From Lognet, issue 92/2.
This is a late issue but I think a full one. About it's lateness: As some of you know, my family's move to California also involved my bringing our boat around from the Atlantic. She's a 41-foot catamaran, an ocean-going sailboat, and not exactly the sort of boat one can put on a trailer and haul across country. So I went back to Florida in November 1991 to sail her around. But what with one thing and another we weren't able to actually leave Miami until mid-January.
Well, the first couple of weeks afloat were rather splendid. We had strong winds in the Atlantic and arrived in the Canal Zone in about two weeks...including time for two very pleasant stops, one in the Bahamas, the other in Jamaica. The Canal Zone was about one-third of the total sea miles to San Diego. So at that rate, I could expect to be pulling into San Diego Bay by the end of February. Right?
Wrong. I had forgotten why Balboa called it the "Peaceful Ocean". There's virtually no wind on it...not in those latitudes, anyway! Well, wind to a sailor is like fuel to a motorist: without it, nothing much happens. By mid-May I had got as far as Acapulco, where I ran out of hurricane-free season. So I decided to put her up in Acapulco and come back for another try the following season.
I 'll be back in Mexico for that "other try" around the middle of October, so as to get a jump on the next hurricane-free season. With luck I should be pulling into San Diego Bay in December or January.
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So the basic reason why this issue and the previous one have been late is that I've been away 6-1/2 of the last 10 months. Jim Smith kindly agreed to be not only Editor but the producer of Lognet during my absence. But Jim's had a critical illness in his family; so I've taken over production again, and will put out not only this issue but LN 92/3 as well...probably in December.
Your four annual Lognets are supposed to come out in January, April, July and October. This year you'll get one in April, September, and probably December. That's only 3/4s of what you paid for with your dues. So if we only get out three issues this year, The Institute will add three months to the dues date on your mailing label...six months if only two!
We'll make that adjustment on your mailing label at the end of the year.
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All our Lognet workers—columnists, editors, production people—are volunteers. It's hard to keep to rigid production schedules with volunteers. Other duties and motives keep intruding. I've often thought that at least the production of Lognet—which is the only rigorously scheduled thing on our plate these days—ought to be done by a paid worker. We're not quite big enough to afford one yet; but I've already started to look for one in San Diego even so. Perhaps by the time I find him or her, and get da trained, we'll be able to afford to pay da!
If you'd like to support this worthwhile project, you could upgrade your membership to the Sustaining Member level the next time you pay your dues. That would be $100 per biennium instead of the regular $50. If enough Members did that, the extra income might help me hire this chap when I find da.
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I've got some awfully good news for you, which I've cunningly saved for last, soi crano. The news comes in three pieces. The first is that Steve Rice's long-awaited Loglan Zero—it looks like we're stuck with that name, doesn't it?...at least among ourselves—is about ready to be tried out by the logli. So we've decided to publish it serially—the first few chapters of it, anyway—in our new journal, La Logli.
The second piece is that La Logli is coming out this fall, probably October. It will have several interesting things in it in addition to those first L0 chapters: a paper by Randall Holmes on "Logic in Loglan" and an update of L1 by the editor of LL, Kirk Sattley.
The third bit of news is probably the most exciting. Dr. McIvor tells me that our new on-line electronic dictionary is just about ready to publish! We at The Institute are trying it out now. As soon as we're happy with it, we'll release it. It should be available to everybody this winter. You may look for a postcard announcment of both it and La Logli fairly soon.—JCB