3.1238 not lost (48)
Willard McCarty (MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca)
Thu, 29 Mar 90 22:35:59 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 3, No. 1238. Thursday, 29 Mar 1990.
Date: 29 March 1990
From: Willard McCarty <MCCARTY@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: not lost in the shuffle to come
Dear Colleagues:
Humanist is due to move from Toronto to Brown University sometime
between Passover, 10 April, and Easter, 15 April. The move should not
affect the membership except that for a few days, perhaps, we may not be
able to respond as quickly to your contributions as I have in the past.
Please note in your calendars, however, that certainly after Easter all
contributions should be sent to Humanist@Brownvm rather than to
Humanist@UToronto.
My continuing apologies to new members who have submitted their
biographies in good faith, expecting them to be made available to
everyone else. Because I have been unusually busy, I have not for some
months been able to get to the editing job even a letter-perfect
biography requires. Humanist's new editorial board will make a big and
positive difference in this and many other ways.
I have just been reading an interesting and witty essay, _Memo from
Mercury: Information Technology IS Different_, by Gordon B. Thompson
(June 1979), an engineer from Bell Northern Research. Quite different
from schemes to turn artifically intelligent `agents' to the task of
filtering our information, Thompson's idea is to construct a
"serendipity machine" that by matching information browsing and mailing
habits would introduce people to like-minded others and to sources of
interest. The essay is, for this sort of thing, rather old and so
somewhat quaint at the edges, but it is well worth reading if you can
find it. It is Occasional Paper 10, Institute for Research on Public
Policy, 3535 chemin Queen Mary, bureau 514, Montreal, Quebec H3V 1H8
Canada.
Yours, Willard McCarty