Monitor

“ If you pay no attention to the monitor, or idly, dreamily endeavour to compass the coherent sequence of sounds, the invention, within the succeeding two minutes, drops its tail-board and lets down your feet upon the floor. ”

“ Keep thinking what you or others will most use the computer for. Color graphics? Fine. But your multicolor monitor won’t display characters as sharply as a black-and-white or monochrome screen would, and the screens might lose their crispness faster and add to the eyestrain of heavy word processing. One-color screens, then, would be best for typical writers and secretaries. On the other hand, if you’re an executive or clerk working with many figures alongside each other, the color monitor might help you and your eyes keep the numbers apart. ”

“ Monitors of course lived in solitary splendour, with a bed which would stand on its head, and allowed itself to be shut up in a cupboard in the corner. Small boys who had not attained even to the fringe of the school aristocracy lived in herds in bare and exceedingly untidy rooms round the inner quads. Even in those days there were monitors who were worshippers of art. ”

“ The best administrators deplore the use of any sort of machine control like a time-clock, though with a large staff of janitors and attendants this is necessary. By far the best system, if practical, is that of appointing the men in turn as monitor for a week to keep the time of the others. ”

“ The literature distribution work grew by leaps and bounds. Monitors were supplied to troop trains leaving for the front and to ships returning to the States. “Y” huts, Red Cross stations, hospitals, military camps, Officers' Clubs, the American Commissary Department, hotels, barber shops, restaurants and many other places received the Monitor, an average of 400 a week being distributed in this way. ”

“ Fry told us that the dividing the women into classes has been of the greatest advantage, and putting them under the care of monitors. There is some little pecuniary advantage attached to the office of monitor which makes them emulous to obtain it. ”

“ In making this announcement we can say for the Trustees of the Society that they confidently hope and expect to make the Monitor a worthy addition to the list of publications issued by the Society. It is their intention to publish a strictly up-to-date newspaper, in which all the news of the day which should be printed will find a place, and whose service will not be restricted to any one locality or section, but will cover the daily activities of the entire world. ”

“ Among the truants had been no less than five monitors—Game, Tipper, Ashley, Silk, and Tucker.
“It would be a farce,” said the doctor, severely, “after what has happened, to allow you to retain the posts of confidence you have held in the school. Your blame is all the greater in proportion as your influence was greater too. For the remainder of this term you cease to be monitors. It depends entirely on yourselves whether next term you are reinstated.” ”

“ Concentrate on those giving the best returns. Adjust the frequency with which you visit selected services to match their usefulness. What used to be daily visits, may have to be downgraded to once per week or month. Consider replacing daily news monitoring by clipping services. Plan 'overview' and 'details' with different frequencies. 'Overview' refers to online trips to get an impression of what generally goes on. An example:
My script system is set for automatic visits to the CompuServe Toshiba forum. ”

“ To install, use and maintain such monitoring equipment and methods, to sample in accordance with such methods, to maintain and retain such records of information from monitoring activities, and to submit to the commissioner such reports of monitoring results as he may require ”

“ In one of the newest and largest of these I know, nearly all the typewriting machines are segregated in a glass-walled room, and long-distance telephone messages can be taken at any instrument in the great office.
Like sound in its imperative appeal for attention is the consciousness of strangers passing one's desk or windows.
Movement of fellow employees about the department, unless excessive or unusual, is hardly noticed; let an individual or a group with whom we are not acquainted come within the field of our vision, and they claim attention immediately. ”

“ By multiplying the combinations of signals a great variety of messages might be transmitted in this manner; but, to avoid mistakes, the signals should be written down and copies furnished the commander of each separate party, and they need not necessarily be made known to the other persons. During the day an intelligent man should be detailed to keep a vigilant look-out in all directions for smokes, and he should be furnished with a watch, pencil, and paper, to make a record of the signals, with their number, and the time of the intervals between them. ”

“ OBSERVATION IN EDUCATION.
AN excellent article in the Tribune urges the need of more and better-educated observers to carry on the work of science. Prof. Agassiz is quoted as urging the establishment, in San Francisco, of a college for the training of skilled scientific observers. It is stated that the Signal-Service Bureau is engaged in training a large number of students in the use of instruments of observation, with a view to taking charge of signal-stations for the promotion of meteorological science. ”

“ THE Signal Service of the United States performs a great service to science by inculcating the value of scientific investigations. Observations in meteorology were formerly buried in the proceedings of learned societies, and met the eyes only of a few scientific men: now they are discussed at the breakfast-tables of a million people. The departments of physics in our universities and technical schools have reason to thank the Signal Service for leading the public mind to see the importance of physical investigations to the ordinary pursuits of mankind. ”

“ I may here remark that men are sometimes appointed to the position of signal-inspectors who have never done one hour’s duty in charge of a signal-box in their lives. Just fancy an official of this kind being entrusted with the very important duty of seeing that signalmen thoroughly understand all the important points connected with their duties that I have named! ”

“ The Chief Signal Officer of the Army reserves the right to inspect any or all processes of manufacture, and unsatisfactory material will be marked for rejection by the inspector before, during, or after assembly, as occasion may arise.
Each glass will be tested for power, field, definition, and light. Any glass which is not the equal of the sample and model in all respects will be rejected. ”

“ The Chief Signal Officer has charge of the system of communicating with distant points by means of various systems of signals, the most noteworthy of which is that of the heliograph, by which information is conveyed by the use of sun-reflecting mirrors. ”

“ There are other six months wherein none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just above reading-light, and the press machines are red-hot of touch, and nobody writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or obituary notices. ”

“ In choosing appliances for observational purposes, the observer will of course be guided by his means and requirements. If his inclination lead him to enter a particular department of research, he will take care to provide himself with such instruments as are specially applicable to the work in hand. Modern opticians have effected so many improvements, and brought out so many special aids to smooth the way of an observer, that it matters little in which direction he advances; he will scarcely find his progress impeded by want of suitable apparatus. ”

“ The laboratory has supplied us with the basic means of lifting the curtain of space from scenes and activities at a distance. A system of sight transmission and reception, comparable in coverage and service to the world-wide hook-up of sound broadcasting, has brought all nations closer together. ”

“ Field work, i.e. actual observation and sketching, formed really a comparatively small part of my duties, though I tried to get up to the observation post once every day. The most important part was office work—and I had a fair-sized shelter at each Head-quarters, the walls covered with maps and the table loaded with aeroplane photographs and reports of all kinds.
Besides the Corps and Divisional Intelligence Reports which came in daily, there were Daily Reports from the two adjoining brigades, and generally a goodly sheaf of miscellaneous papers from the Army Intelligence Department. ”

“ The observer, as we have already described, sees a star entering the field of the telescope, and as it swims forward, he presses the galvanic button, which sends a signal to the chronograph as the star comes up to each of the ten vertical wires in succession. ”

“ An expert observer can, on many kinds of work, time two or three men at the same time with the same watch, or he can operate two or three watches—one for each man. A note sheet can contain only a comparatively few observations. ”

“ In every signal cabin the name and private address of the chargeman who is responsible for it is posted, and it is the duty of the signalman to report to him every failure or defect that may become apparent during the intervals of his visits, sending at the same time a duplicate of the report to the inspector of the district. ”

“ An executive using a terminal half an hour a week obviously has needs different from a clerk doing tedious data-entry work most of the day. Even the executive, however, should have a screen big enough for unexpectedly long sessions in front of the tube. On the other hand, suppose a bank teller must view just a few columns of numbers every now and then; he may never need a screen bigger than a few inches. Too large a screen, in fact, even in heavy-duty work, may expose one to glary reflections. ”

“ To find a signalman near any known station, note with the unaided eye some prominent landmark near which the looked-for person or object is supposed to be, and direct the telescope upon the place, as sight is taken over a gun barrel, covering the object; if the eye is now placed at the eyeglass of the telescope, the prominent or directing landmark will be found in the field of view. ”

“ While, in consequence of the development of electrical invention and improvement, visual signaling will be less frequently resorted to in future than heretofore in the service of field lines of information, it should be appreciated that the necessity for an adequate supply of apparatus of this kind, and the need for skilled manipulators to operate it, has in no wise diminished. ”

“ Delicate manometers indicate the pressure at all times, and the most approved electric apparatus is used to indicate the particular point at which a defect has occurred. A skilled engineer is on the watch at all times. Provision is also made so that, in case of any interruption in the regulator, the dials may be run by hand. Accuracy of time is secured by daily comparison with the observatory clock. ”

“ When the machine of Radio Vision is turned over slowly, the little spot of light on the screen which makes up the picture looks for all the world like a tiny, twinkling star as it travels across the white surface of the screen in adjacent parallel lines, changing in light value to correspond in position and intensity to the light values of the scene before the lens at the broadcasting station. ”

“ ENGINEER SUPPORT During retrograde operations or withdrawal of covering forces in defensive operations, surveillance teams may be used in a stay-behind mode. When the tactical situation permits, engineers may be used to prepare underground hide sites and surveillance sites. Topographical engineers may help select positions and may provide computer-generated topographical terrain base products for teams planning missions. ”

“ It is at any rate much diminished by a method of observation recently introduced into observatories, and first practised in America. The essential feature of this mode of observation consists in combining the impression of sight with that of touch, instead of with that of hearing. The observer at the moment of observation presses with his finger so as to make a mark on a machine which by its motion measures time with great accuracy and on a large scale ”

“ To beat the elements at their worst the officer on watch must, first of all, know the time the engineer is making. Of course, he must possess excellent hearing and an accurate measurement faculty, together with a qui vive alertness that is attuned to the slightest variation. ”

“ When the observer has learnt what it is that his instrument is actually to do for him, he will know how to estimate its performance, and how to vary the application of its powers—whether illuminating or magnifying—according to the nature of the object to be observed. ”

“ Two hundred men and women were there; two hundred more were sleeping in the dormitories. These were all that were left of the world's workers. Before each operative rose the serried hundreds of pearl buttons, dim lit, clicking in and out under the busy fingers. Above each, an oval visor-screen with its flitting images brought across space the area the switches controlled. Every one [92] of the ten score was watching his screen with taut attention, and listening to the voices of the machines there depicted—the metallic voices from the radio speakers broadcasting their needs. ”

“ The instrument with which we are contending is capable (in theory) of transmitting a message either telephonically or telegraphically. In practice, this means that the signaller, having wasted ten sulphurous minutes in a useless attempt to convey information through the medium of the human voice, next proceeds, upon the urgent advice of the gentleman at the other end, and to the confusion of all other inhabitants of the cavern, to "buzz" it, employing the dots and dashes of the Morse code for the purpose. ”