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Chaos Corner v03 n10
Chaos Corner V03 N10 29 December 1993
Copyright 1993 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.
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Mailing Errors Again --- Solved Now?
After the number of duplicate mailings reported from issue number 8, we
were embarrassed by the number of reports of people getting three (3!)
copies of issue 9. At Rich Greenberg's suggestion, we contacted Pat
Townson, the moderator of the TELECOM DIGEST (he maintains a mailing
list of about 2000 names ... Chaos Corner is approaching that but not
that big yet.) Pat was kind enough to send back four pages of advice on
how to deal with mailing lists of that size. As a result, this final
issue for 1993 is being sent out by a new technique which we hope will
result in much faster and reliable delivery. Happy New Year!
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Mailbag - Plan Now for 1994
This just in from Dianne at JGR-Planets (one of five sections published
under the umbrella of the American Geophysical Union's JOURNAL OF
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH). Start planning now for the impact of the Comet
Shoemaker-Levy on the planet Jupiter. Scheduled for release in June ---
watch this space for the times and locations of any sneak previews that
might be scheduled.
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Mailbag - Skydiving Information
After seeing the item in the last issue about where to find information
on rock-climbing (assuming you have World Wide Web access), Eric Johnson
wrote to provide the WWW pointer to information about skydiving:
http://snoopy.cis.ufl.edu/skydive
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Mailbag - Source for Weather Maps at Cornell
Jeff Honig volunteered that current weather maps and the Ithaca-area
forecast (Ithaca, New York, USA ... not the one in Greece) are available
for anonymous ftp from his machine gated.cornell.edu in the directory
pub/wx. So, if you are on the Cornell net, you can help reduce net
traffic by getting the maps from Jeff's machine.
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Legal Resources on the Network
A comprehensive list of law related computer resources is available by
anonymous ftp at ftp.midnight.com. The file, called LegalList, is in
pub/LegalList/legallist.txt
If you have NetNews access, look for the list of legal resources posted
to the misc.legal.moderated newsgroup.
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BIOS Survival Guide - Available Here!
We recently broke down and upgraded an original PC-AT 339 that we had
with a replacement 386DX-33 motherboard ($165 from a local dealer).
Since we decided to do the upgrade ourselves, we developed a sudden
interest in the hardware groups on Usenet. (Considering how well we do
with mailing lists, can you imagine the damage possible if we are turned
loose with a screwdriver?) One file we found there was the BIOS
Survival Guide, by Jean-Paul Rodrigue Rodriguj@Mistral.ERE.Umontreal.Ca.
The guide is in the early stages of development right now, but provides
a good starting point for understanding the options that are presented
when the system comes up in setup mode. Ask for it from Dr. Chaos at
chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.
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AIX Software Sources - POP and others
When someone asked how to get POPPER working on AIX, Brian Gerstel
responded by recommending that the person download IMAP-3.2 from
ftp.cac.washington.edu ... it included a POP2 and POP3 daemon that
compiles relatively painlessly under AIX. If you would really like to
get POPPER working under AIX, check out the /pub/rs6000 directory at
ftp.cts.eiu.edu for a tar file of the source and a README.POP3 file
containing installation instructions. What is all this stuff? The Post
Office Protocol allows you to set up servers (postoffices) that collect
mail for a number of users, and these users can pick up and send mail by
using any of a number of POP clients running on PCs or Macs (or Unix
workstations). The software allows a site to provide electronic mail
services in a client-server form (not the only one, certainly) and the
client machine is responsible for managing saved files.
Dr. Chaos also picked up an annotated file of sources for RS/6000
software -- if you would like a copy just ask for it by electronic mail
at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. By the way, people with
Silicon Graphics workstations can get a precompiled version of Sam
Leffler's FlexFax software -- it allows your workstation (in conjunction
with a fax modem) to send and receive faxes. Support for a number of
other manufacturers systems is available (including AIX 3.2), but expect
to spend some significant time getting this package up and running. For
example, the README says:
It is easy to setup a mail to fax gateway facility with the tools
included in this distribution and some simple additions to your
sendmail configuration file.
Dr. Chaos know of NO "simple additions" to sendmail configuration files!
If you are interested in this software, it can be obtained from sgi.com,
look in the sgi/fax directory.
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What's the hot new game on the Net? -- DOOM
ID Software has released their long-awaited action game DOOM. The
shareware version is available via anonymous ftp from the home of the
Internet game archive -- ftp.uml.edu (ftp2.uml.edu is also available to
for downloading only to handle the increased load during this period
when many are retrieving DOOM, Blake Stone, and Duke Nukem II) -- look
in the msdos/Games/ID directory for version 1.1 of DOOM, or just explore
the many demo or shareware games available. Dr. Chaos recommends you
don't bother with DOOM without a fast 386 or 486 processor (it was not
playable on a 386-20 under OS/2). When it's just you against the
aliens, you'll want as responsive a processor as possible.
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At Last -- All Sites with X-rated Images Found
In a landmark discovery, Astronomers at the Waikato Observatory in
Hamilton, New Zealand have used advanced Astronomical
triangulation techniques to locate Computing sites that store X-Rated
GIF and JPEG format pictures. The technique was pioneered by Dr. Ian
Analpeeper and is based around variations in the Earth's rotation and
predicted orbit about the sun.
"It's quite simple really", Dr. Analpeeper explained to our
reporters, "The Earth revolves somewhat like a car wheel turns; and
like a car wheel, it is *precisely* balanced. When the balance
is upset, the wheel does not revolve as smoothly. Bearing this in
mind, we used the facts before us to locate the sites we wished to
get to.
The get the details on how exactly these sites are located, just sent a
request to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu. Note that this file
was posted on the alt.humor.best-of-usenet newsgroup.
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Most Requested Files from Chaos Corner - 1993
The most popular file by far was the one describing how to get the Big
Dummy's Guide to the Internet. Just ahead of the pack, was the file
giving information about modems, followed by Educational Software, Ig
Nobel Winners, Gopher Jewels, US Geological Survey Information via
Gopher, Dr. Chaos's notes from the Downsizing Expo, Telecom Resources on
the Internet, Sam Ko's reviews of Useful DOS programs, Cross Stitch
software, and accessing Commerce Business Daily online. Some have asked
why Dr. Chaos doesn't just provide the files by anonymous ftp. The
answer is really simple -- your comments are the fuel that keeps this
process going and if we didn't provide a mechanism that encouraged you
to write and request files, the amount of feedback received would be
much lower (unless we manage to use "not" instead of "now" or send an
issue three times). The comments that many of you make about the value
of the information in Chaos Corner is the "fee" that keeps the effort
going. Thanks very much from all of us here in Chaos Corner and the
best wishes for the New Year!
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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
.
