<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">If Noam Chomsky fell in the forest, would anybody care?<div><br></div><div>Dag</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On Jun 13, 2012, at 9:00 AM, <a href="mailto:members-request@sigcis.org">members-request@sigcis.org</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>Send Members mailing list submissions to<br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><a href="mailto:members@sigcis.org">members@sigcis.org</a><br><br>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit<br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members<br>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to<br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>members-request@sigcis.org<br><br>You can reach the person managing the list at<br><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>members-owner@sigcis.org<br><br>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific<br>than "Re: Contents of Members digest..."<br><br><br>Today's Topics:<br><br> 1. Noam Chomsky on the "Inventor of Email" (Thomas Haigh)<br><br><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Message: 1<br>Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:33:34 -0500<br>From: "Thomas Haigh" <thaigh@computer.org><br>To: <members@sigcis.org><br>Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Noam Chomsky on the "Inventor of Email"<br>Message-ID: <02eb01cd48d2$42702430$c7506c90$@org><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"<br><br>Hello everyone,<br><br><br><br>I'm resisting the urge to keep spamming the group with updates on the<br>increasingly bizarre public career of email history.<br><br><br><br>However, as Slashdot has recently noted<br>http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/12/167227/inventor-of-email-gets-suppor<br>t-of-noam-chomsky, a second statement attributed to Noam Chomsky recently<br>appeared on one of V A Shiva Ayyadurai's websites at<br>http://www.inventorofemail.com/noam-chomsky-on-invention-of-email-va-shiva-a<br>yyadurai.asp. Also as a press release from Reuters, via Ayyadurai's<br>International Center for Integrative Systems.<br>http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/idUS149910+12-Jun-2012+PRN20120612<br><br><br>I do recall Chomsky's usual prose style being a little more elegant, his<br>grammar and punctuation a little more standard, and his exposition a little<br>more cogent. It's odd that a great linguist would write sentences such as<br>"Note Shiva, received his formal Copyright registration in 1982." Or "What<br>continue to be deplorable are the childish tantrums of industry insiders who<br>now believe that by creating confusion on the case of "email", they can<br>distract attention from the facts."<br><br>SIGCIS members may also be interested in Ayyadurai's attempt to dispel<br>"False Claims About Email" at<br>http://www.inventorofemail.com/claims_about_email.asp. Ayyadurai's current<br>argument appears to be that "email" has a completely different meaning from<br>"electronic mail" and that the world has been misusing "email" all these<br>years. He claims to have given "email" its canonical meaning in 1978,<br>although I still can't find any original 1978 or 1979 documents on his site<br>including the word or a definition. Ayyadurai currently favors a definition<br>of "email" (published, apparently for the first time, this month) with<br>around 80 characteristics including "searching address book by zipnode" and<br>"relational database engine". Few current email systems would precisely<br>meet all of them.<br><br><br><br>Finally, Ayyadurai has persuaded a second WGBH radio host, Emily Rooney,<br>that he invented email (around 23:00-24:40).<br>http://www.wgbh.org/programs/The-Emily-Rooney-Show-854/episodes/Thurs-51712C<br>onquering-Digital-Clutter-38713<br><br><br><br>One day an excellent STS or media studies dissertation will probably be<br>written on this topic.<br><br><br><br>Tom<br><br><br><br><br><br>-------------- next part --------------<br>An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<br>URL: <http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/attachments/20120612/10b7983e/attachment-0002.html><br><br>------------------------------<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Members mailing list<br>Members@sigcis.org<br>http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members<br><br><br>End of Members Digest, Vol 24, Issue 4<br>**************************************<br></div></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Optima; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Optima; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; 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letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Optima; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="font-size: medium; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Optima; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 12px; ">--<br>Dag Spicer | Senior Curator | Computer History Museum<br>Editorial Board | Annals of the History of Computing<br>1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. | Mountain View CA 94043<br>Tel: +1 650 810 1035 | Fax: +1 650 810 1055</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Optima; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 12px; "><br><br>Twitter: </span><span class="screen-name screen-name-ComputerHistory pill" style="font-family: Optima; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-size: 12px; ">@ComputerHistory</span><br><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">FB: <a href="http://facebook.com/computerhistory">facebook.com/computerhistory</a></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><br></span></div><div style="font-size: medium; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Technology married with the humanities makes our hearts sing. -- Steve Jobs</span></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "> </span></div><div style="font-size: medium; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><br><br><br></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></span>
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