3.974 tongue-checking applauded (57)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Mon, 29 Jan 90 19:57:26 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 974. Monday, 29 Jan 1990.
(1) Date: Sun, 28 Jan 90 21:08:00 EST (20 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.966 support: tongue-checking & other survival skills (33)
(2) Date: 28 Jan 90 21:25:59 EST (17 lines)
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: Tongue checking
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 90 21:08:00 EST
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: Re: 3.966 support: tongue-checking & other survival skills (33)
Dear John Slatin: You can tell your Provost that at UCLA there hve not
been ADD /DROP tables for 2 decades! It is all computerized, and that
takes care, fairly well, what with pre-enrollment, of 34,000 students,
including Grads. And that is a Quarter system we are on, so it happens
3x/year. Texas should at least inq uire to see what they could get
going for them! Most Departments here are not computerized, except for
Art, which was done by a dyslexical Serbian artist and sculptor friend
because he saw it was impossible to keep track of kids who we re fooling
around for 6-7 years and not 4 years, and taking course scattershot and
not in proper sequence for art majors. But add/drop tables? Gawd!
Lines aro und the campus? Faculty wasting days on that stuff instead of
boning up for the ir first week of lecturing? Huh! Kessler. He could
buy the package I bet from UCLA, or rent it, or pay it off. Think of
the man-hours saved for Ph.Ds. A lot they care about Ph.Ds. anyhoo.
Kessler here in LA
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: 28 Jan 90 21:25:59 EST
From: James O'Donnell <JODONNEL@PENNSAS>
Subject: Tongue checking
From: Jim O'Donnell (Classics, Penn)
I think a standing ovation is in order for John Slatin's self-control in
the presence of his provost. But maybe this is a good time to ask a
question his provost begs: where does the `de-humanizing' epithet come
from in relation to computers? Why does it stick? It seems to me that
exactly the opposite claim can be made, e.g., the contact with the wide
world of BITNET and all the cheerfully diverse people in it certainly
seems a positive, and very humanizing force. I can understand ordinary
fear of a strange machine: I'll break it, it'll bite me, it'll go on a
rampage and take over the world -- irrational, but perfectly
understandable. But why this attitude, which is not fear so much as it
is an utterly off-the-wall snobbishness?