics engine, $700, monitor not included.) The 3DO machine may well fill the currently unoccupied niche of "home entertainment center computer," with educational and game software initially, followed by more sophisticated applications (AT&T wants to distribute fiber optics into homes, for example). E-mail, VR games, home financial planning, etc. (From what I have seen and read, the 3DO will not be just another Nintendo or Sega, although the graphics performance is staggering and games are the initial target market. Plans for encyclopedias and other educational applications may help sell parents on paying the $700 or so. I expect this platform may see the first real home VR sytems.) My point: this machine, if it gets a reasonable installation base, will be well-positioned for the delivery, via CD-ROMs or via fiber optics, of the kinds of video magazines Derek talked about. (I have heard vague rumors that an electronic newspaper may be delivered this way to 3DO consumers. Initially via modem, later by ISDN and similar services.) 3DO may still fail. But I sure don't see anything else on the horizon (next 3 years) that looks likelier to be the Next Big Thing. (If it *is* a big deal in 1996, remember this post!) -Tim May -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: MailSafe and PGP available. ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 Issue #0160 ****************************************