Word: graspingly
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Only a month ago, peace in Viet Nam was, in British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's words, "almost within our grasp." Last week it seemed as far out of reach as ever...
...most satisfying performance of the evening was that of Leon Kirchner's Sinfonia, a dark and powerful work bearing traces of Schoenberg's influence. Kirchner likes to have a lot going on at once. It's difficult to grasp the entire piece on first hearing, but the HRO's performance helped. Conductor James Yannatos directed with clarity and sensitivity, and the orchestra responded nobly, playing difficult passages as cleanly and delicately as one could wish...
These remarkable extensions of man's grasp and vision are relatively simple examples of a relatively new and promising technology called "telefactoring" (doing something at a distance). Merely by adding miniaturized electronics and wideband communications, says Electrical Engineeer William Bradley, the pilot can be taken out of his cockpit, the driver out of his truck. The distance between them and their work can be extended across a continent. Eventually, Bradley told the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a more sophisticated form of telefactoring may replace human beings on many space flights-without replacing the judgments and actions that...
...every motion would be translated into electronic signals and transmitted to the telefactor in orbit. Servomechanisms on the telefactor would move its arm toward the actual spacecraft control panel. Feedback devices on the telefactor's hands would enable the earthbound operator to feel just how strong a grasp they were exerting-allowing the robot to make adjustments without exerting damaging pressure on delicate instruments. Using the same system, Bradley says, a telefactor could work outside the ship, assembling solar-cell panels or erecting space platforms "as effortlessly as a child assembling Tinkertoys...
...handshaking unhygienic and impractical but it also wastes too much valuable time." West Germany's unquestioned arbiter of social grace, the Expert Committee for Good Manners (a branch of the German Dancing Teachers League), has joined the anti-handshaking campaign. The committee recommends that Germans keep a tight grasp on themselves rather than on each other. Says its report: "Exaggerated handshaking is unappreciated, and in fact often makes personal contact more difficult to achieve. It is sufficient to shake hands the first time you meet...