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From: George Huxtable (no email)
Date: Thu Apr 07 2005 - 18:13:26 EDT
I have a few comments about Herbert Prinz's recent contribution to this thread.
1. Just to point out that Herbert's contribution was in html-only, whereas
Nav-L requires a text-based ascii version, which may be accompnied, or not,
by html. Otherwise, those of us that are under-endowed (at least, as far as
our mailers are concerned), have some difficulty in reading the message. I
am sure that in Herbert's case it was an inadvertent omission, but it
provides a good excuse for me to remind other contributors.
2. Bill was indeed naughty to quote from the web without providing
followable link information, and Herbert was right to chastise him
appropriately. He has apologised, and I doubt if he will repeat that sin.
Those strictures should also apply, just the same, when Nav-L contributors
cite published material in printed form, for which, if possible, proper
references should be included. Most Nav-L contributors are indeed rather
scrupulous about that.
3. Herbert refers to Robert van Gent as the originator for the web
information about the circumnavigator's paradox. Robert used to be a
regular contributor to Nav-L, many years ago, but has since migrated to the
Hastro (History of Astronomy) list, which suits his interests more closely.
Robert, who is at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, with email
address "Gent van R.H." <>, is a real polymath, and
what's more, a friendly character who seems always ready to offer help,
off-list and on-list, as I have good reason to know.
4. Herbert was rather hard on Bill for quoting from a website, rather than
simply citing a reference to it, when he wrote-
"...how much more economical it is to just link to an article, instead of
filling up our mailboxes with incomplete copies. It saves bandwith not only
in our computers, but in our brains as well; ..."
I take a different view. It wasn't an unduly long extract that Bill quoted,
and was interesting in its own right. If, instead, he had provided a
description of the site's contents, in sufficient detail to encourage us to
visit it, that could well have taken up nearly as much space. For some of
us, with old-fashioned browsers, sometimes visits to modern websites are
something of a venture into the unknown. So for us, reading a direct quote,
within the email, of such interesting material which requires no searching,
can be an advantage. And Herbert, just like the rest of us, has a "delete"
button which he is free to use.
George.
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contact George Huxtable by email at , by phone at
01865 820222 (from outside UK, +44 1865 820222), or by mail at 1 Sandy
Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.
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