X-Message-Number: 2956
From:  (David Stodolsky)
Subject: CRYONICS: Re: GIF and Journal
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 94 14:51:12 +0200 (MET DST)

In Cryonics #2951 - Re: GIF and Journal [T.Donaldson] writes:

Postscript, unfortunately is not as standard as one would hope.
Production of reasonable sized files is often tricky. For example,
any file I produce on my Mac is at least 400Kb. This can be reduced by
making decisions about header and fonts to include, but the wrong
decision can result in an unreadable or disfigured printout. 

Many "postscript" printers use non-standard implementations that do
not render pages correctly in certain situations. Postscript is not
a "Standard". It is also targeted to production of paper documents
and should not be adopted when the main presentation method is the
screen. The GIF format avoids these difficulties and GIF viewers are
available that integrate with WWW tools such as Mosaic.


> RE: a high class scientific journal.
> Basically, Dr. Stodolsky has something in what he says. However, my efforts
> to set up a journal which would print cryonics results met with very little
> success in getting referees for the articles. The only referees who consented
> were also cryonicists. I don't think the fact that this journal would be
> hardcopy while future journals may not be really deals with this fundamental
> problem. Where are the referees? 

I suggested at the start of the effort toward the that journal that it
should be as broad as possible. Given that it was focused on cryonics,
it should be no surprise that only cryonicists were interested in serving
as referees. Referees are not as important as commonly assumed. Often
editors of new journals referee all articles themselves and maintain
the fiction of outside review to isolate themselves from retribution.
The key is to ensure that articles are reviewed and come up to a preset
standard. One option is the method taken by the editor of Computing
Reviews when faced with a "firestorm" of FORTRAN manuals: Anyone writing
such a manual was considered qualified to review a manual.


> There remain many many people out there who will go
> to any lengths, even quite irrational lengths, NOT to hear or think about
> cryonics. And many of these people are scientists, no less. This is a problem
> that everyone who has worked at any side of cryonics bumps up against 
> constantly. Perhaps Dr Stodolsky, as a psychologist, can provide some 
> helpful suggestions about what to do here: I don't mean an explanation of 
> that behavior, but some way to actually deal with it constructively.

A broad journal covering "life extension" could also have articles
on cryonics. This would expose readers to the idea in a non-threatening
context.


David S. Stodolsky, PhD      Internet: 
Peder Lykkes Vej 8, 4. tv.               Internet: 
DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark           Voice + Fax: + 45 32 97 66 74

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