278 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
278 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
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Chaos Corner V01 N10 09Dec91
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This will be the last issue of Chaos Corner for the year of 1991 and the
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end of volume 01 (order your bound copy of volume 01 by December 6 to
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receive it in time for Christmas). We expect to return with volume 2 in
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mid-January.
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Mailbag
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--------------------------------------------------
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Chaos Corner Feedback
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We have received a number of suggestions about the long headers on the
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front of Chaos Corner. Nick Gimbrone of CIT suggested that we use the
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bcc (blind carbon copy) feature of the Ricemail package so that the list
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of recipients is hidden. The solution we picked was to create an alias
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list on pelican. Thanks go to Gary Buhrmaster for listening to our
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whining about undocumented restrictions in the 'newaliases' command as
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we set things up. If you have received this, then it either worked (at
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least for your address) or it failed so miserably that I sent it out
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again the old way.
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Kate Mink of Cornell's Engineering College and Joan Winters at the
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Stanford Linear Accelerator facility believe that not all the topics on
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Chaos Corner are of the same level of riveting interest. They actually
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want to be able to SKIP topics that Dr. Chaos thinks are interesting!
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Hrumph! In any case, Dr. Chaos has asked me to separate topics with the
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name of the file folder containing the item (impose order on chaos?
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REALLY!).
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--------------------------------------------------
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Metafile found!
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Keith Boncek reports that his request for information, that was in the
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last issue of Chaos Corner, was successful and he had the information he
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needed in less than one half a working day after the issue was
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distributed. Thanks to you all!
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Chaotic bits and bytes from various sources ...
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--------------------------------------------------
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Good sources for various Unix packages
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Ever wonder where the "definitive sources" are for the free Unix
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software is that is floating around on the net? Brendan Kehoe at
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Widener is the "source" of the following list:
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akcl rascal.ics.utexas.edu
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AMX TeX e-math.ams.com
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archie ftp.cs.widener.edu ( ;-) )
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cnews ftp.cs.toronto.edu
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dig & doc venera.isi.edu
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emacs lisp stuff archive.cis.ohio-state.edu
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elm dsinc.dsi.com
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gnu stuff prep.ai.mit.edu
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ida sendmail uxc.cso.uiuc.edu
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microemacs midas.mgmt.purdue.edu
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mit scheme altdorf.ai.mit.edu
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perl & patch devvax.jpl.nasa.gov
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rc archone.tamu.edu
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rn & nntp lib.tmc.edu
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tcsh tesla.ee.cornell.edu
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telnet ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
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tvtwm mojo.eng.umd.edu
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x export.lcs.mit.edu
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--------------------------------------------------
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Faster access for PC software sources
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If you would like faster access to the msdos archives than can be
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obtained from Simtel20 (in New Mexico) or wuarchive.wustl.edu (in Saint
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Louis, Missouri), you might try accessing another one of the Simtel20
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mirror sites, like oak.oakland.edu (near Detroit, Michigan). The campus
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at Oakland has a T1 (1.54 Mbps) connection to the Internet, and Dr.
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Chaos tells me that based on some simpleminded tests he performed,
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access to oak.oakland.edu was 2-3 times faster from Cornell, than access
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to wuarchive.wustl.edu. Of course, your results may vary depending on
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your location.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Help on Anonymous FTP
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In the sick humor department, Dr. Chaos notes that help is available for
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those who are confused or a little uncertain about anonymous FTP. There
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are "how-to-use-anonymous-ftp instructions" available by anonymous ftp
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from ftp.cs.toronto.edu; look for file doc/ftp.help.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Discovering e-mail addresses
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One frequent question that arises in this time of chaos is how to get
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the e-mail address of someone else on the Internet. There is a periodic
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posting in several of the NetNews newsgroups on various techniques to
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use. If you would like a copy, send electronic mail to:
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chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
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Be sure you have a valid return address and that you specify in the
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subject or body of the message the type of information requested.
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Donations of cash, hardware, and software gratefully accepted.
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--------------------------------------------------
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More archie
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If you like the facilities offered by archie at McGill University
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(database lookup of files available across the Internet via anonymous
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FTP), but you don't like to logon to the system at McGill, try using one
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of the flavors of archie clients that are available. If you can deal
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with X, perl, or C, there is an archie client interface for you at
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archie.mcgill.ca in the archie/clients directory. If running archie on
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the currently overloaded McGill system is too slow for you, note that
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the following archie servers now exist:
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telnet archie.mcgill.ca or 132.206.2.3 (Can./USA)
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telnet archie.funet.fi or 128.214.6.100 (Finland)
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telnet archie.au or 128.184.1.4 (Aussie/NZ)
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telnet archie.sura.net or 128.167.254.179
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(login as user archie)
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--------------------------------------------------
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US Federal Income tax information
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As the end of the year approaches, it is still not too late to find out
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the latest network wisdom on US Federal Income Taxes. Subscribe to
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FedTax-L by sending a MAIL message to:
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LISTSERV@SHSU.BITNET (BITNET users)
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- or to -
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LISTSERV@SHSU.edu (Internet users)
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with the one-line message:
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SUBSCRIBE FedTax-L
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--------------------------------------------------
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Sexual Purity tests available (from alt.sex)
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Last but not least, the 500 and 1000 question sexual purity tests are
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available at acm.rpi.edu in the pub/aragon directory. Don't allow
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yourself to suffer any doubts! Find out the REAL truth about yourself
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that you've been hiding all along.
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--------------------------------------------------
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CD-ROMs
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A Canadian company, Photon Press, has announced Dr. Tomorrow's Eclectic
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Bookstore, that the company claims is the first CD-ROM package to offer
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individual works of literature for sale directly to the end user. The
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disk contains a certain amount of material available for the $79
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purchase price, and with the payment of additional money you are given
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the decryption keys to access a number of other title that are available
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on the same CD-ROM. Titles are stored in a number of formats to insure
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compatibility with a number of systems. (A CD-ROM can hold the text of
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about 6,000 books, so this distribution method has a lot of potential).
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--------------------------------------------------
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OS/2
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The Fernwood collection of OS/2 programs is in the process of being
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loaded to novell.com (don't try to access this site between the hours of
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8 am to 5:30 pm PST). The descriptions of the programs from the
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Fernwood collection that are currently available are in the os2/fernwood
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directory in file FERNWOS2.ZIP. As the moderator has time, he plans to
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move these programs to the appropriate subdirectory of the os2
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directory.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Guide to the OS/2 2.0 Workplace Shell
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Courtesy of Charlie Hill, IBM SE Extrodinaire, Dr. Chaos has received a
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"Guide to the OS/2 2.0 Workplace Shell," explaining what paradigm shift
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you must make to be comfortable with the current OS/2 2.0 beta. For
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your copy, request it from chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Pictures
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Many questions have arisen on the network about how to deal with the
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image files being posted with the .jpg extension (JPEG format). While
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the reason for posting pictures in that format is ostensibly to reduce
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the network traffic, Dr. Chaos claims there is a balance between the
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reduced bandwidth from the highly compressed pictures and the increased
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bandwidth of people asking how to get a program to view/convert the JPEG
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files. The standard converter between JPEG and GIF on the PC can be
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gotten from wuarchive.wustl.edu in the mirrors/msdos/graphics directory,
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and it is named gif2jpg5.zip (don't forget to specify 'binary' for the
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file transfer). For the Macintosh, the recommended software seems to be
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Picture Decompress 2.0.1, also from wuarchive in /mirrors/info-mac/apps
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and stored in file picture-decompress-201.hqx. Dr. Chaos would love to
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hear reviews of this software from any readers that have tried them out.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Pictures -- JPEG viewers
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The standard JPEG viewers, already compiled and ready-to-go for a number
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of Unix platforms can be found at procyon.cis.ksu.edu in the pub/JPEG
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directory. IBM PC '.exe' files are also there along with the other
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popular viewer on the PC platform -- Alchemy. Dr. Chaos reminds me that
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Unix users will also want to have a copy of the pbmplus package close at
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hand.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Pictures in GIF format
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If you are wondering where to look for GIF images, Dr. Chaos reports
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that you merely have to get the file /archie/doc/giflist.Z from
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archie.mcgill.ca -- it will tell you the same information that you would
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get from archie if you had asked it where in the world all the GIF files
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were stored (you can count on the X-rated GIFs being pretty much hidden
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away and not in the list).
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Misc (why? because many things here defy categorization)
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--------------------------------------------------
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Answering Machine messages
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Do you think you have run out of creative ways to coax people to leave
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messages on your answering machine rather than just hanging up? Dr.
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Chaos has a greater than 1000-line file filled many sample messages, and
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he feels sure they will excite your creativity -- get a copy of the file
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by sending electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu (be
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sure to specify the file you are requesting).
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--------------------------------------------------
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CompuServe available on the Internet
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Ever wish you could login to CompuServe or Dow Jones services right from
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a machine on the Internet? Try issuing the telnet command to get to
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hermes.merit.edu and entering 'compuserve' at the 'which host?' prompt,
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and a carriage return after the "call connected' message. Dr. Chaos
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does point out that it is really only useful if you have a CompuServe
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account, and that it appears the connection is being made through
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Tymnet, so network surcharges in addition to CompuServe charges will be
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in effect.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Santa Claus, and time
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In a discussion of electronic mail to Santa Claus, Claus Tondering from
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Denmark pointed out that Santa's schedule allows him approximately 96
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microseconds at each stop. Dr. Chaos points out that that includes
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travel time.
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--------------------------------------------------
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US Postal ZIP codes, and PC lookup program
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Chris Landers at Purdue University has put together a database of US
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Postal ZIP codes. The data can be ftp'ed from zeus.mgmt.purdue.edu
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after 5PM EST. In directory /pub, the file zipscodes.zip contains: US
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ZIP codes; a PC zip code lookup program (lookup.exe) database, and dbase
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source.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Scanning currency
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One poster on NetNews checked with the Secret Service to find out if it
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was legal to post scanned images of paper currency. It appears that
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there is no problem so long as you never make a hardcopy. Under certain
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conditions, it is acceptable to make a black/white hardcopy, but no
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color copies are legal. This particular poster would like to post a
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scanned image of a $10,000 bill, so if anyone has one to contribute to
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the cause, Dr. Chaos would be happy to ...
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TILT! Stop that before we get into trouble! That's all for now. See
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you next year with volume 2 of Chaos Corner. Send electronic mail to
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chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu if you would like to be added to
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the chaos corner electronic mail list.
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Read Dr. Chaos! (I have a Masters Degree)
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