Questions about CEPH's map

[Cameron Laird]

Let me calm the roiled waters.  I summarize below what I've learned from
a couple of sources.

In article <2grtau$62m at sugar.neosoft.com>, I <claird at sugar.NeoSoft.COM> wrote:
>Does CEPH (Centre d'Etude du Polymorphism Humain) need some
>automation help?  In
>
>	Nowak, Rachel
>	1993	"Draft Genome Map Debuts on Internet",
>		Science, volume 262, page 1967 (24
>		December 1993)
>
>Daniel Cohen is quoted as having said, "We received 64 requests
>for map information ...  We have a logistics problem that we did
>not anticipate.  We have only one person at any one time sending
>out [the files on Internet]."  What's up, here?  I know Cohen is
>famous around the world, and can get close to whatever he re-
>quests, I know how severely a journalistic filter can degrade
>technical information, and so on, but it *sounds* as though some-
>one doesn't know how to automate Internet ftp or mail services.
>Is there someone closer to the scene who knows more of the story?
>Heck, for the chance to help out the HUGE mappers, *I*'ll get on
>a plane to Paris to help set up their node ...
			.
			.
			.
Folks assure me that the CEPH team is doing just what it
wants.  There are no particular technical constraints on
their distribution of map data.  They do *not* appear in
need of help from the Internet community to automate
their operations.

Incidentally, reporter Rachel Nowak was quite gracious
in a conversation with me in assuming responsibility for
my misapprehension about the situation.  I tried to con-
vince her that she'd done her job just fine; I'm still
not sure she didn't take this episode as a criticism.
My description:  the Internet has facilitated a couple
mismatches of scale (Cohen's expectations and the post-
*Nature* response) or vocabulary (the *Science* readership
and my NetNews-affected idiolect).  What ought one expect,
though, from a technology that persists in expanding by
roughly 10%/month?

I've re-directed follow-ups.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird at Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com at uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird at litwin.com (claird%litwin.com at uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546