Date: 16 Nov 93 19:11:15 PST (Tuesday)
Subject: Life B.7
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Selections from silent-tristero mailing list: silent-tristero@world.std.com
From: 881045m@dragon.acadiau.ca (Richard Muise)
Friends : Don't Let Friends Do DOS !
From: David Gingold [gingold@think.com]
A friend who used to write news for Channel 5 once told me that the best way to
get tips from the police in Boston is to hang out at a certain store in
Dorchester that sells police supplies and doughnuts. Sure enough, in the
Yellow Pages we find:
Doughnuts:
Doughboy Donuts 256 Boston Dor-----436-0646
Police Equipment:
Doughboy Police & Fire Supply
198 Boston Dor-------------------287-1999
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From: aboulang@bbn
Two signs stacked top-to-bottom spotted in Quincy:
Fortune Telling
Guns and Ammo
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From: Connie_Kleinjans@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
In a classic case of one thing leading to another, seven men aged eighteen to
twenty-nine received jail sentences of three to four years in Kingston-on-
Thames, England, in 1979 after a fight that started when one of the men threw a
french fry at another while they stood waiting for a train.
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FORE SAIL: Slight Lee used Newton personal digit tall assist pant. Call 617
78j-##8?
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From: the .sig of Jim Paradis (paradis@tallis.enet.dec.com):
The purpose of time is to keep everything from happening at once.
It's not working.
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From: dave mankins (dm@world.std.com, dm@hri.com)
Subj: signature of the commute
Markku Tuomi
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.
mot@jybox.jyu.fi Mark Twain
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From: Seth Gordon [sethg@gnu.ai.mit.edu]
Standard Disclaimer
Subject: signature of the week
"When I became a math major, I stopped having to add, because I understood how
adding is done. When I learned computers, I stopped having to remember,
because I understood how remembering is done." --Dale Worley
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From: Jym Dyer [jym@remarque.berkeley.edu]
Subj: Signature _du_Jour_
This message is brought to you as shareware. If you like what was said, please
send me a check.
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From: Miles R Fidelman [fidelman@civicnet.org]
I saw this in the paper recently:
"Last summer, the cable television station that serves Columbia S.C. aimed a
camera full-time at an aquarium to occupy a vacant channel, which was awaiting
the September start-up of the Science-Fiction Channel. When Sci-Fi replaced
the 'fish channel,' complaints were so numerous that the company was forced to
find another channel for the aquarium, which now runs 14 hours per day,
sharing time with the Bravo Channel."
Personally, my favorite programming is on NASA Select TV -- when they leave a
camera open on activities inside the shuttle
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From: John L Redford [jlr@world.std.com]
I came across a curious song the other day by a local (Boston) band called
Tribe:
Under Texas soil, under Texas sky,
It sits and waits and grows
It runs for fifty-four miles
Goodbye Princeton, goodbye CERN
He's gone to Texas to watch the holy fire burn
[refrain]:
He's gone to build
He's gone to build the Supercollider
Then there's a driving bridge full of high-neck guitar work.
Oh well. Maybe this is why there are so few rock songs about physics - just
as you get one out, Congress yanks the funding on you...
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From: David Gingold [gingold@think.com]
... He's gone to build the Supercollider
Tribe didn't actually write the song as an anthem for Big Science (you can
read the lyrics either way), but the SSC folks liked it so much anyway that
they invited the band down to Texas to film a video. Filming was in progress
the day Congress pulled the plug, and so Supercollider unwittingly become
history's most expensive music video.
------------------------------
From a .sig...
Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one
that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. -- Wernher von Braun
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From: rnewman@mit.edu (Ron Newman)
It's been a few days since our mini-flame war about whether Bill Clinton should
install electronic-voting software at his Internet site to sound out public
opinion.
Let me remind you all of the _Literary Digest_ poll of 1936.
The _Literary Digest_ mailed out 10 million postcards to Americans throughout
the country, asking whether the recipient preferred President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt or his Republican challenger, Alf Landon. Over two million people
responded, with these results:
Landon: 1,293,669 (57%): 360 electoral votes
FDR: 972,897 (43%): 171 electoral votes
The actual election returns were a bit different. Roosevelt got 60.8% of the
popular vote. Landon carried two states: Vermont (3 electors) and Maine (5
electors).
What went wrong? The answer was obvious--in retrospect. The lists that the
Literary Digest_ mailed to were taken from automobile registrations and
telephone directories. The _Digest_ didn't realize that, in 1936, car and
telephone users were disproportionately affluent, well-educated, and
Republican.
The _Literary Digest_ ceased publishing soon after the 1936 election.
Now, do you still want an electronic poll of computer and modem users to guide
our President's policies?
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From: Bruce Boghosian [bmb@think.com]
[Found on the net. Said to be quoted from October issue of Northwest Airlines
in-flight magazine. Headers deleted.]
"Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."
-- purported to be the last words of Pancho Villa
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From: Simon E Spero [ses@tipper.oit.unc.edu]
I woke up this morning in the middle of an NPR pledge drive. As I lay there
with my eyes closed, waiting for some actual news to start, I was impressed to
hear the latest way of sending pledges- mail your pledge to
wuncradio@unc.edu.
Is this a first?
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From: dlw@odi.com
PageSat, Inc. of Palo Alto, CA, is broadcasting a complete Usenet feed, with
every single news group in existence, 90MB/day, from GE Americom's K2
satellite, over the entire United States, southern Canada, and northern
Mexico. These photons are passing through your brain right now.
------------------------------
From: David Gingold [gingold@think.com]
"Luckily, the eggs turned to rock millions of years ago and no harm was done."
Today's Boston Globe, describing the near-catastrophe when a cameraman's
lighting equipment fell into a new display of dinosaur eggs.
------------------------------
From: leira@athena.com (Linda L. Julien)
Athena Design Announces Psychic Tech Support Hotline
Athena Design announces another way in which we can better serve our customers'
needs -- our new Psychic Technical Support Hotline.
Our staff of trained psychics have been studying the karmic ebb and flow of
technical support issues on the higher planes. They have determined that in
addition to being affected by the tides and the position of the moon and
planets, technical support issues are especially affected by cosmic rays and
sunspot activity. One of our staff psychics states, "We've studied the effects
of sunspot activity on tech support questions for a period of time now, and
feel confident that we can accurately determine the answers to questions based
on our charts." The director of the Psychic Support Department has found that,
"The same question will come up over and over in a short period of time, as the
karmic flow influences the our customers' hardware and software. Recently, for
example, we've had a number of questions about absolute cell references. The
charts we're developing predict that next week will get a large number of
questions about linking worksheets."
Our trained psychics have researched these influences, and have created a
special tarot deck for use in technical support readings. With the help of
this deck, our psychics will be able to give you technical support for Mesa,
even if you don't know what the problem is! Once we've found the problem, our
psychics will be able to determine a solution and step you through it.
Our Psychic Technical Support Hotline is available to all registered
commercial users of Mesa on Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 5:30pm Eastern
Time. Just call 617.734.6372 and ask for Mesa Psychic Tech Support.
Sample Reading:
This is an actual transcript of a Psychic Technical Support call received by
one of our readers recently. The names of the customers have been changed for
privacy reasons.
Reader: Hi, this is Psychic Tech Support. How can I help you, John?
Customer: Hello. I've got a problem here. With Mesa. It's not working
right. Can you tell me what's wrong?
Reader: Ok. Let me just lay out a reading, and we'll figure out the
problem...Ah, the reading starts with the King of Wells, crossed by the Nine of
Links. I can see that you're very talented when it comes to formatting
worksheets, but you're feeling rather daunted by the amount of data that you
have to connect together with your current project. The cards are suggesting
that you should try linking worksheets; I think you'll find that will make the
project a lot easier. Are you familiar with that feature of Mesa.
Customer: Yes, I am. I hadn't considered using that for this problem however.
I do have a really large amount of data.
Reader: Well, let's look a little further and see what we can determine. At
the root of the problem we have the card representing the Legal Department. My
feeling here is that they're pushing you very hard to represent all of this
data in a specific manner.
Customer: Oh! I knew my boss said I had to set things up in a certain way, but
I wasn't sure why...
Reader: The Legal Department Card is from the Major Arcana, so that signifies
that this issue isn't going to go away. Moving into the recent past, I see the
Seven of Wells, reversed. You're concerned that the things they insist on
might make it impossible for you to format your data in a manner that you feel
will be most effective and pleasing to look at.
Looking at the position of what might happen, I see the Ace of Disks,
reversed. Disks represent Earth, or bringing things into a physical form,
using graphs and printed reports. Since this card is reversed, it
represents that this project might never get off the ground -- it might fail
before it even gets started. I think you need to look beyond the formatting
issues, and spend some more time working on linking worksheets.
In the position of what will happen, I see the Page of Swords. This card
represents becoming skilled in the use of complex formulas and Mesa's
MScript scripting language. I think that in this case, scripting and
linking worksheets are very intimately related. By mastering MScript, your
entire task will become easier to accomplish.
Customer: I haven't looked at MScript yet. Do you think it will be useful?
Reader: Definitely. Take a look at the MScript chapter in the User's Guide,
and I think you'll find all the information you need.
Moving on to your hopes and dreams, we have the Two of Wells. This
represents your hope that a coworker will help you with this project,
and that together you can find a way to balance the appropriate
formatting with the other requirements of the project.
Customer: Actually, I was hoping that my coworker, Susan, could help me with
this. I know that she's worked on similar projects in the past, and they've
been pretty successful.
Reader: I think you're right about that. I'd suggest that you talk to her
about it.
The next card represents your environment, or, more specifically, how
your coworkers view you. The card in this position is the Internet.
This shows that your coworkers have a very high regard for you. They
believe in your ability to successfully complete this project, and they
also regard you as having incredible resources and connections. Since
this card is from the Major Arcana, I think that their assessment of
you is correct.
The next card in the spread represents your fears, and we have the Five
of Wells. This represents your fear that you'll lose your freedom of
creativity while formatting this project, due to the restrictions that
are being put on you. However, the card also shows that there are some
possibilities that you haven't even considered yet. I'd advise that
you think about this some more -- you're not as limited as you think.
In particular, take a look at Mesa's Drag & Drop colors, patterns, and
fonts.
The conclusion of this reading is the Seven of Links, reversed. This
tells me that you might still find yourself overwhelmed by the large
amount of data that you need to link together, and that you might not
be as familiar with Mesa's worksheet linking features as you could be.
Let's open up a new worksheet and step through some simple linking
procedures, so that we can be sure you're comfortable with the whole
process...
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1995 Copyright by Henry Cate III All Rights Reserved
The above collection can be forwarded for non commercial use
as long as the signature file below is included
The individual entries of the Life Collection are owned by
the individual contributors who should be contacted
if you wish to forward their entry.
--
Henry Cate III [cate3@netcom.com]
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