MaasInfo.SQWA = Specific Questions Waiting for Answers, by Robert Elton
Maas, version of 1993.Apr.02. The author can be contacted by e-mail
rem@BTR.Com or by voicephone 415-969-2958.


I am looking for answers for the questions listed below. Elsewhere I
provide "trivial shareware" information, where I ask anyone who finds my
information worth more than a dollar to please return the favor by
helping me find information I am seeking. Well, this is a partial list
of information I'm currently seeking. Anyone who provides satisfactory
answers to me for a few of these questions thereby satisfies his/her
"trivial shareware" fee for one of the actual MaasInfo files. Of course
if you have already provided me with good information at some time, your
fee may have already been "paid" in advance, i.e. my MaasInfo may be
paying my debt for your past information rather than vice versa.


%% Here is the text formerly in the file SQWA.WRU (moved into this file
MaasInfo.SQWA sometime in late 1991), consisting of old questions from
1972-73 that to this day haven't been answered. I still would like
answers or info-referrals for many of these. Note the questions as
shown here are just brief summaries. I have lots more background info
for anyone seriously interested in trying to answer a particular
question, for example details of how I met and where I last saw the
longlost heartbreaks, and names of files (documents & software) I've
written in regard to technical topics.

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS WAITING FOR ANSWERS (SQWA)
Originally collected 1972-73, partially updated 1979 May 05, edited
slightly sometime in 1988, converted from POX to plain ASCII text 1991
Aug 06 and folded into this file, then further edit as part of this
file.

(After each question is a list of keywords in parenthesis. Some items
from earlier editions are now obsolete and marked as such here.)

1) [OBSOLETE, NO LONGER INTERESTED IN "SENSITIVITY TRAINING" GROUPS]

2) [OBSOLETE, LONELY OLD WOMAN DIED BEFORE I COULD FIND HER A MATE]

3) [OBSOLETE, PAID $100 FOR ALTERNATE METHOD]

4) REM -- Have some issues of "A Word in Edgewise", a hundred-page
essay on human-intelligence robots of the future, want other people to
read them, want to borrow other issues about different subjects. (KW:
HAVE WORD EDGEWISE MAGAZINE) Update 1992: We've managed to find the
author's e-mail address, although I've misplaced it at the moment.

5) REM -- Wanted, expert player of Sprouts (math game) as opponent or
co-researcher. I have done a lot of research on the game by myself
already and want to share results. (KW: SPROUTS MATH GAME PLAY)

6) [OMITTED, POSSIBLE COPYRIGHT PROBLEMS]

7) [OBSOLETE, DOG DIED BEFORE IT COULD BE HELPED]

8) REM -- Wanted, the whereabouts of Mary Jean "Midge" Wardell, born
1950, last seen 1969. (KW: WHEREABOUTS MARY JEAN WARDELL MIDGE)

9) REM -- Wanted, the whereabouts of Kathleen Pratt/Windsor, born 1947,
last seen 1962. (KW: WHEREABOUTS KATHY KATHLEEN PRATT WINDSOR PALMDALE
SYLMAR)

10) REM -- Wanted, the whereabouts of Jacqueline June Smith, born 1945,
last seen 1963. (KW: WHEREABOUTS JACQUELINE JUNE SMITH JACKIE)

11) REM -- Wanted, the whereabouts of Alana Grajewski, last seen 1971.
(KW: WHEREABOUTS ALANA GRAJEWSKI)

12) [OBSOLETE, OUTGREW 'WORKAHOLISM' ON MY OWN, OR DID I?]

13) REM -- Wanted, an up-to-date consumer's information exchange. (KW:
CONSUMER INFORMATION EXCHANGE FEEDBACK) Update 1992.Spring: Will be
checking out some UseNet newsgroups to see if they satisfy my needs.
misc.consumers has too many random messages for me to have time to
browse without better access software. Does anybody collect the
articles in misc.consumers and organize them by topic and make an index
to them plus the single-topic sets available for later browsing?

14) [OBSOLETE, I'VE LOST MY ACTIVE INTEREST IN FOLK DANCING]

15) REM -- Wanted to be mailed announcements of all free-to-public
events and clubs at Stanford. (KW: MAIL ANNOUNCEMENT FREE PUBLIC EVENT
STANFORD ASCA) Update 1992.Sept: su.events has just a tiny smidgen of
this info. Could somebody with access to lots of this info volunteer to
post weekly event calenders to su.events?

16) [OBSOLETE, I'VE FOUND A WIFE NOW]

17&20&21) REM -- Wanted, up to date info about algorithms to sort
variable-length data in large files (appx. 30,000 records). Also, a
person to work with me on Sort/Merge project. (KW: ALGORITHM SORT
VARIABLE-LENGTH DATA FILES MERGE COMPUTER) What is the state of the art
in in-RAM Sort/Merge algorithms which minimize page-faults in a paged
enviroment? (KW: COMPUTER SORT MERGE ALGORITHM PAGE FAULT ENVIROMENT)
Update 1991: I've done some more research and have a program on my
Macintosh working, but further collaboration might be useful since my
program leaves some potential optimizations undone.

18) REM -- Wanted, person interested in moneyless society, who
understands the Heat Death of the Universe, to discuss our ideas. (KW:
HEAT DEATH UNIVERSE DISCUSS IDEA) Update 1991: Hmmm, I wonder if
somebody connected with GNU might be able to help me? I'll have to
investigate that lead when I have time. [Update 1992.Sept: INACTIVE]

19) REM -- ASCA Request -- seminars / meetings / projects / lectures etc.
on how to set up a good public information system. Also I want to get in
contact with people who are thinking about public access to ISR
(Information Storage and Retrieval), and persons interested in exchanging
new ideas in ISR such as Generalized Computer Dating, Binary Vote Scheme,
computerized conferencing, and maybe trying some of these ideas. (KW: ASCA
SEMINAR MEETING PROJECT LECTURE INFORMATION ACCESS RETRIEVAL STORAGE
COMPUTER-DATING GCD VOTE CONFERENCING COMPUTER) (Update: Perhaps I should
post this to PARA?)

20,21) [MERGED WITH 17]

22) REM -- How can I get over my lingering BURNOUT symptoms, or can I?
(KW: BURNOUT ULCER VOMITBURP DETACH PSYCHOLOGY)

23) REM -- How can I improve my memory? No matter how vitally important
something is, or how desperately I want to remember it, I still forget.
I'm sick and tired (pissed-off) at people who recite "If you really
wanted to remember it, you would."  For myself, that simply isn't true!
(I have almost hired an answering service to telephone me to remind me
of appointments.) (KW: IMPROVE MEMORY REMEMBER FORGET APPOINTMENTS)
Update 1991: I haven't encountered many of those annoying people
recently, and I keep a calendar of important things to do on my
Macintosh now, so this isn't so big a problem now.

24) REM -- I want to be tested for vitamin and mineral deficiencies. What
am I lacking? Where can I get a super-good blood test? (KW: TEST VITAMIN
MINERAL DEFICIENCY HEALTH NUTRITION)

25) REM -- Research into finding a general strategy for Misere Nim
games, like the general strategy for ordinary Nim. Anyone have any
results or ideas? I have already achieved some major results in this
research project. Wanted think-tank / problem-solve / discussion /
exchange. (KW: STRATEGY MISERE NIM GAME MATH) Update: Conway has a book
that explores some of these games, although with a very strange
notation. Someday when I have time I should bite the bullet and borrow
the book from the library and try to understand his notation.

26) REM -- What vitamins and minerals are needed by my body. How does
cooking etc. degrade the vitamin content of various foods? Wanted a
handy source of info for now and whenever I begin using a new kind of
food. (KW: VITAMIN MINERAL COOKING FOOD)

27) REM -- Wanted, people to read my diary and love me, maybe even
someone who will publish it.  A one-ounce packet of randomly-selected
clippings from copies of the diary is available for anyone to sample.
(Update 1993: I can't afford the postage currently, so samples are now
available only by e-mail.) (KW: READ DIARY LOVE PUBLISH SAMPLE)

28) [OBSOLETE, I NO LONGER CARE ABOUT PDP-10 ALGORITHMS]

29) [OBSOLETE]

30) REM -- Where can I find an expert on the WFF'N PROOF games? Has
anyone analyzed the proof games (multi-person)? (KW: WFF WFF'N-PROOF
GAME LOGIC SYMBOLIC)

31) REM -- Re the N.Y. Times computerized on-line access to the morgue
index (started 1969.Nov) which costs several hundred dollars a month
for unlimited service: (a) How useful and convenient is this service
(consumer feedback wanted)?  (b) Is there any way to get limited
service at a lower cost, perhaps through a local multiplexor? (KW: N.Y.
TIMES MORGUE INDEX MULTIPLEXOR ACCESS)

32) REM -- Does anyone have an answer or any ideas how to research my
conjecture in knot theory about rubber-bands around a box? (KW:
TOPOLOGY MATH KNOT-THEORY KNOT RESEARCH CONJECTURE)

33) REM -- Where can I find a group of people who like new untested
ideas and want to try them out, to share those many random ideas I come
up with. (KW: IDEA RANDOM TRY SHARE)

34) REM -- Wanted, the whereabouts of Emilie Burge, last seen 1972.
(KW: WHEREABOUTS EMILIE BURGE)

35) [OBSOLETE, I HAVE ACCESS TO MACINTOSH ALLEGRO COMMON LISP NOW]

36) Anybody interested in hiring me to do computer programming,
information organization, or something else I can do well? General
resume, and specific resumes (LISP, Macintosh, ...) available on
request. (Update 1993.Apr: This unemployment has gone from bad to
worse. I have now been unemployed 1.5 years, am nearly $12,000 in debt
already and going $700 deeper into debt each month to support myself,
wife, and two little children born 1990.Mar and 1991.Dec. I urgently
need help finding a source of income before my credit runs out and we
all lose our apartment and have to live on the streets!!)

37) Fran -- Wanted, a male companion, easygoing, sense of humor, age
20-30, likes music (different kinds), understanding, not good-looking,
near Sunnyvale.  I am female, age 18, 5'6" tall, brown hair.  I like
poetry, studying people.  Contact Fran Olson, (408) 732-4827. (KW:
CONNECT PERSON DATING GIRLFRIEND MATCHMAKING SUNNYVALE COMPANION
COMPANIONSHIP MALE FEMALE LONELY LONELINESS DATE FRIEND) Note: Ages
refer to when this ad was written in 1973.

38) Gary Bailey (Remote Computing Co.) -- Hydrogen conversion for cars
similar to propane conversion. Want current status of R+D. (KW:
AUTOMOBILE HYDROGEN CAR PROPANE)

39) [OBSOLETE, EXCEPT FOR THE 'WELL' THERE ARE NO ONLINE SYSTEMS IN SAN
FRANCISCO I MIGHT WANT TO GET INTO WHILE AVOIDING LONG DISTANCE CALL,
AND I CAN LIVE WITHOUT THE 'WELL']

40) REM -- Many charities are in competition for what little money we
have to spare. Is there an index of charities, showing where their
money goes, and providing their mailing addresses? (KW: CHARITY INDEX)
Update 1991-2: Jim Cooper <cooper%apache.decnet@hsdp3.brooks.af.mil>
says the CFC (Combined Federal Campaign) has info about what percentage
of collection from each collector actually goes to charity. Is there
anybody on the network connected to the CFC who could relay questions &
answers and distribute ASCII databases?

41) [OBSOLETE]

42) REM -- Re sources of energy, there are several "hidden costs"
associated with each plan. I want information, estimates of costs
involved in the following methods of utilizing garbage as an energy
source (garbage to Methanol, garbage to Methane/Propane, garbage
directly to electricity, garbage to boil water to run turbine to
produce electricity, garbage to pellet fuel, Methane/Propane to
Methanol) with respect to the following factors (initial cost in money,
raw materials, energy, manpower and time, maintenance cost, efficiency
of plant compared to theoretical maximum based on thermodynamic
calculations). [PARTIAL ANSWER, SCIENCE MAGAZINE 1979.FEB.23 P.719]
(KW: SOURCE ENERGY GARBAGE METHANE PROPANE METHANOL ELECTRICITY CRISIS
PELLET FUEL ENTROPY THERMODYNAMICS METHYL ALCOHOL)

43) REM -- How good are (Methanol, Propane, Methane, Natural gas, pellet
fuel, mixed gasses, Hydrogen, Gasoline, Coal) for the purposes of
(Automobiles, busses, trucks, rapid transit, ordinary trains, electricity
generation, commercial process heating, chemicals for plastics etc., home
furnaces, home cooking, emergency generators)? (KW: METHYL ALCOHOL METHANOL
PROPANE METHANE GAS PELLET FUEL HYDROGEN GASOLINE COAL AUTOMOBILE BUS
TRUCK RAPID-TRANSIT TRAIN ELECTRICITY PLASTIC INDUSTRY FURNACE GENERATOR)

44) REM -- Re aluminum in garbage which is used as a source of energy.
Has Combustion Power Company or anyone else found a way to stop it from
coating the turbine blades with aluminum-oxide? Can it be removed from
pellet-fuel? If left in pellet-fuel, does it foul up coal furnaces in
which it is substituted? (KW: ALUMINUM-OXIDE GARBAGE SOURCE ENERGY
COMBUSTION TURBINE PELLET-FUEL FUEL FURNACE COAL)

45) REM -- Re garbage and other organic materials as an untapped source
of energy -- it seems to me that the most promising approaches toward
utilizing this energy source are (1) Garrett Research's garbage-to-oil
process (2) the carbon-monoxide process. Any rebuttal, or shall we start
turning these pilot plants into full-scale plants as soon as possible?
(KW: GARBAGE SOURCE ENERGY CRISIS PYROLYSIS GARRETT OIL CARBON-MONOXIDE)

46) REM -- What set of routines exist for manipulating finite groups,
especially symmetry groups for data structures such as molecules, Sprouts
situations and arbitrary lists. I prefer LISP functions but will accept
packages of routines in other computer languages. (KW: FINITE GROUP ALGEBRA
MATHEMATICS MATH SYMMETRY MOLECULE SPROUTS LISP COMPUTER)

47) REM -- Where does there exist an index of available computer
programs and subroutines, the index being accessible to the public,
including as much as possible the following: Location and name of
program, cost (if any) of purchase or rent of program, description of
purpose, how to operate it, input format, output format, feedback from
users on bugs and general usefulness, cross references to similar
programs, name/adr/phone of experts who can tell you more about the
program, keywords for access to each programs' info from the top level
of the index, subject breakdown in the index. (KW: COMPUTER PROGRAM
SUBROUTINE INDEX KEYWORD ACCESS) Update 1992.Sep: Lots of this info is
scattered in archives of various machine-specific interest groups,
including INFO-MAC, but I'm looking for a more unified index that is
better for seeing the state of art and state of availability.

48) REM -- Does anyone know a closed-form expression for the following
recursively defined function:  f(n)=if n <= 1 then zero, else the
smallest non-negative integer not an element of the set {f(i-1) XOR
f(n-i) such that 1 <= i <= n} where XOR is the "exclusive-or" logic
function operation bitwise on the numerical argument. (KW: MATH GAME
NIM RECURSIVE FUNCTION)

49) REM -- I want to get into a discussion group regarding the moral
aspects of forcing or pressuring someone else to go along with you. This
question appears in regard to advertising, romance, politics, evangelism,
broadcasting, conversation, etc. (KW: DISCUSSION MORAL ETHIC FORCE PRESSURE
RAPE ADVERTISING PROPAGANDA BRAINWASH COMMERCIAL)

50) [OBSOLETE]

51) [OBSOLETE]

52) REM -- I'd like to start or join a discussion or conference on how
to make best use of a simple keyword-based public ISR system similar to
the Resource One Community Bulletin Board. I have several good ideas
and want to exchange ideas with other people. (KW: DISCUSSION
CONFERENCE RESOURCE-ONE BULLETIN BOARD EXCHANGE INFORMATION ACCESS
STORAGE RETRIEVAL ISR) Update 1991-2: Resource One / Community Memory
is now defunct, but this general quesition may still be worth
discussing. Maybe I should post it to PACS-L or PARA?

53) REM -- Wanted, an expert at the psychological and medical
consequences of biorhythms, to read my diary from 1961 to 1989, record
data about probable ups and downs of biorhythms. I can then perform a
Fourier analysis on this data to determine how much biorhythms affect
my life. This would be a reasonably good scientific test of the
biorhythm theory. (KW: PSYCHOLOGY MEDICAL BIORHYTHM DIARY UPS DOWNS
FOURIER THEORY)

54a) REM -- I have heard advertisements on the radio for a proctal
examination, a pap test, regular dental checkups, yearly medical exams,
and several other tests and exams I don't remember. Is there any way to
get a complete list of reccommended medical exams and tests (including
how often for each)? I would like to submit the list to my doctor to
find out when (if ever) I have most recently received each, and thereby
determine whether I am overdue for any of them. (KW: PROCTAL
EXAMINATION PAP TEST DENTAL MEDICAL DOCTOR)

54b) Whenever I go to a new doctor, I have to fill out a questionnaire
about my medical history, most of which I do not remember very well. Is
there any standard way to collect the important information from all my
previous doctors and summarize it in a "medical resume" which I could
use for reference the next time I have to see a new doctor? (KW: DENTAL
MEDICAL RECORD RESUME DOCTOR)

55) [OBSOLETE, I NOW HAVE AN ALGORITHM FOR EFFICIENTLY COUNT UP TOTAL
NUMBER OF OCCURRANCES OF EACH WORD AND PRESENT IN SORTED OUTPUT IN
ALPHABETICAL ORDER AND IN ORDER BY COUNT.]

(Suggested additional keywords for most of the above: REM SQWA SQWA-<n>
CONNECT PERSON WANTED INFORMATION)


%% New questions for MaasInfo.SQWA (just a few questions as a starter,
1991 Spring/Summer)

56) Where can I find a specification of the code (data representation,
translation) used by Binhex version 4? Update 1991-2: I have found a
document which is a reverse-engineering of BinHex 4.0 representation,
together with some Pascal sample source code. When I have time I'll
check if this info is correct ...

57) Where can I find a publicly-accessible database of Macintosh
application signatures (such as WILD for Hypercard), especially one
that indicates which applications are free/share ware and which are
commercial? (Boston Computer Society is alleged to be working on such,
but I haven't been able to make contact with the person in charge.)
Update 1992.Sep.20: I give up trying to find such an index already
available. I'll just have to create such an index myself. Contact me to
volunteer to help me once I get moving on this project.

58) Where can I find a publicly-accessible database of bugs in various
Macintosh programs and fixes for any that are fixable? (Yes, I know that
INFO-MAC has some of of that information hidden in the various digests,
but I am looking for more of a database with that information nicely
organized and not mixed with other messages.)

59) Where might I find tutorial and checklist of effective techniques
for finding a correct EMAIL address when the one tried first bounced?
This should cover cases when the host doesn't exist or is unreachable,
when the host exists but the mailbox doesn't, when the non-delivery
notice is so strange you don't know why your mail bounced, and when you
get some mailer-bounce message for something that doesn't even seem to
be one of your messages and have no idea why it was sent to you. This
checklist would be an alternative to dumbly posting a query to
INFO-NETS and having five people spend their time telling you the same
thing they told the last person who asked the same kind of question.
Update 1992.Sep.20: I have some techniques I've perfected, so maybe I
should write a strawman draft of this FAQ document and challange the
other experts (Nauen, JIK) to tell me what I overlooked?

60) Where might I find any significant collections of public-domain
information online? I already now about Project Gutenburg which
contains public documents (Declaration of Independence and
Constitution) and published books whose copyright has expired. I also
already know about the giant archive at PIT-MANAGER.MIT.EDU containing
the periodic postings for all the UseNet newsgroups that have any. But
I'm looking more for lots of little facts (stars of movies or TV
programs, TV program listings, lists of radio stations with call
letters frequency and city, etc.) that are common knowledge that go far
beyond those Gutenburg and PIT-MANAGER archives, any other major
organized collections of useful "trivia".

61) Service bureaus around here (Mountain View, CA) charge $3.00 for
each page that is scanned (digitized), with or without OCR. This seems
very expensive. I would expect something more like $0.30 per page if
the whole process is automated (nobody manually correcting anything
except alignment of paper in the scanner). Does anybody know of a
mail-order service bureau (or a local service bureau, Mountain View,
CA, I've overlooked) that scans at such a reasonable cost?


%% Addenda, new questions added later

62) I'm interested in finding people who have read or browsed "The
Evolution of Cooperation" by Axelrod, or who are otherwise expert at
"Prisoner's Dilemma" and related non-zero-sum games, who would like to
discuss such matters. (I wonder if there's an interest group on such
matters.)

63) Long I gave up trying to compute optimum nutritional diets because
the information about how much of certain nutrients (vitamins, minerals,
amino acids) in certain foods wasn't available from all the public
documents I could find. I'd still like to fill in the gaps in my food &
nutrient matrix. (Contact me to find out which specific elements are
most needed.) Maybe I could find a nutrition interest group and
post a query?

64) I need some simple ASCII text files printed. The local one-hour
photo driveup charges 40 cents a page plus $6/hr for computer time
(minimum $2.00 even if I just want to print one page). The only
alternative I've found is Kinko's which charges 50 cents a page plus
$6/hr for computer time pro-rated by the minute so it'd cost about
$1.10 per page regardless of quantity. I can't afford such terribly
high prices, nor can I afford to buy a printer. Is there anyone in the
local (Mountain View, CA) area who has a printer who will print my
files for a much lower fee, like 5-10 cents per page, and no $2
minimum?


%% Very end of MaasInfo.SQWA