Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!decwrl!ucbvax!ucdavis!csusac!mmsac!eben
From: eben@mmsac.UUCP (Eben R.S. Visher)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: life's one-way conversions
Message-ID: <2591@helios.mmsac.UUCP>
Date: 22 Nov 89 01:39:44 GMT
References: <1989Nov15.171212.642@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us> <109.UUL1.3#5131@mvac23.UUCP>
Organization: Martin Marietta in Sacramento
Lines: 52
In-reply-to: thomas@mvac23.UUCP's message of 19 Nov 89 21:51:12 GMT

The replies to the calculator question are confusing to me.  Life's
one way conversions provide the answer.

If you need a calculator for supporting bookshelves, you use HP, obviously.

If you need to do lots of real work, you use RPN, obviously.

Anyone familiar with HP or RPN understands.  Anyone else won't, but so
what?  The same is true with Unix and VMS.  Or Unix and DOS.  Or sex
and bashing your head against a wall.  In all cases, there is
essentially a one-way conversion process (from one state to the other)
with very little back-flow.

Ignore everyone who has not been solidly in each camp at one point in
his life, since he is missing an essential perspective.  Also ignore
the strange people who comprise the reverse current (the people who
willingly switch from ten-speeds to one-speeds, Unix to VMS, sex to
abstinence, RPN to algebraic, C to FORTRAN, freedom to Communism, and
so on).  All diodes have some reverse current, I think.  But it's
small.

One-way conversions are identified with a question like: "If this were
Russia, which way would the machine guns be pointing?"  For the Wall,
the guns point toward the people wanting freedom.  People have
historically been machine-gunned for wanting to convert from slavery
to freedom.  They do not shoot people going the other way.  A
comparable question: "In Saigon, what planes was everyone pushing to
get on--the ones headed toward freedom or the ones headed into
Communist areas?"  Or "Which way do boat people go?"

When you can relate these questions to music, calculators, operating
systems, editors, programming languages, art, and whatnot, you are on
the road to discovering the end-point, the final destination, that the
impartial conversion process indicates is a nice place to be.

So ask yourself, "If they had machine guns at college bookstores,
would they be shooting the people giving up their algebraic machines
and buying RPNs, or would they be shooting the people doing the
opposite?"

This process of observing life's one-way conversions is the closest
you'll get (barring religion) to finding absolute answers to life's
tough questions like "Is this good art?", "Is Beethoven better than
Elvis?"  What we all want is the answer that an impartial jury could
render (say, a team made of Martians and Spock and a few Antareans).
If you had this jury, you would have them examine all calculators and
all kinds of calculations, and make a suggestion.  Failing such an
impartial panel, observe life's one-way conversions.
-- 

================
Eben R.S. Visher, {sun.com!sacto,uunet}!mmsac!eben, (916) 441-8137