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Table of Contents
Web notes --
Recommended plug-ins and utilities -- by Tracy Marks
New electronic texts -- from the Gutenberg Project, from The Internet Public Library Online Texts Collection
Off-the-wall ideas
TracerLock can monitor the AltaVista search engine for you and notify you by e-mail when a new instance of a search term is found. After registering (for free), you enter the queries you are interesting in tracking -- using the format for Advanced Search (Boolean) at AltaVista. All the features of AltaVista queries apply, such as searching for a phrase by putting it in parentheses.
For instance, you could set up
link:yourdomainname AND NOT host:yourdomainname
e.g., link:samizdat.com AND NOT host:samizdat.com
to find new Web pages that have hyperlinks to pages at your site.
You also can set up newsgroup searches. Since newsgroup items are only archived for 2-4 weeks at AltaVista, it would be very helpful to get alerts about new items there that match an on-going interest of yours. For instance, you could set up
from:ford.com AND newsgroups:comp AND productname
to find new items posted in computer-related newsgroups by people who work at Ford and that mention your "productname."
NB -- when I signed up, the server or connection was very slow. Be patient. It's worth the wait.
(Thanks to Bruce Spencer at Cobb/Ziff-Davis for the pointer to this one.)
This directory service includes white and yellow page telephone listings (including toll-free numbers), as well as email addresses and URLs. Purportedly, they have over 90 million consumer and over 10 million business listings. If you are searching for a business, you get all relevant info about them in a single listing. You also can click to get a map generated on the fly, with driving directions (from MapsOnUs).
But the feature I find most useful is the reverse telephone lookup. I tried my own home phone number, then clicked on the address and got a list of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of everyone on my street. I've lived here for 21 years and there are neighbors I've bumped into off and on for years, without knowing their names (when you've said "hello" to someone for years, it's a bit embarrassing to ask them what their name is...) Now I can finally put names to those faces (and can even phone them if I like).
In the recent redesign of the Advanced Search page at AltaVista, they swapped the positions of the query and ranking boxes, and changed their labels. If you were a regular user of this service, you might well have been confused by the changed and wondered why you were getting bizarre search results.
What had been known as the "query box" is now the "boolean expression" box (the box on the bottom), and the "ranking box" is the one on top. So, for instance, to get recipes when you don't know anything about cooking, enter
recipe
in the Boolean box. And in the box at the top of the page, enter the list of everything you happen to have in the refrigerator.
For more detail, check my on-line tutorial on how to get the most out of AltaVista, starting at http://www.samizdat.com/script/title.htm
(reporting on Digital Libraries '98, an annual conference sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery)
I finally got to try one of those portable electronic book readers. These devices have been discussed (and hyped) in the press for a while ... and are often promoted as the future of books, though none of them have taken off in the market yet.
If the device I tried (a research prototype from Fuji Xerox labs called XLibris, and not a consumer product) is typical of what's being offered, there's still some way to go before these things will have general appeal. But the prototype I tried also had some unexpectedly appealing features, and I might be inclined to get one if I needed to carry a lot of information in a portable package.
The device was about the size of a large notepad. It displayed a portrait-oriented page of about 8 1/2 by 11 inches, and came with a special pen. The pages in the demonstration were image scans of journal articles. Both the pad and the pen were untethered. The display was color, and backlit. You could tilt it to some extent and still read it, though if you went more than about 20-30 degrees off center, the display became hard to read. The text itself was fairly easy to read and skim in its regular typeface, though the resolution wasn't quite up to the smaller type used for footnotes and captions.
The pen was used to turn pages (by pointing to a "dog-eared corner" icon whose thickness varied depending on how many pages were "behind" the one you were looking at. Another prototype (which I didn't get to try myself) had what I thought was a better page-turning design; you could squeeze the corners of the pad to turn a page, or if you kept squeezing, "riffle" though the book pages as if you were flipping through a book's pages rapidly; a nice touch. I'm not sure my device would have been quite up to that, as there was a small but noticeable delay in turning pages.
The pen could also be used for highlighting and freeform annotations in various colors. The device would save these annotations, and could also, if you entered a special mode, suggest other pages and documents in its internal library that were related to the words and phrases you highlighted or underlined. (Basically, it did a similarity search on the words.) You'd see a small version of the other page suggested, and could hit it with the pen to bring up that page and article. The new page could then highlight the related material. (I suspect that this feature was the main innovation the prototype was designed to investigate.) With other pen touches, you could browse the overall "library" stored in the pad, visit other documents, and also keep (and navigate through) a record of what you'd read and highlighted.
The interface was a bit more modal than it needed to be (that is, you had to remember what mode buttons you'd hit, and performance got a bit sluggish or unexpected if you left certain modes on longer than intended.) Some of the "modes" could have naturally been made part of the pen itself. For example, it would be useful to just flip over the pen to use the "eraser", and perhaps click on levers on the pen (like the ones used in 4-color pens) to select different annotation and highlighting colors, instead of having to click on the displayed toolbar to use these features.
Still, if the device has high enough capacity, I could see it as being very useful when you needed to have large amounts of documentation around. Right now at work I'm working on setting up some servers in a machine room to be usable remotely, and am having to lug around about a foot and a half worth of large computer manuals. It would be very useful to be able to just carry around a pad like this, and be able to annotate the documentation, and follow cross-links to related material. Likewise, I could see it very useful for doctors to have a medical library and journal they could carry around while visiting patients, so they could consult studies on strange symptoms as they discovered them. Other professionals working with large amounts of knowledge could also find such a pad and library useful.
The page image format, now used for some on-line books, has some disadvantages of being large and expensive to store and transmit (unless one uses a low resolution that makes it less useful). This may change now that there are new image compression algorithms coming out that are optimized for reading book pages over the Net.
I saw a demo of one of them (DjVu from At&T Labs) and was rather impressed. From what I could tell, the technology uses two-stage compression, foreground/background differentiation, feature detection, and progressive loading, to get page images that are 5-10 times smaller than comparable GIF or JPEG images, and which can be viewed very quickly over a download connection, since the text and the other main features people of the page load first. (Further loading just sharpens the detail on the fonts and the graphics, but the text seems to become legible very fast.) The plug-in for the format also allows images to be panned and zoomed to minute detail. There's a web site for DjVu at http://djvu.research.att.com/ .
(from a message sent to Nettrain August 31, 1998 and posted at http://www.webwinds.com/classes/plugins.htm
copyright 1998 by Tracy Marks and reposted here with permission of the author
(Recommendations here are W95 and Netscape4-based.)
In regard to programs I use and recommend to my Internet students...
The programs that I believe are essential are:
a) an antivirus program, preferably one of the following:
I find these extremely useful for most Net surfers:
a) Adobe Acrobat reader http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/readstep.html
b) PowerPoint viewer if you don't have PowerPoint http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/index.htm#downloads
c) Quick View Plus http://www.inso.com/qvp/index.htm
(All three reachable on Netcape Navigator for the pc via Help, About Plugins or at: http://home.netscape.com/plugins/index.html )
d) a quickie image viewer (ACDSee recommended - http://www.acdsystems.com/ orhttp://www.acdvictoria.com/pages/index.html
e) a bookmark manager program (Compass recommended - http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/way/5500/compass.html
Note: Many people also like PowerMarks: http://www.kaylon.com/power.html
f) a separate-from-browser email program (Eudora Lite and Eudora Pro recommended http://www.eudora.com ) Also a web-based email account such as Netscape's webmail at http://webmail.netscape.com/ or a separate email address to use with newsgroups (Mailbank recommended - http://www.mailbank.com/)
These are enjoyable multimedia extras:
a) Crescendo for enhanced midi online http://www.liveupdate.com/crescendo.html
b) Real Audio and Video Playerhttp://www.real.com/
c) Quick Time for Windows (video) http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
(All three available at Netscape's plugin site)
d) An enhanced Midi player (Wingroove recommended - http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~hiroki/english/ review at http://hotfiles.zdnet.com/cgi-bin/texis/swlib/hotfiles/info.html?fcode=000RQ7
For more midi and Crescendo recommendations and music files, see my midi and Crescendo links at http://www.webwinds.com/friends/midi.htm
And other Internet browsing and communication extras:
a) ICQ for instant communications http://www.mirabilis.com/
b) for active newsgroup readers, a newsreader such as Gravity (previously Anawave, now MicroPlanet - downloadable at: http://www.microplanet.com/ and reviewed at: http://www.cnet.com/Content/Reviews/Compare/Newsreader/ss04.html
c) an offline browser (Teleport Pro http://www.tenmax.com/pro.html )
For Windows 95:
In regard to additional freeware and shareware that is not Internet-related, but very useful for W95, I personally rely on:
Frankly, I warn students against installing too many plugins, as they slow down one's computer. I also most highly recommend Tucows http://www.tucows.com/us.html, Stroud http://www.stroud.com, Dave Central http://davecentral.com/ and Zdnet hotfiles http://www.hotfiles.com for freeware and shareware because of their xcellent reviews, although Winfiles http://www.winfiles.com also has An outstanding collection. Zdnet's PC Magazine software library at http://www8.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/download/swlib.html also continually posts reviews and recommendations of the best Internet as well as Windows 95 shareware.
Tracy Marks tracy@marks.net, Windweaver Web Training and Design, Arlington, Massachusetts, http://www.windweaver.com/ Internet training and web design for individuals, schools, businesses and nonprofit organizations. Internet Search Bookstore http://www.windweaver.com/booksrch.htm, Webwinds Web Cameras http://www.webwinds.com/, Webcards: Annotated Guide http://www.webwinds.com/cards/cards.htm, Figure skating photos http://www.webwinds.com/skating/skating.htm
from the Gutenberg Project ftp://ftp.prairienet.org/pub/providers/gutenberg/etext98/http://promo.net/pg/
(Adding dozens of new ones every month, Gutenberg has already made over 1500 etexts available for free over the Internet. These include classic works of literature and history, as well as out-of-print and little-known works by great authors. If you can, connect by ftp, rather than the Web, to get the most recent ones. Here's a list of those recently added, alphabetized by author. The file name is useful for fetching the text from the ftp site. Many of these are also available on diskette from PLEASE COPY THIS DISK for those who cannot get them themselves. For the current catalog, check http://www.samizdat.com/catalog.html or send your email request to seltzer@samizdat.com)
Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper, et. al. (cndrl10.txt)
Horatio Alger, Jr. -- Frank's Campaign/Farm & Camp (frcmp10.txt)
Hans Christian Andersen -- Fairy Tales (hcaft10.txt)
J.J. Astor -- A Journey in Other Worlds (ajiow10.txt)
Honore de Balzac --
James Boswell -- Life of Johnson (ljnsn10.txt)
E.S. Brooks --
Frances Hodgson Burnett -- A Lady of Quality (ladyq10.txt)
Edward Carpenter -- Pagan & Christian Creeds (pchrc10.txt)
David N. Carvalho -- Forty Centuries of Ink (40cnk10.txt)
J. Storer Clausen -- Count Bunker (cbnkr10.txt)
Wilkie Collins --
Richard Harding Davis -- Lion and the Unicorn (liuni10.txt)
Alexandre Dumas (fils) -- Camille [La Dame aux Camilias] (cmlle10.txt)
Theron Q. Dumont -- The Power of Concentration (prcon10.txt)
T.S. Eliot -- Poems (tsepm10.txt)
Edna Ferber -- Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed (dwnhr10.txt)
John Fiske -- The Unseen World and Other Essays (nswoe10.txt)
Louis Ginzberg --
Hale -- The Life of Columbus, [in his own words] (tlocc10.txt)
Julian Hawthorne -- The Golden Fleece (gldfl10.txt)
Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Most Interesting Stories of All Nations (misan10.txt)
William Ernest Henley -- Poems (pmweh10.txt)
O. Henry --
Ibanez -- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (4hrsm10.txt)
Andrew Lang
Jack London -- Smoke Bellew (smkbl10.txt)
John Lord --
Christopher Marlowe --
Charles Morris (editor) -- The San Francisco Calamity (sfclm10.txt)
H.H. Munro ("Saki") -- The Toys of Peace (toypc10.txt)
Abraham Myerson -- The Foundations of Personality (prsty10.txt)
William Osler -- The Evolution of Modern Medicine (teomm10.txt)
Eden Phillpotts -- The Grey Room (gryrm10.txt)
Plato (translated by Benjamin Jowett) --
Mary Roberts Rinehart --
Sir Walter Scott -- Kenilworth (knlwt10.txt)
George Bernard Shaw -- Perfect Wagnerite, Commentary the Ring (sring10.txt)
Upton Sinclair -- The Profits of Religion (prfrl10.txt)
Chester K. Steele -- The Golf Course Mystery (glfms10.txt)
James Stephens -- The Clock of Gold (crkgd10.txt)
Robert Louis Stevenson and L. Osbourne --
J. M. Synge -- In Shadow of the Glen (sglen10.txt)
Booth Tarkington -- Seventeen (svntn10.txt)
Henry van Dyke --
The Internet Public Library Online Texts Collection http://www.ipl.org/reading/books/
A joint project of the Internet Public Library and the Michigan Humanities Text Initiative, the "Online Texts Collection contains over 7700 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Subject Classification." The do not store any texts locally, but rather catalog texts elsewhere on the Internet, making it easy for you to search for what you want and linking directly to the texts themselves. (It was a pleasant surprise to search for "Seltzer" and see all of my own books and stories, from, included in the catalog, complete with Dewey classification, and with links to my site http://www.samizdat.com ).
We have grown accustomed to thinking of the U.S. as a "melting pot," with people from many different cultural backgrounds. But the same is true of many other countries around the world. Hence many people feel a dissociation between their cultural identity and the political entity that rules the geographic area where they happen to live. At the very least, this dissociation can lead to feelings of isolation, of being out-siders, of not belonging. Where cultural minorities are large enough, it can lead to political unrest, rebellion, and civil war.
The Internet makes it theoretically possible for people with a common cultural background to communicate with and bond with one another, regardless of where they may happen to live. We will increasingly find ourselves with two intertwined identities -- the bonds (social and economic) that arise from where we happen to be physically located and the bonds that arise from cultural background and belief and conviction and on-line interaction. And now that Internet usage is spreading broadly -- reaching all countries, and increasingly becoming available to the many, rather than just the elite few -- perhaps it is time to consider the opportunities this opens, not just for increasing mutual understanding, and building virtual culture-based communities, but also for changing our basic concepts of what constitutes a government and what it's role should be.
One possibility would be to recognize a "cultural citizenship" in addition to today's "geographic citizenship". I was born in the United States and live here and pay taxes here and vote here. But I may feel I have a cultural identity that is German or Irish or Scottish or Italian. Someone who lives in Israel may feel cultural allegiance to Judaism or to the Arabic world.
For a moment, forget the current geo-political landscape, and consider the possibilities. Say each individual in the world had the opportunity to declare his or her "cultural citizenship." Say that then some part of taxes collected from this individual went to support an organizational entity devoted to that culture/background, and that individual had the right to vote to determine the leadership and direction of that cultural entity. Then in a country with many cultures, no single culture would be the "winner" and all the others "losers" or "minorities." Everyone, regardless of where they live, would belong to the culture of their choice and have a say in the preservation of its past/traditions and the direction of its future development.
This virtual, cultural citizenship need not be limited to national or religious or other pre-existing "cultures." People should be able to belong to whatever cultural entities they wish, including newly created ones, based on any common interest. And "cultural citizenship" need not be "all-or-nothing." Someone could, for example choose to be 60% German, 20% Turkish, 10% Argentinian, 10% Mormon Church... In that case, the taxes and the voting rights would be similarly divided -- e.g., 60% of that person's cultural tax going to support the German culture and 60% of that person's cultural vote going to that entity.
The infrastructure and the habits of behavior supported by the Internet make this bizarre notion possible. Would it be desirable? How might it work? And how might we get from here to there? I'd be very interested in hearing your reactions. seltzer@samizdat.com
For New Hampshire people, such as myself, taxes are a most important issue. Through my involvement in public schools, as an elected official, I have become painfully familiar with many emotions and issues around taxation. I believe that many of these issues go far beyond the narrow bound of this little state.
Problem number one is the American notion of separation of church and state. While many nations do use tax money to support churches, Americans have an almost pathological objection to this. And it's not just that they don't want their money going to churches or that they don't want taxes going to other people's churches. They don't want to see anyone's tax money go to anyone's churches. So you'll never see Americans agreeing to the inclusion of religious affiliations getting tax money.
I also see worldwide an objection to governments helping collect taxes for groups that some people do not support. There are probably enough people who have enough of an objection to enough groups that this will never fly. Now you can argue logic, but *every group* gets money, until you are blue in the face. Rational arguments and taxes are about as useless as rational arguments and religion. And I say this as one who supports taxes, religion and rational arguments. Reality is reality.
For the notion of taxes to work in this global system they must be voluntary. No government is going to use its force to collect for other entities. They spend enough resources collecting for themselves. Voluntary taxes do work. Else churches in most of the world would fold. They require that members have a strong belief in the mission of the organization. And that the money raised supports that mission.
The Internet can be used to support more global organizations. However the idea of citizenship implies more than just common affiliation and financial support for an organization. Citizenship implies duty, rights and privileges.
Duty includes financial support (paying of taxes), adherence to laws, and, in many states, contribution of time and effort (military or other public service.) This much you've started to cover in your essay. But what of rights and privileges?
For a state, rights and privileges includes such things as are stated in the American Bill of Rights. Due process of law, freedom to contribute to the process of government and to benefit for the system. Privileges include the protection of the government from enemies (internal and external.) It is from these rights and privileges that citizenship aquires its value. In fact, one can (and often must) pay taxes without getting the benefits of citizenship.
From what I've seen, American citizenship is moderately difficult to acquire. The US requires several years of residence and the passing of a test. There are countries where citizenship may be purchased. I read the other day that one country in Africa sells citizenship for $5,000. Other countries require years of residence and official acceptance by the government. Rules for acquiring membership in cultural citizenship groups must be clearly defined and probably non-trivial for them to be accepted.
The rights and privileges must also be clear. And they must be supported. I'm not sure what they will be or how supported. But it is something to think about.
Perhaps Major League Baseball could help put an end to tensions between the U.S. and Cuba. Baseball is extremely popular in Cuba, and Castro himself used to be a quality player with pro potential before he became a revolutionary and then dictator.
Consider the possibilities if Major League Baseball were to (gratis, for the good of world peace) offer Castro personal ownership of a major league franchise for Havana. The sole condition would be that he retire from politics. This would in one swift stroke
Castro. Intriguing, but of course it makes too much sense to ever happen! Among the reasons are 1) Fidel's too old now, and we'll be rid of him via natural causes soon anyway. (2) The examples of the USSR and China would seem to indicate that whatever post-Castro communist regime evoles in Cuba will eventually go the way of those countries and lead to the restoration of normal relations without any such munificence by the U.S. And (3) Baseball's popular resurgence this year.
On the later point, I'm suggesting that your idea of expanding major league baseball to the Caribbean is the sort of radical move that is only made in desperate times. Until this year, with pro football the undisputed king, and the NBA making such enormous strides, and baeball floundering in the area of public interest, "desperate times" might have called for "desperate measures." But now after McGwire and Sosa and all the exciting pennant races, etc., I'm sure all the baseball people are already back in the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" mode.
In the long term, though, the expansion idea is a very good one. Actually, with the number of teams they have now, what they really need is four major leagues. I'm not even going to start my head rolling by thinking about the numbers, the logistics, how many wild card teams, how many rounds of playoffs, etc., but it seems to me that a natural setup would put one league in the Eastern U.S., one in the midwest, one in the West, and one in the Caribbean, also possibly including Florida, or maybe not.
When sluggers like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa come to the plate, we want to see action. But, under the current rules, opposing managers often call for an intentional walk when they come to the plate. It's only logical -- you take the bat out of the slugger's hands at the minimal cost of putting the guy on first base.
A simple change in the rules could have interesting implications, and add some additional excitement to the game. As it is now, the choice of an intentional walk is entirely in the hands of the team in the field. Why not give the batter a chance to decline?
In other words, when you have four balls, you can walk to first; but you can also decline the walk, and continue to bat, keeping whatever strikes you may have. If you then get eight balls (before getting three strikes), you again can walk if you choose -- but this time you would go to second base, instead of first; or you can opt again to continue to bat. At twelve balls, you can choose to go all the way to third. And at sixteen balls, you get a "home walk."
That small rule change could lead to some interesting and difficult choices for both the pitcher and the batter, a lot fewer intentional walks, and more action. (If you know anybody who involved in rule changes for Major League Baseball, please forward this to them. :-)
Walks. The problem of the intentional walk has been around for a long time, of course, and over the years I have heard and/or come up with many ideas of how to do something about it. I think I've heard at least a variation of your idea before, though perhaps not in the same exact form. As for the idea the way you offer it, I think the obvious negative aspect is that it would do one of the things baseball is trying its best to avoid: lengthen the game. Also too complicated, too much keeping track of balls and strikes, etc. Finally, there are (in my opinion) better ways to solve the problem.
Of course nothing is gonna happen. It's like the field goal problem in football. There are a couple of good ways of reducing this problem, but they never happen. Ditto with the unsatisfactory sudden death overtime. Or shootouts in soccer and hockey. Every sport seems to have something that we all know is a bad way of doing it, but these problems never get fixed. And as I grow older, I get more discouraged at even making the suggestions anymore.
Since you pique my interest by raising the intentional walk thing, though, I will go back into the old memory bank and pull out a couple of ideas that I think are the best ones.
Idea No. 2 is something about changing the walk rule so that if you walk a batter, all runners advance one base. That would end intentional walks pretty quickly, but (in my opinion) is too much of a drastic change in the game. It would, for one thing, make ordinary walks too damaging. And if you said this would only happen on intentional walks, it wouldn't really solve the problem, since it is pretty easy to give a guy a semi-intentional walk if you want to just by throwing unhittable pitches without the catcher actually moving away from the plate.
This, by the way, is one problem with any rule change. You can't really say that your new rule applies only to intentional walks, or it will just be circumvented by pitching around the hitter even more glaringly than they sometimes do now. If there were a special rule that applied only to "intentional" walks, and they wanted to walk the guy intentionally without triggering that rule, the pitcher would simply throw four balls ridiculously high and outside. If you think about how they "pitch around" hitters sometimes now without intentionally walking them, giving them the choice of walking or hitting a bad pitch, imagine how much more out of the strike zone they would throw those pitches if they were doing it in lieu of an intentional walk.
So any rule change has to apply to all walks. Thus we come to the idea suggested long ago by Earl Weaver (the main idea here is his; I'm not sure about the details, so I have superimposed my own idea of how it would work):
When the batter gets four balls, it is a base on balls for the team, but not for that hitter. Each team could use anybody not in the game at that time as a designated runner (not affecting his eligibility in the game -- he could still be used in another capacity later, or could already have been used in one). The designated runner goes to first base, and the hitter stays at the plate and gets a new at-bat.
Earl's main point is that you don't want to eliminate the intentional or semi-intentional walk entirely. It is a part of baseball strategy not only in terms of trying to avoid pitching to a particular big hitter, but also in terms of setting up force plays, double plays, etc.
The purpose of changing the rule, therefore, should be only to avoid taking the bat out of the hands of a McGwire, Sosa, Griffey, etc. Earl's idea does this. If first base is open and you want to set up a double play, or a force at any base, feel free. But you still have to pitch to the same hitter.
I like this idea, but it has never gone anywhere.
From: Richard Seltzer <seltzer@acunet.net> Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 13:17:38 -0400 (EDT)
With my walk idea, I did mean for any walk at all (because, as you point out, there is no clear way to distinguish an "intentional" walk).
I agree that Weaver's idea is simpler, more direct, and would actually work much better.
From: Larry Eldridge <theeldridges@worldnet.att.net> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 13:51:16 +0000
Glad you like the Earl's proposal. Actually, I'm not necessarily an advocate of any of these ideas, but I do think that if ever a change is made, this is the way to go.
My hesitation, as a traditionalist, is that walks (intentional or semi-intentional) are part of the game's strategy not only to set up force plays but also to avoid pitching to particular hitters. And I'm not sure that's all bad.
One thing such walks do, of course, is set up a lot of interesting, dramatic situations that are ripe for second-guessing (and second-guessing is a big part of baseball's attraction). As long as the intentional walk is an option, there will always be questions whether they should walk the guy or pitch to him -- and whichever way the manager goes, he's open to second-guessing if it doesn't work. You also still have high drama when they do walk him: Will it work, or will the guy they chose to pitch to spoil the strategy? You also sometimes get situations where walking a big hitter means going "against the book" by putting the winning run on base. Do you still do it? Obviously, eliminating the intentional walk would eliminate a lot of strategy, drama, and second-guessing.
The gain: You don't "take the bat out of the hands" of the big sluggers people want to see. This is a valid point, but I wonder if it's enough to justify the loss described above.
For one thing, again from my "traditionalist" perch, I think there's been too much emphasis on offense anyway over the last couple of decades -- the abomination known as the designated hitter being Exhibit A. The conventional wisdom is that people want to see runs scored -- that they like slugfests better than pitching duels. Unfortunately, with a great many of today's "fans" this may be true, but I like to think that "real" baseball fans still prefer the tight, "National League" type of game where runs are scarce. To me it's much more exciting to see a team manufacture runs via things like the hit-and-run, the steal, hitting behind the runner, etc., than just keep banging the ball out of the park. I think a walk or a base hit, a sacrifice (or steal), and then a single to left and a bang-bang play at the plate is infinitely more exciting than a home run.
But of course such plays are only exciting if the score is close. Maybe in the previous inning the other team had men on second and third with one out and McGwire up, and they walked him and then got out of the inning giving up only one run, or maybe getting a DP and giving up none. Now the score is still 1-1 or whatever, and my bang-bang play means something. But if they can't walk McGwire and he hits one out, it doesn't really mean much anymore.
Would the majority of fans rather see the homer, and a 4-1 game which continues to deterioriate to a final score like 11-6? Maybe, but I'm not sure. I certainly hope not. And I know I wouldn't. I'd much rather see a 2-1 game any day.
Incidentally, despite the conventional wisdom that the fans only want offense, the only documented figures showing increased attendance for particular players (at least the only ones I'm aware of) have involved just the opposite. Sandy Koufax, as part of his contract negotiations, was able to demonstrate that his presence on the mound increased the Dodgers' average attendance by something like 10,000. I also saw similar statistics in N.Y. in the year that Doc Gooden was going crazy. And we know it was true here with Clemens. This year, with McGwire and Sosa chasing the game's most famous record, I'm sure you could document that their presence pulled in a lot of extra fans too. But this was an aberration. In general, it's hard to say how many fans come out to see the sluggers, but we can demonstrate that a lot of extra fans come out to games where their expectation is not a slugfest but a 1-0 or 2-1 game with a lot of strikeouts!.
So the bottom line is that I dthink I'd rather let managers have the option of taking the bat out of the hands of those big hitters!
From: Richard Seltzer <seltzer@acunet.net> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 12:46:47 -0400 (EDT)
I suspect that you are right -- that the walk rule won't be changed for the regular season, where records are semi-sacred. But I could imagine a change (Weaver-style) for the playoffs and world series, where the focus is more on action than on records. (Regarding desperation, if it's Yankees vs. Braves for the World Series, baseball will be in great shape audience-wise and money-wise. But Cleveland vs. San Diego would be a bust, opening the door to creativity. As for creativity, designated hitter and inter-league play did happen; so it's not entirely impossible.)
From: Larry Eldridge <theeldridges@worldnet.att.net> Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:14:02 +0000
>But I could imagine a change (Weaver-style) for the playoffs and world series, where the focus is more on action than on records.
I hope not, for the same reasons. To me, the superiority of the playoffs and World Series over the regular season is that the games tend to be tighter and closer (i.e., Wednesday's pair of 12-inning thrillers). I don't want to see "creative" changes that turn such games into 10-7 slugfests.
>...Cleveland vs. San Diego would be a bust, opening the door to creativity. As for creativity, designated hitter and inter-league play did happen; so it's not entirely impossible.
Well, thankfully it's impossible for this year. You and I obviously disagree on this whole subject to some degree: i.e., you see the DH as "creative," while I see it as an abomination. FYI, there was only one reason for the introduction of the DH when it happened in 1973: To increase attendance. The American League had fallen on hard times, and was trailing the NL badly in attendance and TV ratings, which, of course, are the only things the owners care about. The AL owners were desperate, so they took desperate measures and went for the DH gimmick. It didn't work, by the way -- meaning that it didn't achieve its goal. The NL continued to have better attendance andratings. (I don't know about now, but that was definitely true throughout the rest of the '70s and into the '80s). If only the AL owners had come to their senses and said: "Well, we tried to jazz up the game with the DH, but it hasn't closed the gap between our attendance and that of the NL, so we might as well scrap it and go back to real baseball." But they didn't. Now, as I understand it, the owners have come to their senses so that there might well be enough of them voting to get rid of it -- but at this point the players won't hear of it, since it keeps some of the aging big-name sluggers in the game. I even read once that the owners had offered to add an extra player to the roster, thus creating 30 additional jobs for the union, but the union still wouldn't go for it, because it wanted to protect its high-salaried statues who aren't really ballplayers anymore, but can still swing a bat four times a night.
Anyway, if this is an example of "creativity," I can do without it.
Bill Clinton seems determined to hold onto the presidency to the bitter end, relying on his continued popularity to avoid impeachment. As long as economic prosperity continues, the public will remain generally apathetic regarding his mistakes -- avidly following in the media the tale of his troubles and the continuing revelations of his misdeeds, but with the same kind of not-really-caring distance as they follow soap operas. Basically, Clinton's personal problems are no surprise to anyone, even though the lurid details are shocking. And very few people perceive that it is important to their own personal well-being that Clinton be removed for office. (He has not yet become a scapegoat for public ills. There are no public ills, at the present time, for him to be a scapegoat for.)
But there is one compelling reason why he might very well resign.
It is a certainty that if Clinton were to suddenly, unexpectedly resign, the stock market would drop precipitously. It might rebound the next day, or even that same afternoon, but the immediate effect would be a certain drop in the Dow of hundreds of points. Hence, Clinton has in his hands a virtually sure-fire way to make a fortune over night, initiating stock transactions based on his fore-knowledge of his own decision. There would be nothing "illegal" about this action, for he would have no "insider-knowledge" regarding any company. Rather, he would be taking advantage of the fact that his decision would affect the entire market. And he could thereby leave office as a "winner," with enough wealth to ease the pain of political disaster.
If Bill Clinton was at all moved by money he might go for your idea. But I do not think that money really matters to him. Power is what makes him run for office and hang on to it now. That and ego. He really does not seem to believe either that he is wrong or that someone else can do the job as well. The need for power keeps him from quiting. The ego keeps him from believing that he will be pushed from power or that he deserves to be removed. I doubt money fits into his thinking anywhere close to the surface.
Contrast this with Nixon who actually realized that he had hurt the office of the President and had enough respect for the office and the country to resign. I believe that both men were concerned about the country but that only Nixon was able to put country before self. For Clinton, country come second. For both men, money was way down the list of priorities.
As a writer hopeful, I read with interest your article on using the internet to distribute writing to a wide audience -- initially for free, with the hopes of a publishing contract later -- and agree with your analysis on the current reluctance of publishers to submit potentially profitable work on so open a forum. However, I would like to add that until publishers either take such an initiative (or, better still, peruse the 'net for examples of worthy talent), aspiring writers such as I will be in a frustrating situation.
I, like other fellow hopefuls, have to maintain a full-time job (fortunately for me, one that does allow some use of my writing ability) in order to make ends meet. This, naturally, consumes the majority of my daily energy which could otherwise be spent in writing on a scale which could be publicized across the internet. However, if I were to reduce my working hours and divert some of that energy to undertake such an endeavor, the lack of compensation for my efforts (as you described in your article) would leave me financially desparate.
Until some means is discovered for allowing piece-rate writing on the internet by hitherto unknown authors (the same concept that was applied with great success by newspapers in the early history of American journalism), a lot of talent (including mine, if I may be so bold) will be stifled before it has a chance to be seen.
Any advice or comments you have would be appreciated. Again, I enjoyed your article.
Reply from Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com
Posting on the Internet is part of the writing process, rather than separate from it. That is how I get feedback, which helps me better understand the impact of what I have written, and helps me edit and improve, it also brings interesting comments that help stimulate me to think in new directions. (It's a lot easier, less time-consuming, and more valuable than begging friends to read my work.)
And publishers/editors, etc. do, increasingly, use the Internet to search for new material.
I couldn't ask for anything more.
I do believe your article that cable modems will be the trend later on as everyone wants to be a publisher and put his family or himself on the web. I've recently talked with mediaone--cable company here in jacksonville florida and once a customer subscribes to mediaone cable service (TV & INTERNET), then mediaone automatically becomes the ISP of that customer. A direct connection & a speed of 1.5mbps or greater will make a desktop become a webserver. In fact, honestly, I've been contacting DELL or DIGITAL for a CPU which will house both as my personal desktop and webserver. Now, may I ask your opinion on this. I want to buy a web server (compaq, if you may recommend)and at the same time a graphics workstation. Please. tell me the specs and hardware that will be enough to run a webserver. won't my desktop files be invaded by someone accessing my web site? Aren't my personal files at risk since I have my webserver and personal desktop in one CPU casing? if you can give me a dream machine, then be it. I'll appreciate your response. thank you very much.
martin
Reply from Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com
I suggest that you check the responses to that article, at http://www.samizdat.com/news24.html#summary and #cable t #cable, you'll find messages from several people who are doing this today. I suggest that you contact them directly and get their advice. From their experience, they might be able to save you headaches and money. (e.g., they all seem to be running Linux). Once you have sorted out the issues and determined the right questions to ask your cable company to make sure you won't be pounding your head against a wall, (some of them today just don't get it, and deliberately make it difficult, if not impossible to do your own Web server from home), then you can shop for hardware. (And naturally, I think Compaq would be a good choice :-)
Reply from: Eric Eldred <eldred@mediaone.net> Date: Mon, 07 Sep 1998 10:40:46 +0000
I know it is tempting to get the most powerful machine you can afford. Nowadays a K6-300MHz box is very inexpensive, and what I'd recommend.
However, you don't actually need that much power for a web server. Instead of an ultrafast CPU, you should get plenty of RAM (64MB minimum, which means your motherboard and BIOS need to support it all--not every MB will go above 64MB) and as much L2 cache as you can get. Web servers don't tax the CPU as much as they do RAM and sometimes random disk access.
I run my web server on a Cyrix P166 (actually 133MHz) box I put together myself, with 64MB RAM and 512KB cache. I use Linux (RedHat 5.0) with some patches for the GNU compiler for Cyrix, and Apache for the web server.
You should be aware that my cable company does not officially support Linux. When they install the cable modem they require one of these OSs: Windows 95 or 98 or NT, or Macintosh. Also, the Network Interface Card (NIC) used at installation must be retained because its MAC address is used by the modem software (if you change the card you can have the cable company readdress the modem, with some delay).
So what I (and many others) do is set up a Windows machine with the NIC so the cable modem can be installed. If you want to run a web server from Win95/98 you can use the Personal Web Server free from Microsoft -- available with Internet Explorer 4--or pay lots of money to run Microsoft's Internet Server from Windows NT. I used PWS for a while, but it lacks the control facilities and logging available with Apache's free web server (which, BTW, should be available on Windows NT soon as well as Linux and others). There are also some other shareware Windows web servers and firewall systems.
The cable installers will remind you to turn off Windows file and print sharing so others will not be able to get at your files.
Then, when your system is stable, you can add a Linux box for the web server, or convert the Windows box to Linux and use just it. Linux adds quite a bit more security and power--Linux and Apache have more than half of the web server market now, and your neighborhood ISP might just be running that too. Just move the NIC over to the Linux box.
If you want to have a Linux web server and also a Windows or Apple PC connected continously to the Internet via the cable modem, you can set up the Linux server as a firewall (software comes with Linux, configuration help available from other users) and put in a second NIC. Then, with a cheap network hub and a third NIC in the Windows box you can set up a little network. Your files are quite safe on the Windows PCs behind the firewall, yet you can access the web or other machines on the internet outside the firewall, from any machine on the network.
(I don't really need the network. I use the Linux box with Netscape to read mail and UseNet and surf the web. I use a Win95 machine with a scanner to OCR books, then I can move then to the web server with a ZIP disk as well as the network.)
So maybe it would be wise to hang on to those old computers--they are useful for such tasks as web servers--and learn to set up a home network. This permits other family members to access at the same time as you, and the web server can be ticking away serving files at the same time to users all over the world!
It is true that Mediaone does not officially "support" Linux or a home network, but as long as you have elementary security settings and don't cause problems for others they will tolerate you or even recognize that it is okay. You will need to get support from other Linux/Apache/Mediaone users if you have problems. All this is not intended for novices, as even networking experts have problems from time to time.
I might mention that I used to have my web site on TIAC. However, bandwidth charges of about 3GB a month were costing me a total of almost $200 a month. This was a strong motivation to move to my home web server and drop the second phone line.
I could have set up a permanent telephone connection to TIAC and run my web server from home, but it would have cost much more than the cable modem and provide even less bandwidth.
I live too far from the Central Office for DSL to work here.
(At last count, I had users from at least 85 countries, with about 150MB of files. You can see for yourself what the cable modem response time is.... I don't claim that all cable modems work this way, but it would be a pity to sit around arguing when it is simple enough to just do it--let the market decide!)
"Eric" Eric Eldred Eldritch Press http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
Hi, I was reading excerpts from your book about how to publicize your web site. I really, really could use your help. I am the executive director of a peace and justice organization called
Montana Hate Free Zone based in Bozeman, Montana. We have launched an anti-hate, non violence pledge on the internet. Our goal is 1 million people world wide renouncing hatred and violence. This is a global effort. But I find it hard to get the word out. I am literally sending info like this one to groups and individuals one at a time. There has got to be a more effective way. We believe what we are doing is important. So I won't give up. Our web page is http://www.gomontana.com/hatefree on the bottom of the page there is the number 1,000,000. Click on the number and the pledge will appear.
We are an all volunteer organization so funds are limited. If you have any ideas or suggestions please let us know. Thank you very much for sharing so generously your knowledge on the internet.
Rev. Denise Rogers Executive Director
Reply from Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com
In the old days, email would have been the most effective method. But spam has so muddied the waters that most people delete messages that don't seem directly addressed to them as individuals.
As opposed to mass mailings, I'd suggest sending personal notes to individuals, and asking them to send personal notes to a few of their friends, asking them to send personal notes to a few of theirs... Then if your message has merit and strikes a chord, the word should spread on its own.
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