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Chaos Corner V04 N03 22 June 1994
Copyright 1994 by Robert D. Cowles; Ithaca, NY 14850. Permission is
hereby granted to republish complete issues in unaltered form.
Republication of partial issues must reference the source and state that
subscriptions to Chaos Corner are available (free) by sending electronic
mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
--------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents for V04 N03
Just a few corrections
Further info on the Jupiter event
US National Archives is on the Internet
Chaos Corner not enough information?
Service tales - Good and Bad - Continued
Continuing selections from alt.humor.puns
German Tutorial
NERDATHON '94 - Call for Presentations
Do you like to watch other people work? - CU-SeeMe
Saving your e-mail?
Humorous signature files
Get your Free Subscription Here!
--------------------------------------------------
Just a few corrections
Bill Homer (my college roommate from the 60's, now at Cray) and Ken
Stuart (not ever my college roommate) were quick to point out that the
current way to get on the mailing list that keeps you updated with
information about the new files on CICA (the Windows archive) is now:
Send e-mail to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. In that message put a
line that says
Sub cica-l <First> <Last>
Where <First> is your first name and <Last> is your last name.
Apologies to Chris Johnson at SUNY Buffalo, who probably wondered where
all those requests suddenly came from.
A number of you asked how Dr. Chaos manages to get strange characters
substituted for the apostrophe. It's very simple ... the "smart quotes"
feature of Word makes it a trivial task to do some really dumb things
like that. Interestingly, some of you have mailers that reject any mail
files that appear to contain special characters (the company initials
are HP), and others of you have mailers that will convert the mail file
to something that is uuencoded. In any case, if you think we sometimes
send out some strange stuff, you should see what we get back from 2000
different mailers around the world! (Over 900 new subscribers so far
this year.)
--------------------------------------------------
Further info on the Jupiter event
This in from Keith Dawson about the collision of the comet Shoemaker-
Levy and Jupiter scheduled to begin on July 16, 1994:
There will be a string of impacts over a period of a week or so. All
will hit in the same spot, from our point of view, behind the
terminator; each point of impact will rotate into view about 11
minutes later. The fireball from each impact will last only a
minute. That's the bad news. The good news is that some of the
impacts are expected to brighten particular Jovian moons measurably:
impacts that occur when the moon in question is dark (eclipsed by
Jupiter) and in our line-of-sight. Some impacts could even brighten
the rings! The times of impact are known for some of the large
chunks within 40 minutes; 24 hours before the first impact the
accuracy should be better than half a minute.
For much more detail see the Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 Impact Home
Page, the URL http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/sl9/sl9.html
Send electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu if you
would like to receive the list of Frequently Asked Questions (and
answers) concerning this event. To subscribe to the "Comet/Jupiter
Collision Mailing List", send mail to listproc@seds.lpl.arizona.edu (no
subject) with the message:
SUBSCRIBE SL9 Firstname Lastname.
--------------------------------------------------
US National Archives is on the Internet
The National Archives has made available an Internet Gopher server that
provides key information relating to the National Archives, including
descriptions of facilities nationwide; information on agency holdings;
publications and general information leaflets; and some Federal records
regulations. Researchers can access information on some of the most
widely-used collections, including the Nixon Presidential Materials,
Ansel Adams photographs from the Still Picture Branch, captured German
sound recordings, electronic records, and an index of selected census
records.
Text-based information can be accessed with a Gopher client by
connecting to the address gopher.nara.gov. This information, together
with future additions of hypertext and multimedia documents, can also be
found on the WorldWideWeb (WWW), using a client such as Mosaic, at
http://www.nara.gov.
--------------------------------------------------
Chaos Corner not enough information?
If you are interested in reading real books, printed on real paper, we
have just the list for you. Kevin Savetz has assembled a list of reviews
of (currently 109 books, but growing all the time) books about the
Internet and Internet resources. For your own copy of the list, send a
request to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu ... careful, it's over
1700 lines long!
--------------------------------------------------
Service tales - Good and Bad - Continued
In the last issue of Chaos Corner, we thanked The Computer Center in
Ithaca for being able to repair our ThinkPad on a schedule that didn't
require them to keep it for long periods of time. Of course, the REAL
name of the business is "The Computing Center" (sorry, Larry).
Also in the last issue we promised to keep you up-to-date about the
Dallas-area Internet provider DFW.NET. There was apparently a lost mail
file ... a couple of telephone calls later and the SLIP connection from
my ThinkPad to the Internet through DFW.NET was working fine. If you're
in the DFW area, you might want to give them a try ... tell Jack that
Dr. Chaos sent you. (E-mail to root@dfw.net, or telnet to info@dfw.net
or call 1-214-748-4000).
On the continuing saga of the PS/2 model 80 upgrade ... we have spent
time talking on the phone to the IBM OS/2 support team and we have also
requested help from the net, and we quote:
I purchased several Evergreen Technologies chip upgrades to speed up
some old PS/2 model 80s we had (386-DX 20). The first machine I
upgraded was running OS/2 2.11 and has an XGA video adapter. I found
that icons in open windows on the desktop were generally not visible
after I enabled the cache on the chip (either with a OS/2 driver or
from a DOS session). The icons were there, and would show up if you
selected them, but would usually disappear again if you selected
something else in the window (but not always). The icon behavior
would return to normal if I disabled the cache or re-booted. I tried
the chip in another PS/2-80 that had a 8514 graphics adapter thinking
that the different video card might make a difference. Sure enough,
everything worked OK. Then I realized that the OS/2 system on that
machine was at 2.1 rather than 2.11. I upgraded the system to 2.11,
and the strange icon behavior returned!
The people at Evergreen don't have any other experience with this
kind of problem (but with the latest info they were going to check
out 2.11) and the IBM OS/2 support team is also unclear as to what
could be causing this kind of problem. Does anyone have suggestions
as to where the problem can lie ... like what might have changed in
the way the display of icons is done in OS/2 2.11 that would create
problems when the cache is enabled on one of these chip upgrades?
Robert(s) and Ken at OS/2 support have been interested in the problem
and have devoted significant time investigating the problem. Stay
tuned...
--------------------------------------------------
Continuing selections from alt.humor.puns
Since puns are very dependent on the language, we are reproducing here a
recent post from the Usenet group alt.humor.puns that is NOT in English.
To be fair, the original had an explanation in English - if you would
like the complete version, let Dr. Chaos know at by requesting the
English version from chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
Ein Kind kam eines Tages von der Schule nach Hause. Die Mutter hat
ihm gefragt: "Was hast du heute gelernt?"
Es erwidert: "In der Religionstunde haben wir gelernt, dass Gott eine
Kelle ist."
"Was?", sagte die Mutter. "Kannst du das mir erklaeren? Habt ihr
eine Bibelgeschichte gehoert?"
Das Kind sagte: "Ja, wir haben gelernt, wie Gott den Himmel und die
Erde gemacht hat."
"Also, du hast gelernt, dass Gott der Schoepfer ist, ne?" sagte die
Mutter.
Das Kind sagte: "Ja, ich wusste, dass es etwas in der Kueche war."
It always helps when the different meanings in one language corresponds
to the meanings in another language. If your knowledge of German is
anything like ours, it helps to know that "Kelle" and "Shoepfloeffel"
mean ladle, and "Schoepfer" means creator (interestingly, "schopfen" is
the verb meaning "to ladle" NOT "to create" ... but we digress).
--------------------------------------------------
German Tutorial
If you need to brush up on your German skills to understand the above
passage, the SimTel PC archives may contain what you need. Look for
the file gplus30.zip in /msdos/langtutr at the sites that mirror the
contents of the SimTel archives (like oak.oakland.edu).
German Plus v3.0 is a language tutorial featuring review and
exercises of over 500 nouns, adjectives, and verbs conjugated in the
four major tenses. The program contains a look-up feature for use
with the database.
--------------------------------------------------
NERDATHON '94 - Call for Presentations
The Nerdathon is a computer industry get-together that is intended to
bring visionary software (and hardware) developers together in a relaxed
environment with venture capitalists to explore new opportunities for
cooperation.
The theme of the first annual Nerdathon (to be held November 18-20, 1994
-- immediately after COMDEX) is: "Windows into the Internet".
This event will allow for sharing of real-world examples of how the
Internet is opening up windows of opportunity and changes in how people
are working and living.
Presentations are being sought on the following topics:
Software: Graphic user interfaces for use with Internet: (MOSAIC,
Macintosh, MS-Windows, etc.,); Agents; Enablers; Knowbots; Multi-
user
games, Virtual reality, ...
Hardware: Big screen terminals, fast modems, ISDN, ATM, ...
Cable TV: Internet delivery via cable TV.
Government: Plans for the National Information Superhighway, Grant
sources, Security, Cryptography & the Clipper chip.
Industry: Telecommuting via Internet, virtual corporations and entirely
new kinds of businesses that are enabled by the Internet.
Community: Local community networks; Examples of how small businesses
are using the Internet and local networks to interact and compete;
Life-style changes; Doing business from remote locations.
Legal: Privacy, Patents, Copyrights, Nevada as a business environment.
Venture Capitalists: prospects for Internet-related businesses.
If you are interested in presenting, please E-mail a brief synopsis of
your presentation to g_rider@libre.com by July 1, 1994.
If you wish more information, please E-mail a request to
g_rider@libre.com. If you are interested in attending, send E-mail to
hyatt@libre.com for event and hotel room reservations.
--------------------------------------------------
Do you like to watch other people work? - CU-SeeMe
If you enjoy watching other people work at their computer ... especially
from the point of view of the computer, take a look at CU-SeeMe. There
are Windows and Macintosh versions available via anonymous ftp on
comet.cit.cornell.edu in the /pub/video directory. Even if you don't
have a camera mounted on your monitor so that other people can see you
working, you can watch others AND if you subscribe to the mailing list
you may hear about "special" net events. To join the list, send a
message with the following line as the entire message body to
listserv@cornell.edu:
subscribe cu-seeme-l <first name> <last name>
The software supports one-on-one and one-on-many conferencing; the
Windows version does not yet support audio. Dr Chaos verifies that the
Windows version runs just fine under OS/2 in seamless mode using the
OS/2 TCP/IP 2.0 version of the Winsock code.
--------------------------------------------------
Saving your e-mail?
An article in the Los Angeles Times on 16 June 1994 by Leslie Helm,
titled "The Digital Smoking Gun" warns that mismanaged E-Mail poses
serious risks to companies.
...
In the process of pretrial fact finding known as discovery, an
attorney can demand from a company all electronic files having to do
with a client's case. Federal rules introduced in December require
companies to hand over a list of all available electronic data and to
refrain from deleting any.
...
"It's as if people put their brains on hold when they write e-mail,"
a consultant said. "It's a substitute for a phone call, and that's
the danger."
...
E-Mail Tips --:
- Establish an e-mail policy that urges users to exercise the
same restraint in writing e-mail messages that they do when writing
letters or memos. Employees should be told that "anything you put in
this computer can and will be used against you in a court of law."
- The company should implement an aggressive document retention
policy that limits the number of saved e-mail messages both on the
company's central computers and in personal computers.
- Warn employees to be careful about forwarding messages to
employees or outsiders.
--------------------------------------------------
Humorous signature files
Do you have signature envy, those cute little sayings and drawing that
people have appended to the bottom of each of their mail files or Usenet
postings? Dr. Chaos has a collection of lighthearted and sometimes
bizarre list of signatures that he found on Usenet. Maybe it will
inspire you to improve your signature. For you own copy send mail to
chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu and ask Dr. Chaos for the .sig
collection.
--------------------------------------------------
Get your Free Subscription Here!
Just send a message to Dr. Chaos - chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
and ask to be put on the subscription list. From CompuServe, use the
address INTERNET:chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. It's that easy.
Don't delay ---- act now!
Dr. Chaos
.