175 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
175 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
Chaos Corner V03 N10 29 December 1993
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Copyright 1993 by Robert D. Cowles; Ithaca, NY 14850. Permission is
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hereby granted to republish complete issues in unaltered form.
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Republication of partial issues must reference the source and state that
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subscriptions to Chaos Corner are available (free) by sending electronic
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mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Mailing Errors Again --- Solved Now?
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After the number of duplicate mailings reported from issue number 8, we
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were embarrassed by the number of reports of people getting three (3!)
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copies of issue 9. At Rich Greenberg's suggestion, we contacted Pat
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Townson, the moderator of the TELECOM DIGEST (he maintains a mailing
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list of about 2000 names ... Chaos Corner is approaching that but not
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that big yet.) Pat was kind enough to send back four pages of advice on
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how to deal with mailing lists of that size. As a result, this final
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issue for 1993 is being sent out by a new technique which we hope will
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result in much faster and reliable delivery. Happy New Year!
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--------------------------------------------------
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Mailbag - Plan Now for 1994
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This just in from Dianne at JGR-Planets (one of five sections published
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under the umbrella of the American Geophysical Union's JOURNAL OF
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GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH). Start planning now for the impact of the Comet
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Shoemaker-Levy on the planet Jupiter. Scheduled for release in June ---
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watch this space for the times and locations of any sneak previews that
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might be scheduled.
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Mailbag - Skydiving Information
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After seeing the item in the last issue about where to find information
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on rock-climbing (assuming you have World Wide Web access), Eric Johnson
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wrote to provide the WWW pointer to information about skydiving:
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http://snoopy.cis.ufl.edu/skydive
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Mailbag - Source for Weather Maps at Cornell
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Jeff Honig volunteered that current weather maps and the Ithaca-area
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forecast (Ithaca, New York, USA ... not the one in Greece) are available
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for anonymous ftp from his machine gated.cornell.edu in the directory
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pub/wx. So, if you are on the Cornell net, you can help reduce net
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traffic by getting the maps from Jeff's machine.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Legal Resources on the Network
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A comprehensive list of law related computer resources is available by
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anonymous ftp at ftp.midnight.com. The file, called LegalList, is in
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pub/LegalList/legallist.txt
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If you have NetNews access, look for the list of legal resources posted
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to the misc.legal.moderated newsgroup.
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BIOS Survival Guide - Available Here!
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We recently broke down and upgraded an original PC-AT 339 that we had
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with a replacement 386DX-33 motherboard ($165 from a local dealer).
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Since we decided to do the upgrade ourselves, we developed a sudden
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interest in the hardware groups on Usenet. (Considering how well we do
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with mailing lists, can you imagine the damage possible if we are turned
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loose with a screwdriver?) One file we found there was the BIOS
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Survival Guide, by Jean-Paul Rodrigue Rodriguj@Mistral.ERE.Umontreal.Ca.
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The guide is in the early stages of development right now, but provides
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a good starting point for understanding the options that are presented
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when the system comes up in setup mode. Ask for it from Dr. Chaos at
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chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
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AIX Software Sources - POP and others
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When someone asked how to get POPPER working on AIX, Brian Gerstel
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responded by recommending that the person download IMAP-3.2 from
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ftp.cac.washington.edu ... it included a POP2 and POP3 daemon that
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compiles relatively painlessly under AIX. If you would really like to
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get POPPER working under AIX, check out the /pub/rs6000 directory at
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ftp.cts.eiu.edu for a tar file of the source and a README.POP3 file
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containing installation instructions. What is all this stuff? The Post
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Office Protocol allows you to set up servers (postoffices) that collect
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mail for a number of users, and these users can pick up and send mail by
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using any of a number of POP clients running on PCs or Macs (or Unix
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workstations). The software allows a site to provide electronic mail
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services in a client-server form (not the only one, certainly) and the
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client machine is responsible for managing saved files.
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Dr. Chaos also picked up an annotated file of sources for RS/6000
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software -- if you would like a copy just ask for it by electronic mail
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at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. By the way, people with
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Silicon Graphics workstations can get a precompiled version of Sam
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Leffler's FlexFax software -- it allows your workstation (in conjunction
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with a fax modem) to send and receive faxes. Support for a number of
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other manufacturers systems is available (including AIX 3.2), but expect
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to spend some significant time getting this package up and running. For
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example, the README says:
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It is easy to setup a mail to fax gateway facility with the tools
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included in this distribution and some simple additions to your
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sendmail configuration file.
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Dr. Chaos know of NO "simple additions" to sendmail configuration files!
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If you are interested in this software, it can be obtained from sgi.com,
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look in the sgi/fax directory.
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What's the hot new game on the Net? -- DOOM
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ID Software has released their long-awaited action game DOOM. The
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shareware version is available via anonymous ftp from the home of the
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Internet game archive -- ftp.uml.edu (ftp2.uml.edu is also available to
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for downloading only to handle the increased load during this period
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when many are retrieving DOOM, Blake Stone, and Duke Nukem II) -- look
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in the msdos/Games/ID directory for version 1.1 of DOOM, or just explore
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the many demo or shareware games available. Dr. Chaos recommends you
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don't bother with DOOM without a fast 386 or 486 processor (it was not
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playable on a 386-20 under OS/2). When it's just you against the
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aliens, you'll want as responsive a processor as possible.
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--------------------------------------------------
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At Last -- All Sites with X-rated Images Found
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In a landmark discovery, Astronomers at the Waikato Observatory in
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Hamilton, New Zealand have used advanced Astronomical
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triangulation techniques to locate Computing sites that store X-Rated
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GIF and JPEG format pictures. The technique was pioneered by Dr. Ian
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Analpeeper and is based around variations in the Earth's rotation and
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predicted orbit about the sun.
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"It's quite simple really", Dr. Analpeeper explained to our
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reporters, "The Earth revolves somewhat like a car wheel turns; and
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like a car wheel, it is *precisely* balanced. When the balance
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is upset, the wheel does not revolve as smoothly. Bearing this in
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mind, we used the facts before us to locate the sites we wished to
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get to.
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The get the details on how exactly these sites are located, just sent a
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request to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. Note that this file
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was posted on the alt.humor.best-of-usenet newsgroup.
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--------------------------------------------------
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Most Requested Files from Chaos Corner - 1993
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The most popular file by far was the one describing how to get the Big
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Dummy's Guide to the Internet. Just ahead of the pack, was the file
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giving information about modems, followed by Educational Software, Ig
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Nobel Winners, Gopher Jewels, US Geological Survey Information via
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Gopher, Dr. Chaos's notes from the Downsizing Expo, Telecom Resources on
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the Internet, Sam Ko's reviews of Useful DOS programs, Cross Stitch
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software, and accessing Commerce Business Daily online. Some have asked
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why Dr. Chaos doesn't just provide the files by anonymous ftp. The
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answer is really simple -- your comments are the fuel that keeps this
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process going and if we didn't provide a mechanism that encouraged you
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to write and request files, the amount of feedback received would be
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much lower (unless we manage to use "not" instead of "now" or send an
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issue three times). The comments that many of you make about the value
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of the information in Chaos Corner is the "fee" that keeps the effort
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going. Thanks very much from all of us here in Chaos Corner and the
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best wishes for the New Year!
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--------------------------------------------------
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Get your Free Subscription Here!
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Just send a message to Dr. Chaos - chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
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and ask to be put on the subscription list. From CompuServe, use the
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address INTERNET:chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. It's that easy.
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Don't delay ---- act now!
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Dr. Chaos
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