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302 lines
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_ /\ _ _ /\ _
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/ \_/\_/ \_/\_/ \ M M 0000 0000 SSSSS EEEEEEE / \_/\_/ \_/\_/ \
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\_____/ () \_____/ MM MM 0 //0 0 //0 S E \_____/ () \_____/
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/ \ M M M M 0 // 0 0 // 0 SSSS EEEEE / \
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/ \__/ \ M M M O// 0 0// 0 S E / \__/ \
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/__________\ M M 0000 0000 SSSSS EEEEEEE /__________\
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DDDD RRRR OOOO PPPPP PPPPP IIIII N N GGGGG SSSSS
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D D R R O O P P P P I NN N G S
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D D RRRR O O PPPPP PPPPP I N N N G GGG SSSS
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D D R R O O P P I N NN G G S
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DDDD R R OOO0 P P IIIII N N GGGG SSSSS
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A-M00SE-ING ANECDOTES AND ILLUMINATION BY AND FOR THE PAWNS OF THE
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M00SE ILLUMINATI
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Issue #6 | Disclaimer: The Editor will place almost anything | Aug. 3, 1988
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---------- in this newsletter out of a frantic desire to fill ---------------
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the issue, so don't blame him for the quality or content of the submissions.
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Excepting those he may have written himself, the enclosed items do not in any
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way represent the Editor's opinions. In fact, let's be real safe, and say that
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as far as this newsletter is concerned, he has no opinions at all. Okay? Good.
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===============================================================================
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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************************** EDITORIALS AND LETTERS ***************************
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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Once again, a late and rather small issue of M00se Droppings etc.!
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There are a few things to note:
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1) Several people have agreed that since they are signed up to
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the M00se Illuminati discussion on CSNEWS, and receive M00se Droppings from
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there, it would be best to be removed from the normal mailing list. This
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is entirely up to you. If you wish to be removed from the normal distribution
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network of M00se Droppings, let me or Kamikaze know. Please do so soon,
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as Kami has mentioned the M00se Droppings Distribution Network Mark II,
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and it would be rotten if he had to remove lots of people from it after
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he worked on it.
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2) Kami also suggested that, since M00se Droppings is often large,
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I provide only updates of the general list every issue, with a separate
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mailing of a full list now and then to make sure everybody's up to date.
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I intend to take his suggestion; however, since this issue is short and
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most of the changes to the list are alterations rather than additions, there
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is a full list in this issue. We seem to have lost two members, Cocker
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at Governer's School and one of our CTSTATEU chapters. If anybody has
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information on these two missing m00ses, act on it as you see fit. We have
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also added two members, the Old Dominion U thr0ng. Welcome, and bl00p!
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3) GASP! In Autoduel Quarterly issue 6/2, somebody has dared to
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write a letter claiming that a group called 'The Illuminati' controls the
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Anarchist Relief Front! Since we, of course, control that group, or would
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pretend to if we didn't, I suggest a letter campaign directed at Autoduel
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Quarterly's ADQ&A department setting them right on this issue. If you're
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interested, let me know and I'll send you the address to use. Thank Indiana
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Joe for this piece of information.
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And now, on with the issue.
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PUBLIC RELATIONS OPPORTUNITY
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============================
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I received a notice yesterday informing me that the tuition for
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out-of-state students is increased from $1600 to $1975 per semester
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and the per credit hour fee is now $132 instead of $107. Does anybody
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out there know whether foreign students who have stayed in NY state for
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more than one year claim in-state student status? If not, can the
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mOOse or the illuminati do something about this.
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Helpppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
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desperately yours
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ALIEN
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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******************************* EVENTS AND NEWS *******************************
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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As some of you may know, Camp Relay II: The Quest For M00se (as I
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have heard it called) will be taking place this weekend. Those of you invited,
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I'll see you there; those who weren't, sorry, it's a closed party. But
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hopefully SOMEBODY will have a giant thr0ng party soon!
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The size of this party will probably be such that it will be near
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reaching 'critical m00se'.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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***************************** FICTION AND POETRY ******************************
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Well, here's some fiction. I don't know if it's original or not, so i'm
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putting it here. Unfortunately, I forget where it comes from, too. I think
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a Maine chapter. Just haven't been that organized since my brakes failed...
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Monday, I am going MOOS hunting. It is basically a simple activity,
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but requires a good deal of advance preparation. In this business,
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catching no MOOS at all is better than catching the wrong MOOS.
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There are many different kinds of MOOS, different in both appearence
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and disposition. They come in different colors too, but that doesn't
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seem to make a whole lot of difference. The hunter must know, before
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actually leaving the safety of the hunting lodge, what kind of a MOOS
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he wishes to bag. This descision by itself can take many years, but
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after a few mistakes, one learns quickly or perishes--MOOS are dangerous
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game.
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In order to catch a MOOS, you have to have a lure. Appearence is very
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important, since a MOOS will tend to gravitate toward what it feels is
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the best-looking in a crowd of hunters. Once you have managed to get
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the MOOS at close quarters, the job becomes substantially more difficult,
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so for the time being I'll talk about appearence preparation.
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Clothing is essential. Most MOOS will shy away from naked hunters unless
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they know them pretty well already. And in any event, I don't know too
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many hunters brave enough to walk around naked in that jungle to begin
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with.
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As part of MY personal preparations, I first look over my wardrobe. This
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is usually very depressing because I rapidly realize that none of my
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clothing matches any particular fashion that has either existed in the
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past or will exist in the near future. This can be a liability, since
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weird clothing tends to attract weird MOOS (if any). Picking out what I
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deem to be the best compromise out of the clean clothes pile, I then try
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the outfit on. Well, the pants are a little baggy but they're comfortable.
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The shirt has to go, though, because it makes me look too undefined. After
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about three times through this rigamarole, I usually say "Fuck it" and
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throw on an old sweatshirt and faded Bugle Boys (my one concession to the
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world of fashion--and only because they're comfortable).
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Once you have selected a (usually inappropriate) outfit, it's time to tend to
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your bodily appearence. A shower is usually a good idea, because MOOS that
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are attracted to excessive body odor are usually not attractive to YOU. After
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stepping out of the shower and soaking the bathroom floor, it is necessary to
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examine one's self in the mirror for a few minutes to make sure that--in the
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unlikely event that you DO bring home a MOOS--that there won't be anything
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embarassing showing when you (un)dress it.
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During this time, you might bemoan the fact that nature did not endow you
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with a more classically handsome facial structure--that is of course unless
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you possess such a facial structure already, in which case I have a hammer
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at the ready to help you with that problem. Eventually, you convince yourself
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that you're not too bad looking--or at least that you're as good looking as
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you're going to get without major reconstructive surgery. The stubble is
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just at the right length, in any event.
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Various personal hygiene activities follow (such as towelling off before you
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soak through the floor and start dripping on the kitchen below), each
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meticulously performed up to the point where you become disgusted with
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performing them and give up.
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Hair has always been a problem with me. Not that I have any lack of it, for
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indeed it grows copiously on just about every available patch of skin on my
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body. However, the hair on my head has always been a problem. After several
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combings and rufflings which seem to achieve no effect other than to make
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matters worse, I might stare wistfully at the can of Mousse my mother keeps
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in the bathroom. But, alas, I made a vow long ago never to use that hideous
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stuff, and with one final ruffle I decide to stick with the "windblown" look.
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Personal hygiene activities concluded, the next step is putting your clothes
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on. For most of us, this presents no major logistical difficulty... But then
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again, I have been known to have been last seen hopping down the hallway
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with my sneaker caught in my pantleg because I forgot to put my pants on
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first.
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Once dressed, a final view in the mirror is obligatory to judge the overall
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effect. "Hey, not bad at all!" you might say to yourself--but the question
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you must keep in mind is "Will it be effective in attracting the type of
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MOOS I'm after?" Usually, the answer is "No," but since it is usually too
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late to change anything by this point, your only options are to stay home
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or throw trepidation to the winds and go out anyway.
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Certain kinds of MOOS are attracted by the type of vehicular transportation
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you use to get you to the hunting grounds. At one point in my life, I had
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a nice, high-performance sports car to use--but ironically at that point in
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my life I had no need to hunt for MOOS because I already had one. When that
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MOOS went, the car went up for sale and now I have a $600 brown Chevette with
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randomly distributed nasty dents. Not the kind of car, as Mr. Picher would
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say, that one would use when "Cruising for MOOS."
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One of the gravest errors that a MOOS hunter can comit is to hunt alone.
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Not only is it more dangerous, but the MOOS will look at you and think that
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if you can't even keep the company of another hunter you probably aren't
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worth the trouble to investigate further. Another MOOS-hunter folly is to
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hunt with someone who is substantially better looking than you are. There
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is nothing more discouraging than seeing the MOOS you have in your sights
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gravitate toward your hunting partner.
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Once you have selected a hunting partner, the next step is finding a
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location where you can hunt. Unfortunately, it seems as though any MOOS
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"hot spots" are usually targeted by many, many, other hunters as well.
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This makes the outcome of a hunting expedition more in doubt, but there
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is little to be done for it except to persevere.
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When you arrive at the hunting ground, you must set about making yourself
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visible. You can do this by shouting "I want MOOS!" at the top of your
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lungs, but then you be subsequently visible because there will be a large
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area around you which neither hunters or MOOS will cross into.
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The whole process after this point becomes too tedious to explain. Usually,
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you end up with nothing, or with a MOOS that you decide you don't really
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want (which is usually the result of not REALLY knowing what kind of MOOS
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you want in the first place). After trying several locations, you and your
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hunting partner usually give up and go home.
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Of course, this is not to say that you did not enjoy your MOOS hunting
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expedition. There seems to be some inner peace that comes from this
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communion with nature, some natural tranquility that comes from pursuing
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the dreaded MOOS and coming home completely skunked.
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Eventually, the wise hunter realizes that active MOOS hunting is not
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very fruitful or beneficial. MOOS seem to posses a great sense of irony,
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because the good ones usually show up when the hunter isn't putting forth
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any particular effort to find one. Unfortunately, the MTBMOOS (Mean Time
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Between MOOS) seems to increase proportionately with the quality of the
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MOOS. Ahh, well... C'est la MOOS, eh?
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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*************************** MISCELLANEOUS NONSENSE ****************************
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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This was sent by the same person, but I'm putting it here in the hopes that
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I got at least one of them in the right place.
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MR. MICRO MEETS MS. MINI
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Micro was a real-time operator and a dedicated multi-user. His broadband
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protocol made it easy for him to interface with numerous input/output
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devices, even if it did mean time-sharing. His links with authors and
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editors connected him with many of Silicon Valley's expert systems and
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artificial intelligentsia.
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One evening, just as the sun was crashing, he arrived home and parked his
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Motorola 68000 in the main drive (he had missed the 5100 bus that morning)
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and noticed an elegant piece of liveware admiring the daisy wheels in his
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garden. "She looks user-friendly. I'll see if she'd like an update
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tonight" he thought to himself.
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He browsed over to her casually, admiring the power of her twin, 32 bit
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floating point processors. Even her parms were parsed! He hadn't seen
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structured lines like this since his prom. "How are you, Honeywell?" he
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asked.
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"Yes, I am well," she responded, batting her optical fibers engagingly and
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smoothing her console over her curvilinear functions.
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Mini was her name, and she was delightfully engineered with eyes like COBOL
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and a Prime mainframe architecture that set Micro's peripherals networking
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all over. Fears of becoming a UNIX were soon fading like vaporware.
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Micro settled for the straight line approximation. "I'm stand-alone
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tonight, and looking for an assembly," he said. "How about computing a
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vector to by base address. I'll output a byte to eat, and we could get
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offset later on."
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Mini ran her priority process for 2.6 milliseconds then transmitted: "8K,
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I've been dumped myself recently and a new page is just what I need to
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refresh my discs. I'll park my machine cycle in your background and meet
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you inside." She walked off leaving Micro admiring her solenoids. "Wow!
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What a global variable! I wonder if she'll like my firmware?" Micro
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thought.
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That night they sat down at the process table for a form feed of fiche and
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chips and a bucket of Baudot. Mini was in a conversational mode and
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expanded on ambiguous argument while Micro gave occasional acknowledgments,
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although in reality he was analyzing the shortest and least critical path
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to her entry point. He finally settled on the old `Would you like to see
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my benchmark' subroutine. But Mini was one step ahead. She was suddenly
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up and stripping off her parity bits to reveal the full functionality of
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her operating system software!!
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"Let's get BASIC you RAM, and go for some downtime on the spread sheets,"
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she panted. Micro was loaded by this stage; he was afraid his software
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wouldn't respond. Fortunately, his hardware policing module had a
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processor of it's own and soon was in danger of overflowing it's output
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buffer - a hang-up that Micro had recently consulted his analyst about.
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"Core!" was all he could say.
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Micro soon recovered, however, and Mini went down on the DEC and opened her
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device files to reveal her data set ready. His floppy soon was coming up
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to speed. He acessed his fully packed root device and was just about to
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start pushing into her stack when she executed an escape sequence by
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popping back to level 1.
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"Oh no!" she piped. "You're not sheilded!"
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"Reset, baby," he replied. "I've been debugged."
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"I haven't got my current loop enabled, and I'm not ready to support child
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processes," she protested. "That would make me mother bored!"
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"Don't run away," he said. "I'll generate an interrupt."
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"No way! That's too error prone, and I can't abort because of my design
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philosophy."
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Micro was locked in by this stage, though, and could not be turned off.
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She soon stopped his thrashing by introducing a voltage spike into his main
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supply, whereupon he fell over with a head crash and went to sleep.
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"Computers," she thought as she compiled herself at the asynch. "All they
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ever think about is hex."
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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*************** AND, OF COURSE, THE UBIQUITOUS M00SE LIST UPDATE **************
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Hey, whaddaya know, this is longer than I thought it was. The general
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list will follow this issue in the mail. Until next time, Bl00p!
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