The F I D O N E W S Volume 19, Number 02 14 Jan 2002 +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | |The newsletter of the | | Fido, Fidonet and dog-with-diskette are | | | FidoNet community. | | US Registered Trademarks of Tom Jennings| | | | | San Francisco, California, USA | | | ____________| | | | | / __ | Crash netmail articles to: | | | / / \ | Editor @ 2:2/2 (+46-31-944907) | | | WOOF! ( /|oo \ | Routed netmail articles to: | | \_______\(_| /_) | Bjorn Felten @ 2:203/0 | | _ @/_ \ _ | Email attach to: | | | | \ \\ | bfelten@telia.com | | | (*) | \ ))| | | |__U__| / \// | Editor: Bj”rn Felten | | ______ _//|| _\ / | | | / Fido \ (_/(_|(____/ | Newspapers should have no friends. | | (________) (jm) | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Copyright 2002 by Fidonews Editor for Fidonews Globally. Table of Contents 1. FOOD FOR THOUGHT ......................................... 1 2. INSIDE ................................................... 2 The Fidonews at a Glance ................................. 2 3. EDITORIAL ................................................ 3 A tribute to Frank Vest .................................. 3 4. GENERAL ARTICLES ......................................... 5 It's not a total "goodbye" ............................... 5 Catcalls from the Cheap Seats ............................ 6 5. EDITOR'S CORNER .......................................... 11 The umlaut disclaimer .................................... 11 6. CLEAN HUMOR & JOKES ...................................... 12 If Operating Systems Ran Airlines ........................ 12 7. FIDONET CLASSIFIED ADS ................................... 14 Collin County Station BBS ................................ 14 8. TODD COCHRANE'S FIDONET SOFTWARE LISTING ................. 15 Fidonet Software List .................................... 15 9. JOE JARED'S FIDONET BY INTERNET .......................... 19 Fidonet-related sites .................................... 19 10. SPECIAL INTEREST ........................................ 25 Nodelist Stats ........................................... 25 11. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .................................... 27 How to Submit an Article ................................. 27 Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability .................. 28 FIDONEWS 19-02 Page 1 14 Jan 2002 ================================================================= FOOD FOR THOUGHT ================================================================= "The trouble with life is there's no background music." ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-02 Page 2 14 Jan 2002 ================================================================= INSIDE ================================================================= The Fidonews at a Glance What really happened to Frank and why did he quit? Find out all about it in this weeks "Editorial". In the "General Articles" section we have two submissions. One from Editor Emeritus Frank Vest, giving a slightly different view upon his resignation. And one from former FidoNet sysop Luke Kolin, giving some thoughts about todays FidoNet. Did editor's name in the banner look strange? Find out why in "Editor's Corner". An old classic was added to the "Clean Jokes..." section, just to keep this issue from looking too anorexic. Did you forget that the Snooze has a "Classified" section? Take a look at how a pro makes use of it in this week's issue. :) The "Nodelist Stats" in the "Special Interest" section has once again changed, but just a minor change this time. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-02 Page 3 14 Jan 2002 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= A tribute to Frank Vest By Bj”rn Felten The conception happened some day before April 23rd 2001. At first the pregnancy went on almost unnoticed, but soon it became obvious to the mother, that this was anything but a normal baby. It soon started kicking and making noise, so that the mother never got a quiet moment. But throughout this ordeal, the brave mother never showed how tormented she was. Not even when the morning sickness became more and more severe, did she even show any sign of the usual mode swings. The only, out-of-ordinary, was a sudden craving for pickled salmon... But in the eighth month it became obvious, that she needed help with the delivery of this baby. So she started looking around for a midwife to help her out. When I was asked, I hesitated for a long time. Not only did I know what an important baby this was. If I made a mistake, it would haunt me for the rest of my life. I also realized it would mean a lot of work. However, out of concern with the mother as well as the baby, I eventually accepted. And not a day too soon, it turned out. The mother immediately went into hard labour, and then delivered a baby pup, at least two weeks early. The mother said she would never again get involved in the activities that put her in this position. She is now recovering at home, and the baby was sent away to a far-away country across the Atlantic. A country where the polar bears are running freely in the streets, where the women are tall, blond and promiscuous, and the men spend most of their time committing suicide. Now, what kind of a country is that to raise a kid in (unless you want to raise the best ice hockey player in the world)? Anyhow, the first time, loads of mothers milk was sent to the baby, so it's been well fed. It's still far too tiny, as could be expected from the premature birth, but with the tender care from the relatives and friends, it probably will grow up to be a fine kid. All the telegrams from proud relatives, sent to the distant country, gave the baby the warmth it needs. I heard that telegrams and flowers, congratulating the mother, helped a lot to make her recover. The promise not to get involved in the activities, that put her in this situation, is quite normal. With some distance to the events, her sex^M^M^Mfido-life will probably go back to (almost) normal again. IOW, Mr. Mom Frank, I have your old column reserved for you, whenever you feel up to start writing for the Snooze again. I know for sure, I'm not the only one, that's hoping this will happen sooner than later. FIDONEWS 19-02 Page 4 14 Jan 2002 It is with great pride I add the name Frank L. Vest to the list of Editors Emeriti, where it looks really nice, together with all those other, great names of our network. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-02 Page 5 14 Jan 2002 ================================================================= GENERAL ARTICLES ================================================================= It's not a total "goodbye" By Frank Vest 1:124/6308.1 Last week, I announced that I was resigning the Editorship of the Fidonews. It had been coming for a while and I had asked Bj”rn Felten to take the position. He agreed and we had plans to change over around the first of February. It didn't happen that way and my apologies to Bj”rn for that. I want... no... I need to tell everyone that it wasn't any one thing that caused me to leave. The Editorship of the Fidonews is a demanding position. Unless you have been there, you really don't know how demanding it can be. Even if every article that you receive (providing you receive any at all) is perfect in format and other technical aspects, the Editor still has to receive, test, proof read, compile and produce then hatch the Fidonews each week. To do this all but requires that the Editor be available and checking the different methods in place for receiving articles on a daily basis. When one accepts the Editorship, one suddenly finds that their world revolves around the Fidonews. Planning a trip or vacation is many times made to allow for the final testing, compiling and hatching of the Fidonews. Even if much is automated, some things can not be. One may say that much of the production of the Fidonews /could/ be automated. Maybe so, but there is still the need, nay, the requirement of human intervention. To simply set up programs to receive articles, compile them and then hatch the finished product would work to some degree, but not always. A file could come in that, while formatted correctly and with no errors, is not meant to be an article. An article can be received that meets all the technical qualifications, but was not meant to be or shouldn't be an article. There will always be the need for an Editor. No, my friends, it was not any one thing or person. It was a build up of things. I knew it was coming. I'd like to thank some people in this article. I'm sure that I'll miss some names. Consider yourself thanked any way. So, in mo particular order: Bj”rn Felten; for taking the Editorship... even though I didn't give him as much time as we both would have liked. :-) Warren Bonner and Steve Quarrella; Both have been my "shoulder to cry on" many times. I believe that an Editor needs that as much, or more, than anything else. Michiel Van Der Vlist; We had our disagreements, but you handled them with respect and dignity. I commend you for that. FIDONEWS 19-02 Page 6 14 Jan 2002 Carl Austin Bennett; You posted the Fidonews to the echo like clockwork except for the times that I screwed up and didn't get the Fidonews to you. :-) Thanks! I'm sure that I've missed some. My thanks to you as well. I'll still be around to some degree. I have some things that I still want to do that have little to do with Fidonet politics. I'll write the occasional article and, maybe, visit the echo from time to time. Who can say what the future will bring. :) Thanks to all, Frank Vest ----------------------------------------------------------------- Catcalls from the Cheap Seats By Luke Kolin I took the week off to develop a really good rant, this time. Hope your ZC hasn't imploded yet. I was in fine form last week. After a pleasant few days of becoming drunk, belligerent and sarcastic by consuming wheat beer and trolling fuckedcompany.com, I had warmed up nicely for a bitter and scathing response to Andrea Santos' recent article on the Mail-Only trouble makers that now comprise 55% of the nodelist. Unfortunately, an artificial buzz is very difficult to maintain, and I started mellowing significantly near the end. I'll save the missed article for a slow week when I run low on material. That, or I'll send it to Doc Logger for inspiration in exchange for whatever rhubarb wine he can smuggle past the US Customs Service. I'm sad to hear that Lesley-Dee lasted only a week as RC12, which is roughly the same amount of time as her Internet e-mails take to reach me, or signals from Voyager 1 take to reach Earth from the next galaxy. It's a shame, but she should realize that Janis is performing a fine-tuned political trick: punishment of one's political opponents. It's not like Canada's best Prime Minister that government money could buy is busy flattening Alberta grasslands in favour of hotels and golf courses - he's busy too running their health care system into the ground. Such a course of action is truly for the politically naive: I discovered as RC and NC that letting my opponents post in the election conference was worth more votes than any of my robot mailings. If some of them didn't exist, I would have had to invent them myself. Let me pay Frank Vest a legitimate compliment, for once. He's raised some valid questions about the future of FidoNet, and he cares. He's also, however, missed the telecommunications revolution of the past five years. One of the most difficult and tiresome aspects of running a BBS is keeping the connectivity up; getting the modems to work, and allowing FIDONEWS 19-02 Page 7 14 Jan 2002 multiple lines and multiple users. ISPs have revolutionized this line of work, and managed to take this work entirely out of the BBS operators hands, at speeds that BBS operators can only dream of. Hosting companies allow you to create free (or almost free) sites on hardware they worry about keeping up. Why on Earth FidoNet would seek to replace this fantastic infrastructure with something out of the late 1980s is utterly beyond me. ISPs are turning into the common access point for ALL networks. It's happened. Get over it. I run a bulletin board, for flight simulation enthusiasts. I have hundreds of users visiting it, and I can support multiple simultaneous users at speeds up to 144k each. They can connect from anywhere in the world for no additional cost, and the whole setup costs me around $90 per month. All of this is run through a little plastic box about six by six inches in size that I plug into my main LAN switch. Needless to say, I am *NOT* using a old-fashioned phone line (or multiple lines), so why should FidoNet? FidoNet was never about technology, it was always about content. Yet the FidoNet of today has grown so wedded to its OBSOLETE access technology that it is losing its content producers, and the network itself is dying. Users are not visiting FidoNet because the access method is inefficient, slow, expensive and obsolete. Ever day, millions of individuals use the Internet. Some have high-speed connections, and not only are they used to such speed, they (like myself) no longer own a modem and couldn't connect to a BBS even if they wanted to. Others don't see the point in dialing in to a single line system at 28.8k, when they can dial into a multi-line ISP at almost twice the speed, never get a busy signal, and visit thousand