Thread View: comp.society.development
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4 total messages
Started by Gordon Joly
Mon, 17 Jun 1991 10:06
Re: Who is on the net?
Author: Gordon Joly
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 10:06
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 10:06
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Mike Lawrie writes:
> In <1591@ucl-cs.uucp> G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:
>
> >What I may be trying to say is that you may be able to put up a solar
> >cell, with a $50 (that food for ~100 days in some areas) terminal and
> >a modem, to push data down a telehone line "reliable for 3 hours a
> >day", but where are you are going to buy or exchange or cannibilise
> >spare parts for any part of the equipment that breaks down?
>
> What you are actually saying is a lot of trash, viz don't let
> anyone start because it is conceivable that something might
> possibly go wrong with their equipment and this could not get
> fixed.
>
> You have not the slightest idea of what can be done with a "mirrors
> and string" approach, and this represents a very disappointing
> but not atypical attitude from someone in a high-tech country. If
> you encourage something to get off the ground, you'd end up surprised
> at what results could be achieved, if you kill it because the sky
> might fall on your head, you get nowhere.
>
> Mike
> --
> Mike Lawrie
> Director Computing Services, Rhodes University, South Africa
> .....................<ccml@hippo.ru.ac.za>..........................
> Rhodes University condemns racism and racial segregation
Re-reading this message again underlines a thought that has been
bugging me. I find it hard enough to be understood in my own
department, let alone in the Sotherm Hemisphere.
I also wonder whether "email" is the medium of choice for all
communitities in all parts of the world. With the X.400 protocol,
voice-mail and pictures are possible.
Anyway, it has be English or Spanish if it is going to be
spoken/written. The Chinese dialects and Japanese are not the easiest
for email transmission, as yet. I do not know about Cyrillic.
Gordon.
____
Gordon Joly +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT
Order is paramount in anarchy.
Re: Who is on the net?
Author: Joseph C Wang
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 17:48
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 17:48
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In article <1632@ucl-cs.uucp> G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes: >Anyway, it has be English or Spanish if it is going to be >spoken/written. The Chinese dialects and Japanese are not the easiest >for email transmission, as yet. I do not know about Cyrillic. Actually, it's relatively simple to transmit Chinese E-Mail. All you need is a PC with something like CC-DOS to generate the characters, and some sort of utility like uuencode to make sure that the high order bits don't get lost. I'm subscribed to two mailing lists in Chinese. As for Kanji Japanese, I'm sure similar utilities exist. The "fj" hierarchy of news groups transmit Kanji Japanese. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joseph Wang (joe@athena.mit.edu) Wake Up! Wake Up! 450 Memorial Drive C-111 All who wish not to be slaves. Cambridge, MA 02139
Re: Who is on the net?
Author: Bob Pendleton
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 19:26
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 19:26
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In article <1632@ucl-cs.uucp>, G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly) writes:
> I also wonder whether "email" is the medium of choice for all
> communitities in all parts of the world. With the X.400 protocol,
> voice-mail and pictures are possible.
> Anyway, it has be English or Spanish if it is going to be
> spoken/written. The Chinese dialects and Japanese are not the easiest
> for email transmission, as yet. I do not know about Cyrillic.
I know what I'm about to say sounds a bit humorous in light of the
level of computer technology being discussed here, but...
An X based mailer could send the font name as part of the text, and
encode the text using the appropriate glyph indices. That way, any
alphabet can be used to send and receive email.Another alternative
would be to just send compressed bit maps.
A slightly higher level of technology gets you a lot of flexibility.
--
Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself.
bpendlet@dsd.es.com or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or hellgate!esunix!bpendlet
Tools, not rules.
Re: Who is on the net?
Author: Roadster Racewerks
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 21:47
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 21:47
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If you read soc.culture.soviet you may discover that although Cyrillic fonts and programs are available, they are such a pain to use that everything is either in English or written phonetically. The Spanish groups are mostly in Spanish, and soc.culture.celtic alternaes a good deal, but is predominantly in English. English is actually a good choice as an international languAGE for more reason than that the US is big and powerful and there was once a British Empire. As it evolved from several different languages, it dropped a lot of complications, (unfortunatel y it also developed terrible spelling) sand picked up many words no "respectable" language would have assimilated. It's a sort of trash-heap made of lots of bits. This makes it very flexible. It can pick up stuff and take it in with little distortion and with no "official" committee to rule on how to insert it into the syntax. Quick and dirty, as the said... Suze Hammond trifid@agora.rain.com ps Sorry about the typos. I'm on another machine and there's a mismatch with some commands...unfortunately including "delete"!
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