PR_Princeton_92.html

I don't know if the poster intended this, but this spam was almost on-topic. The PEAR lab used Teraks as lab computers in the early 80s. Earlier this year, I assisted one of the PEAR researchers in archiving more than a hundred eight-inch Terak floppies containing results from past experiments. It was the PEAR Terak that was on display in the computer graphics history exhibit at SIGGRAPH 98 this summer in Orlando. As for what they're trying to do, I'd say they're on the hard science end of the parapsychological spectrum. They seem to be trying very hard to keep their experiments reproducible and tamper-proof. For more info, see their web site at <http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/index.html>. Interestingly, one of the PEAR random event generators is hosted by John Walker, the zillionaire founder of Autodesk, and now an ex-pat living in Switzerland, and maintainer of one of the most interesting sites on the web <http://www.fourmilab.ch/>. Also, Roger Nelson of PEAR wrote a review of an Amiga FORTH for Amazing Computing magazine way back when, when I was the technical editor there. I'm a skeptic of the Skeptical Inquirer / CSICOP <http://www.csicop.org/> variety. I'm so skeptical, even I can hardly believe it. PEAR's press releases are often re-spun and re-interpreted by the more fruity ESP fans. I've been sent at least one that had been processed into spam - and at the time, PEAR had posted a note saying they weren't associated with the spam. - John