*** Compiled, edited & written by Ian Douglas Issue #13: September 1996 iandoug@lia.co.za http://www.dbn.lia.net/users/iandoug/ $ Introduction: Lots of thanks to Kevin Harris, Pri$m, Kevin Padayachee, Manda Bester, and Dave Watson for their kind fan mail. From: Kevin Harris Could you please remove me from F13 whilst I'm moving. I'll send a message to subscribe again when my new account is established. Although I have not said much before I have found your musings and other bits and pieces fascinating. Keep up the good work. From: "Pri$m" Greetings mortal. Your sense of humour precedes you. Thus, I would like a subscription to F13. It Rulz. From: Kevin Padayachee Hello Ian You write one of the most entertaining columns I've ever read. The national zines (SACB, PC mag & Software World) could learn a thing or 2. Where you get the time and resources is an absolute mystery to me. Keep up the great work! My Movies for Africa site also got some fan mail: From: Manda Bester Thank you for your valuable information re. movies. I have found it very interesting and will check up weekly. From: Dave Watson Thanks for the effort you put in. I own a few video stores and will visit your site regularly as I am out in the sticks and need to get an idea of available product. Thanks to Leon Treunich for sending me some humour to use. CONTENTS: ~~~~~~~~~ 1. Quotations 2. How To Play Games 3. Computer Security 4. Interesting Stuff 5. The Farsian Chronicles 6. Motivational / Inspirational 7. Science / Technology 8. Advertising / The Media 9. Health 10. Humour 11. NetNews 12. Recipes 13. Things to Think About =========================================================================== 1. Quotations "Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy ? I don't know and I don't care." William Safire "I hate quotations." Ralph Waldo Emerson "The course of opening and closing is proven by yin and yang. When speaking with those who are in a yang mode, go by the exalted and lofty; when speaking with those who are in a yin mode, go by the humble and small. Seek the small by lowliness, seek the great by loftiness. Follow this procedure, and what you say can be expressed anywhere, will penetrate anywhere, and can suit any situation. It will thereby be possible to persuade individuals, to persuade families, to persuade nations, to persuade the world." from "The Master of Demon Valley" "Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a reason to live - to learn, to discover, to be free! Give me one chance, let me show you what I've found..." from Richard Bach's "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" "Use the first moments for study. You may miss an opportunity for quick victory this way, but the moments of study are insurance of success. Take your time and be sure." from "Dune," by Frank Herbert "Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade - with reason, not force, as their final arbiter - it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgement and highest ability - and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. That is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?" Francisco d'Anconia in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" $ The purpose of women on earth is to cause men pain, abuse their kindness, and spend their money. (written in a state of depressed frustration) =========================================================================== $ 2. How To Play Games Rule 22: You have to put something in before you can get something out This rule is misundertood by many people, who go through life with the opposite philosophy: "YOU must first give me something, then I will give YOU something back." But life, and especially work life, does not work like that. You have to give before you can get. On a videogame level, you have to put money into the machine before you can have the pleasure of playing. Rule 23: Don't get into any situation that you can't get out of when you want to :-) No comment :-). Especially true of marriage situations. ============================================================================ $ 3. Computer Security According to a front page press report this month, police uncovered a teenage crime ring that had been breaking into international telephone systems and making calls for free. Telkom had to pay the bills. The seven teenagers from various parts of the country have been warned that they face charges of fraud and theft. On average, each teenager owes Telkom around 40 000R. Telkom has since put in additional checks to detect such phreaking as it happens. Police claim that they get 15 to 20 hacking cases to investigate each month. The Princeton team that found numerous security holes in Sun Microsystems' Java language and implementation has now turned its spotlight on Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. They reported finding a serious flaw in Explorer 3.0 running under Windows 95. Quoting from the comp.risks newsgroup posting by Ed Felten: "An attacker could exploit the flaw to run any DOS command on the machine of an Explorer user who visits the attacker's page." The group found a way to deliver a document to the visitor's browser, bypassing the security checks that would normally be applied. Such a document could contain, for example, a Microsoft Word macro that executes arbitrary DOS commands. The US Air Force has set up a 20 person team as an 'information warfare' unit. They will concentrate on information interception, jamming enemy communciations, etc. Number of security incidents reported to Computer Emergency Response Team in 1988: 6. In 1995, the figure was 2412, affecting 12000 sites. Phil Zimmermann, the man who let the genie of strong crypto out of the bottle with his PGP encryption system, will be presented the Norbert Wiener award in October. The Wiener award is given annually by the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility to honour excellence in promoting the responsible use of technology. Mitch Dove of Gas Software, reports the following recent virus infections: Johannesburg - Exebug.Hooker, Die-Hard.4000, Unashamed, Russian_Flag, Sampo, Exebug.A, Bravo, Burger.1500.B, Parity.Boot, ExeBug.C, Steath_Boot.C, Reverse.948.A, Hare Pretoria - Stoned.Angelina, WinWord.Concept, Exebug.A, Exebug.Hooker, Barrotes Durban - Die-Hard.4000, Stoned.Angelina Port Elizabeth - Hare ( Activated ) overwrote HDD Mitch writes further: Most of the Hare virus reports were on the 21/08/96 and were handled without problems, the F-HARE routine as supplied by Data Fellows works well. The Hare Activation in PE was a case were the client had the F-HARE routine and did not bother to run it. F-HARE was run after the overwritting of the HDD and the Hare was still found in memory, this is a classic modus operadi of the virus, it is hoping that one tries to access the Damaged Drive using a NON Write Protected diskette, in this way it would not only destroy the drive but survive to infect again. Please look at out Web Page, at http://www.gas.co.za/gassoft/, We have a freeware utility that will detect and disinfect the Hare Virus. [$ Hare activates again on the 22 September.] A big thank-you to Mitch for his monthly inputs :-) The Virus Helpline claimed to receive over 10 000 calls about the Hare virus in the space of 2 days. Lets see.. 10 000 / 48 == 208 an hour non stop, or 3.5 calls a second. Amazing service... ============================================================================ 4. Interesting Stuff The FBI is to open an office here in SA. They have 23 offices world wide, and will have 46 by the year 2000. The idea is to cooperate with local authorities in drug investigations, money laundering cases, etc. There's a story about an MIT student who spent an entire summer going to the Harvard football field every day wearing a black and white striped shirt [$ referee's uniform], walking up and down the field for ten or fifteen minutes throwing birdseed all over the field, blowing a whistle and then walking off the field. At the end of the summer, it came time for the first Harvard home football team, the referee walked onto the field and blew the whistle, and the game had to be delayed for a half hour to wait for the birds to get off of the field. The guy wrote his thesis on this, and graduated. The US Postal Service recently began advertising on the web about reaching a "90% on-time delivery for first class mail" milestone. Only the USPS would brag about delivering nine billion, three hundred and thirty thousand pieces of mail LATE. Next bit has been flying around the net, sorry if you have seen it before. I have edited it shorter. Jordan is a US basketball player (AFAIK). Jordan will make over $300,000 a game, $10,000 a minute assuming he averages about 30 minutes a game. Assuming $40 mil in endorsements next year, he'll be making $178,100 a day (working or not)! Assuming he sleeps 7 hours a night, he makes $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums dance in his head. If he goes to see Independence Day, it'll cost him $7.00, but he'll make $18,550 while he's there. If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second. If you were given a tenth of a penny for every dollar he made, you'd be living comfortably at $65,000 a year. While the common person is spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he'll pull in about $5600. Next year, he'll make more than twice as much as all of our past presidents for all of their terms combined. And something to cheer you up after all of this... Jordan will only have to have this income for 270 more years to have a net worth equivalent to that of Bill Gates. China stretches about 3,000 miles from east to west -- just about the same distance from Maine to California. But although the contiguous United States has four time zones, China has only one. All of China is on Beijing time. Beijing is in eastern China, so when sunrise is at 7 in Beijing, it doesn't rise until 11 in western China. In England, two youths were looking for somewhere private to park their car so they could partake of some marijuana. They found a quiet car park and proceeded to light up. A short time later, they heard a knock on the window. They were parked at a local police station. A man attempting to pawn a stolen bracelet in West Plains, Mo., was apprehended when the pawnshop owner recognized the jewelry. It was his wife's. In Chicago a bank robber presented a note to a customer service representative that said a bomb would go off unless he received $45,000. The representative took him to see the bank's vice president, who told the suspect that it would take a long time to process such a large request and that he should have a seat in the meantime. Police were called, and they arrived to find the robber still waiting in the vice president's office. He was arrested at once. A young man went to a Homosassa, Fla., hardware store looking for work but allegedly ended up stealing two handguns and a watch. Police say he wasn't hard to find: he left his job application on the gun case. In Charleston, W.Va., an accused knife-wielding mugger accepted a $300 check when his alleged victim could produce only $12.50 in cash. The suspect was arrested the next day trying to cash the check. The guy shot his neighbor, then hopped on his riding mower and puttered away. They caught him pretty quickly, of course. Recently, burglars who raided an impotence clinic in Melbourne, Australia, stole drugs that can cause five-day erections. A police official said: "We are looking for someone who is very embarrassed or very tired." ============================================================================ 5. The Farsian Chronicles Respect to thy neighbour's rights is peace Benito Jurez Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. P.J. O'Rourke Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them. Paul Valery "A Democracy that cannot accomdate Meritocracy is doomed to Anarchy." from a letter to the press by Prof Chris Barnard (1st heart transplant) THE NORTHERN IRELAND QUESTION Two wee girls were playing tag near a car . . . How many counties would you say are worth their scattered fingers? There were 2 million serious crimes reported in South Africa last year. Statistics indicate that only 45% of all such crimes are reported, implying that there were over 4 million serious crimes here last year. 8 out of 10 households were influenced by serious crime in the last two years. The ex-leader of the Transkei, Bantu Holimisa, threw the cat amongst the pigeons when he accused a cabinet colleague of receiving part of the 2MR that hotelier Sol Kerzner paid as a bribe for gambling rights in the Transkei. Holimisa then made further allegations about largess from Kerzner towards members of the ANC, and the ANC itself. The ANC denied this, called Holimisa a liar, and sent him lawyer's letters. Holimisa stuck to his guns and refused to back down. A few days later, Mandela announces sheepishly that Yes, the ANC DID receive lots of lolly from Sol, but as he, Mandela, was the only one who knew about it, the ANC was correct to call Holimisa a liar. Mandela refused to apologise. He also dodged the million dollar question: If Mandela was the only one who knew about it, how did Holimisa know? The plot thickens... Holimisa has since been kicked out of the ANC for amongst other 'crimes', "bringing the party into disrepute." In other words, if an ANC member breaks the law, don't DARE report it.... Classic case of shooting the messenger. The SA public now wants to know exactly how much dirty laundry the ANC has to conceal... The Dali Lama arrived in SA to attend a world conference on "Religion and Peace." An oxymoron if ever there was one... The history of Cape Town in August 1996 can be summarised in 5 letters: PAGAD. I know my SA readers are sick to death of that acronym already, but please bear with me while I bring the rest of the world up to speed: PAGAD stands for People Against Gangsterism and Drugs. It began about 2 years ago as a loose confederation of mostly Moslem people unhappy with the state of affairs in their community. Their residential areas, known as The Cape Flats (because it is, well, Flat... - as opposed to the areas around Table Mountain) contains many Coloureds resettled as a result of the previous apartheid policies. One of the side effects of the distruption of previously stable communities was the rise of many gangs. They control the trade in dagga (marijuana), and Mandrax. Mandrax is a barbiturate - usually a white pill - which is crushed and mixed with dagga to produce a so-called 'white pipe'. PAGAD members had grown despondant with this state of affairs, and with the gangsters targeting their kids as customers. The police seem unable to do anything about the situation, and there are persistent rumours of police collusion in the drug trade. Things came to a head when PAGAD marched to the house of a known gang leader, and demanded that he come out. Instead, they were met with gunfire. PAGAD members retaliated, while police watched. Then the gang leader's twin brother arrived, and demanded to be let through the police cordon. He went through. Shortly thereafter he was shot, but not killed. A medic and policeman tried to revive him, when a petrol bomb (molotov cocktail) was thrown at him. He got up, and walked a few steps, his whole body on fire, before he was shot several more times. The whole affair was captured by the press and TV. And thus PAGAD went from unknown to Number 1 on the acronym list, overnight. Sister movements sprang up in other centers, sporting similar names. The situation turned comical when the police AND the army ended up guarding known gang leaders to protect them from visits by PAGAD. The gangsters swore revenge, and demanded to be left in peace to sell their drugs. The police wanted to prosecute the PAGAD leaders for sedition. Gang leaders appeared frequently on TV, and demanded to see government ministers and police chiefs to discuss the situation. The PAGAD leaders almost messed things up by introducing Islamic rhetoric, and threatening to bring in Hisbolla guerrillas from Palestine. They have since toned down these calls a bit. They have also attracted support from many non-Moslems. The views of the average Capetonian are best summed up by this letter to a local newspaper. The 'advertising on TV' bit refers to the twin brothers bragging on a BBC documentary about how they sell their drugs. "Welcome to the New South Africa. We have unique values that cannot be found in any other civilised society. "We allow gangsters to roam the streets, parade with guns and boast that they are selling drugs. "The police will persecute the people who fight against these gangsters. What a great country. Surely we have an excellent chance of winning the Olympic Bid. [$ Cape Town is bidding for the 2004 olympics] "We can offer our tourists one of the highest crime-infected areas as a tourist attraction. "Come to South Africa and get mugged. Buy drugs from our merchants as advertised on national TV. Crime and corruption is tolerated. What a country. "Those who talk against gangsters get prosecuted for sedition. What a wonderful system. "If you are a criminal this is heaven. Here we do not have a death penalty. We will give you a fine if you exceed the speed limit and the only evidence is a photograph, but if you confess in public that you are a drug pedlar, you become a national hero." Now I suppose I must say something about all of this :-) Society will never deal with the problem of illegal drugs until it deals with the issue of legal drugs, like alcohol and nicotine. It is hypocritical to allow free trade in alcohol and not in other drugs like dagga. It is not the function of government to tell adults what they can or cannot eat, drink, smoke, etc. By the same token, people can not expect government to look after them once they have messed up their bodies and/or lives with silly chemicals. Individual responsibility is the name of the game. PAGAD made a mistake in confusing two seperate issues - gangsterism and drugs. I am totally opposed to gangsterism, just as I am opposed to all initiators of violence. However it is not correct to blame the gangsters for selling drugs to kids - the correct people to blame are the kid's parents, who should have brought the kids up properly and taught them right from wrong. A father who smokes cigarettes has no moral ground to stand on when he tells his son not to smoke dagga. Many people have trouble understanding this concept, because it often means that THEY have to change their own viewpoints and lifestyles, so they take the convenient exit and blame 'someone else'. Which brings us back to individual reponsibility :-) [$ for the record, I don't use any recreational drugs] In a stroke of inspirational brilliance, the South African Communist Party announced that equal distribution of wealth was the solution for crime and violence. Perhaps they mean to make it a yearly, nay monthly, nay daily, event... How long do they expect people to remain so equal? They have no understanding of human nature - or human talent - or human laziness. =========================================================================== 6. Motivational / Inspirational There are no demons in Vulcan literature. - Tuvok, Star Trek: Voyager The difference between perseverace and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. - Henry Ward Beecher Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out. - Michael Burke I learned this, at least, by my experiment, that if one advances confidently in the direction of your dreams, and endeavors to live the life you have imagined, you will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. - Henry David Thoreau To be a champ, you have to believe in yourself when nobody else will. - Sugar Ray Robinson It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. Seneca Shed, as you do your garments, your daily sins, whether of omission or commission, and you will wake a free man, with a new life. - Sir William Osler You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try. - Beverly Sills There is a time to take council of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear. - Gen. George S. Patton Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly. - Plutarch "The innovator is not an opponent of the old, but a proponent of the new." - Lyle E. Schaller "Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." - Scott Adams "Storytelling reveals meaning without comitting the error of defining it." - Hannah Arendt Once you have flown, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward; for there you have been, there you long to return. - Da Vinci Devils can be driven out of the heart by the touch of hand on hand, or mouth on mouth. - Tennessee Williams "You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." - Woodrow Wilson Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. - Hymann G. Rickover [$ Phew! At least Ian is safe :-) ] =========================================================================== 7. Science / Technology The scientific (and religious) world was in uproar with the announcement that scientists think that primitive life forms may have existed on Mars. Just what Independence Day needed... :-) Early Wednesday morning (28th) a strange object was spotted in the sky over Pretoria. A police helicopter gave chase, and was unable to keep up with it. It was recorded on video by a policeman on the ground - basically just a bright round globe. No explanations yet. However, Independence Day opened here on the 30th, some people think it was a publicity stunt for the movie. ASDL modems are starting to catch on in the USA. In contrast to cable modems, which require special cables, ASDL modems give high speeds over normal copper wire. Two of the companies involved are Microsoft and Pacific Bell. In England, an ear print is to be used as evidence for the first time. The shape of people's ears are as individual as their fingerprints, and police are to build a library of lug-shots for use in future cases. Police hope to convict a burglar with the ear print. IBM is banking on Java to create a body of software of OS/2, and will do whatever it takes to make sure that all Java software will run on OS/2. They also want Netscape to build an OS/2 version of Navigator (as do I..). Beatles songs for the computer age -------------------------------------------------- "Let It Be" When I find my code in tons of trouble, Friends and colleagues come to me, Speaking words of wisdom: "Write in C." As the deadline fast approaches, And bugs are all that I can see, Somewhere, someone whispers: "Write in C." Write in C, Write in C, Write in C, oh, Write in C. COBOL's dead and buried, Write in C. I used to write a lot of FORTRAN, For science it worked flawlessly. Try using it for graphics! Write in C. If you've just spent nearly 30 hours Debugging some assembly, Soon you will be glad to Write in C. Write in C, Write in C, Write in C, yeah, Write in C. Only wimps use BASIC. Write in C. Write in C, Write in C Write in C, oh, Write in C. Pascal won't quite cut it. Write in C. Write in C, Write in C, Write in C, yeah, Write in C. Don't even mention PROLOG. Write in C. ------------------------------------------------------------- "Eleanor Rigby" Eleanor Rigby Sits at the keyboard And waits for a line on the screen Lives in a dream Waits for a signal Finding some code That will make the machine do some more. What is it for? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? Guru MacKenzie Typing the lines of a program that no one will run; Isn't it fun? Look at him working, Munching some chips as he waits for the code to compile; Where is the style? All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? Eleanor Rigby Crashes the system and loses 6 hours of her work; What is it worth? Guru MacKenzie Wiping the blood off his hands as he walks from the grave; Nothing was saved. All the lonely users, where do they all come from? All the lonely users, why does it take so long? HOW DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? NT Chicken: Will cross the road in June. No, August. September for sure. OS/2 Chicken: It crossed the road in style years ago, but it was so quiet that nobody noticed. Win 95 Chicken: You see different colored feathers while it crosses, but cook it and it still tastes like ... chicken. Microsoft Chicken (TM): It's already on both sides of the road. And it just bought the road. OOP Chicken: It doesn't need to cross the road, it just sends a message. Assembler Chicken: First it builds the road ... C++ Chicken: The chicken wouldn't have to cross the road, you'd simply refer to him on the other side. VB Chicken: USHighways!TheRoad.cross (aChicken) Java Chicken: If your road needs to be crossed by a chicken, the server will download one to the other side. (Of course, those are chicklets) Gopher Chicken: Tried to run, but got flattened by the Web chicken. Cray Chicken: Crosses faster than any other chicken, but if you don't dip it in liquid nitrogen first, it arrives on the other side fully cooked. Quantum Logic Chicken: The chicken is distributed probabalistically on all sides of the road until you observe it on the side of your course. Lotus Chicken: Don't you *dare* try to cross the road the same way we do ! Mac Chicken: No reasonable chicken owner would want a chicken to cross the road, so there's no way to tell it to. COBOL Chicken: 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING. IF NO-MORE-VEHICLES THEN PERFORM 0010-CROSS-THE-ROAD VARYING STEPS FROM 1 BY 1 UNTIL ON-THE-OTHER-SIDE ELSE GO TO 0001-CHICKEN-CROSSING =========================================================================== $ 8. Advertising / The Media South Africa has introduced new laxer censorship laws. That did not stop the Publications Control board banning 18 publications (the first in many months) under the old laws... Sanlam has a new slogan - "Your future in good hands." Old Mutual promptly produced a TV ad (which has several flaws) based on "hands" .... The world's most successful musical, Les Miserables, arrived in Cape Town, to rave reviews (and overpriced tickets). Not many people know that the lyricist for the show -Herbert Kretzmer- was born and bred in South Africa.. British pop group Oasis have sold more albums in 24 months than the Beatles did. Their album "What's The Story, Morning Glory" is expected to be the best selling album ever by the end of the year. Continental's new ad - a sports car getting stuck across the railway line, and smashed by a train - is pretty silly. The car travels for miles without petrol, and then suddenly, at precisely the wrong moment, the tyres decide to stick like glue to the tarmac. Logical? No. Couple that with very negative emotion experienced watching a train explode a sports car (ever see THAT happen?) just before the brand name, and you have a loser of an ad. Not a patch on their previous brilliant ad about zooming around on a skyscraper roof. New words used by journalists and newsreaders on SABC radio and TV: Word Probable meaning ==== ================ con sequence consequence chuttered chartered leeter litter plumminting plummeting leed lid come calm madder murder ibrose eyebrows mess age message peerid periods In similar vein, some requests received at a music library: I'll Bite my Tie I'll Bide my Time Only Polony Only the Lonely Mama King Tyre Mull of Kintyre The Yellow Rows of Taxis The Yellow Rose of Texas 'n Muis in Gruis (Afrikaans) Amazing Grace Wals in 'n Woonstel (ditto) Waltz in A Flat This month's prize for the best movie poster is awarded to Unforgiven. This month's prize for "most irritating" ad is again swooped by the SABC, who took my advice and removed the silly "Robot" ad on TV, but foolishly continued with their "if you own an aerial, you must buy a TV licence" radio ads. Only 18% of all viewers pay their TV licences. The SABC obviously does not have a clue what to do about the situation, and instead of doing the sensible thing, it punishes us with silly ads begging us to pay. So here is a solution for them, free of my usual R10 000 a day consultants fee: Dump the concept of TV licences. USA stations survive without it, so can you. You can get most of your revenue from advertising, if you take the right approach. Aim to sell 12 minutes of ads per hour, regardless of how low you have to go to get those ads. Auction off ad time if necessary, but make sure that all possible ad time is bought. It is cheaper than paying to show music videos. Now, to get advertisers to advertise, you have to attract the audiences back. Ignore the guidelines set by the IBA, they cannot act against you because the government NEEDS a reliable propaganda machine. Ask your advertisers who THEY want to reach, and tailor your programming AND language choices to cater for the advertisers. Get people who can speak English properly to speak in English, and similarly for any other languages you choose to offer. By following these simple and obvious ideas, you will stay afloat and cease to irritate viewers and listeners with inane ads. You lost the 'hearts and minds' war long ago with those campaigns, now you need to win them back. Abolishing TV licences is the first, vital step. Computers in Movies: The Standard Cliche List 1. Word processors never display a cursor. 2. You never have to use the space-bar when typing long sentences. 3. All monitors display inch-high letters. 4. High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, will have easy-to-understand graphical interfaces. 5. Those that don't will have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English. 6. Corollary: You can gain access to any information you want by simply typing "ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard. 7. Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS." (See "Fortress") 8. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off. 9. Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn't go faster than you can read. The *really* advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer. 10. All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backward. 11. People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data. 12. A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries. 13. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function. (See "Demolition Man" and countless others) 14. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems transmit data at a speed of two gigabytes per second. 15. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building. 16. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen. (e.g., "Clear and Present Danger") 17. If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it. 18. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms. 19. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has ("Aliens"). However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren't labeled. 20. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional, real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability. 21. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY Y-MP. 22. Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face. (See "Alien," "2001") =========================================================================== 9. Health Nearly 11 percent of USA teenagers claim to use drugs at least once a month. That numbers around 2,4 million. The most popular drug is marijuana. Two years ago, only 1,1 million admitted to the same use. Crack cocaine has started flooding into the SA drug market. Police are worried. Meanwhile, at least 60 people died in Europe after taking Ecstasy last year. In the USA, president Clinton has signed a law which will mean that cigarettes are to be regulated as addictive drugs. Tobacco company stocks took a dive. They are increasingly focusing their marketing campaigns at unsophisticated developing countries, where consumers are less informed of the health risks of smoking. A locally produced AIDS awareness campaign has a rather silly newspaper ad. Picture a drawing of a white guy caressing a black woman. Both fully clothed. Him: I love you, but I am afraid of AIDS. Her: I love you too, but I am also afraid of AIDS. We could use a condom, or we could just touch each other. [$ Is this MEANT to be realistic??] The copy then goes on: To have safe sex means: to use a condom [$ ok, so far so good] to have sex without penetration [$ um, we were talking about SEX, were we not? What was the condom for then?] And they expect people to take this advice seriously? The following is a reprint from The Madison Institute Newsletter, Fall Issue, 1894: [$ long but good...] INSTRUCTION AND ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG BRIDE On the Conduct and Procedure of the Intimate and Personal Relationships of the Marriage State for the Greater Spiritual Sanctity of this Blessed Sacrament and the Glory of God by Ruth Smythers beloved wife of The Reverend L.D. Smythers Pastor of the Arcadian Methodist Church of the Eastern Regional Conference Published in the year of our Lord 1894 Spiritual Guidance Press New York City To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex. At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth. Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust. On the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex it at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it. It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected from the average man. Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency. Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction. Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage. By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home. Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include among others performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn. Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted. A wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed during the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed. Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access. When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband. If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in the forbidden territory. If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time. Eventually, the husband will learn that if he insists on having sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment. The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus make connection. She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while he is huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress. As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged to soon try for more. One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband's desire for sexual expression. =========================================================================== 10. Humour A little boy is standing at the side of a river, weeping. His tears are streaming down his cheeks. An elderly lady passes by and feels pity for him. 'What is the matter, young boy ? Why are you crying ?' 'It's mean !', the boy sniffed, 'My daddy drowned all four little kittens we had yesterday..' 'That's awful indeed !' the lady replied angrily,' Your father is a real monster !' 'Yes', said the little boy, 'He had promised to me that I could do it. ' Some humour about men, women, and things between them.... The anxious mother telephoned her daughter from the farm to make sure she was not getting into trouble in the naughty city. "I hope you're not having men to stay in your flat," she said. "You know how much I worry about things like that." "Oh, don't worry, Mom," said the lass. "Last night Charles wanted to stay here, but I remembered what you said, and refused to let him come here." "That's good, my dear." "Yes, I decided to go to his flat instead. Let HIS mother do the worrying." Van der Merwe and this blonde were in a lift, 50 storeys up when suddenly the cable snapped. "Van," she cried,"make me feel like a women for the last time" So, excitedly, Van ripped off his shirt, unbuckled his belt, pulled down his fly and hastily removed his pants. "Here," he said "Iron these." Why do men like love at first sight? It saves them a lot of time. A woman of 35 thinks of having children. What does a man of 35 think of? Dating children. How can you tell soap operas are fictional? In real life, men aren't affectionate out of bed. What should you give a man who has everything? A woman to show him how to work it. Why do black widow spiders kill their males after mating? To stop the snoring before it starts. Why don't men have mid-life crises? They stay stuck in adolescence. How does a man show he's planning for the future? He buys two cases of beer instead of one. How was Colonel Sanders a typical male? All he cared about were legs, breasts, and thighs. How is being at a singles bar different from going to the circus? At the circus the clowns don't talk. What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying? The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving. Why do bachelors like smart women? Opposites attract. Why are husbands like lawn mowers? They're hard to get started, emit foul odors, and don't work half the time. What's the difference between a new husband and a new dog? After a year, the dog is still excited to see you. Why is sleeping with a man like a soap opera? Just when it's getting interesting, they're finished until next time. Why do men find it difficult to make eye contact? Breasts don't have eyes. What is the thinnest book in the world? What Men Know About Women What's the difference between men and government bonds? Bonds mature. How does a male commit suicide? He jumps from his ego to his IQ Top ten rejection lines given by females REJECTION LINE: MEANING: -------------- ------- 10. I think of you as a brother. (You remind me of that inbred banjo-playing geek in "Deliverance.") 9. There's a slight difference (I don't want to do my dad.) in our ages. 8. I'm not attracted to you in 'that' (You are the ugliest dork way. I've ever laid eyes upon.) 7. My life is too complicated right (I don't want you spending the now. whole night, or else you may hear phone calls from all the other guys I'm seeing.) 6. I've got a boyfriend (I prefer my male cat and a half gallon of Old Brown). 5. I don't date men where I work. (I wouldn't date you if you were in the same 'solar system', much less the same building.) 4. It's not you, it's me. (It's you.) 3. I'm concentrating on my career. (Even something as boring and unfulfilling as my job is better than dating you.) 2. I'm celibate. (I've sworn off only the men like you.) 1. Let's be friends. (I want you to stay around, so that I can tell you in excruciating detail about all the other men I meet and have sex with. It's that male perspective thing) In response... Top 10 Rejection Lines Given By Men (and what they actually mean...) _____________________________________________________________________ REJECTION LINE: MEANING: -------------- ------- 10. I think of you as a sister. (You're ugly.) 9. There's a slight difference (You're ugly.) in our ages. 8. I'm not attracted to you (You're ugly.) in 'that' way. 7. My life is too complicated right (You're ugly.) now. 6. I've got a girlfriend. (You're ugly.) 5. I don't date women where I work. (You're ugly.) 4. It's not you, it's me. (You're ugly.) 3. I'm concentrating on my career. (You're ugly.) 2. I'm celibate. (You're ugly.) 1. Let's be friends. (You're sinfully ugly.) Dating Dictionary ================= ATTRACTION The act of associating horniness with a particular person. LOVE AT 1st SIGHT What occurs when two extremely horny, but not entirely choosy people meet. DATING The process of spending enormous amounts of money, time, and energy to get better acquainted with a person whom you don't especially like in the present and will learn to like a lot less in the future. BIRTH CONTROL Avoiding pregnancy through such tactics as swallowing special pills, inserting a diaphragm, using a condom, and dating repulsive men. EASY A term used to describe a woman who has the sexual morals of a man. EYE CONTACT A method utilised by a single woman to communicate to a man that she is interested in him. Despite being advised to do so, many woman have difficulty looking a man directly in the eyes, not necessarily due to the shyness, but usually due to the fact that a woman's eyes are not located in her chest. FRIEND A member of the opposite sex in your acquaintance who has some flaw which makes sleeping with him/her totally unappealing. INDIFFERENCE A woman's feeling towards a man, which is interpreted by the man as "playing hard to get." INTERESTING A word a man uses to describe a woman who lets him do all the talking. IRRITATING HABIT What the endearing little qualities that initially attract two people to each other turn into after a few months together. LAW OF RELATIVITY How attractive a given person appears to be is directly proportionate to how unattractive your date is. NYMPHOMANIAC A man's term for a woman who wants to have sex more often than he does. SOBER Condition in which it is almost impossible to fall in love =========================================================================== 11. NetNews Netscape finally released version 3 of their Netscape Navigator, probably the most popular piece of software on Earth. Some nice new improvements. Those documented include the new tag, which allows designers like myself to precisely control page layout. Also NN3 now supports background colours in table, like IE3. Still does not support coloured borders on tables, but Ian found a way around that... NN3 also supports coloured borders on frames. There were a few improvements to the navigation controls on pages with frames. Other additions include multicolumn text, Font Face, and Javascript evaluation into HTML variables. Some of the undocumented improvements are that if you save a page on your local drive, and later load that page, NN3 will go and find the graphics in your cache, even though the directory references in the HTML are totally inappropriate. Forms now print beautifully, right down to the scroll bars on text input areas. Also, when filling in forms, you can tab to the next field, even if it is off the bottom of the screen. Netscape will scroll the field to the top of the screen. Stupid Netscape trick I stumbled upon: type ?: in the location bar, and press enter. That pops up a listing of your local drives, and you can navigate around them and launch applications.... IE3 has a built in browser-level search function. Type in a ? followed by what you want to know, and hit enter. Your browser will go and search for answers on the net. NN3 beta 5 had this capability too, but Netscape pulled it out from beta 6 onwards, after complaints from the companies which provide search engine forms on the Netscape site. It will probably be back in NN4, once they sort the politics out... A local mail-order computer house is generously offering a free copy of IE2 if you order something from them. Guess they don't know that IE3 is available free on the net. Meanwhile, Netscape plans to release their webserver program to run on Win95. Microsoft is not impressed, they prefer you to buy expensive software like WinNT to run websites. There are also web servers which run very happily on OS/2... In England, the government is using money from the national lottery to bring all the museums online. Surfers from around the world will soon be able to 'visit' famous British museums. The winners of the first-ever annual NetBest Awards for creativity and excellence in Web sites are: - NetEntertainment Category: CyberMad - (http://www.cybermad.com) - Created by Christopher Parr, CyberMad is designed to take surfers on a slick and sometimes irreverent tour of online pop in America. "CyberMad does a great job at generating an experience that takes you totally inside other people's heads," said Douglas Coupland. The hip and eclectic cyberzine includes comics, movies, art, and even America's number one online soap opera. "CyberMad is delightfully rich and original," said Roger Black. - NetLiving Category: TerraQuest - (http://www.terraquest.com) - An elegant adventure travel site featuring high quality photography and original travel essays. "TerraQuest actually gave the feeling of adventure and of having been to a strange new place," said Coupland. A joint venture between Mountain Travel-Sobek and WorldTravel Partners. TerraQuest offers surfers a window to the world through its original content written by correspondents from the far reaches of the globe. - NetNews and Money Category: Crayon - (http://www.crayon.net) - The day of free, online, customized news and information is here. "A staggering amount of resources with a gratifying result," said Roger Black. Created by Dave Maher and Jeff Boulter, recent Bucknell graduates, Crayon, short for CReAteYourOwnNewspaper, allows users to build a customized "newspaper" consisting of links to dozens of news and information sources on the Web, such as local newspapers and broadcast networks. "The site offers a good opportunity to organize the mass of information available on the Net," added Michael Wolff. Singapore is to introduce net censorship. All ISPs will be forced to connect via three government-run proxy servers, which will filter 'undesirable' material. So far at least 100 web sites have been blacklisted. Methinks it will be a full-time job for them to keep the list up to date. The internet treats censorship as damage, and routes around it... Besides, the SIngapore government operates some interesting sites themselves, like the one on sexually transmitted diseases - complete with close-up photos. http://biomed.nus.sg/dsc/ You may have heard that hackers invaded the Web site of the Department of Justice a week ago and made "interesting" alterations. For at least several hours the site displayed anti-government propaganda, a swastika, and other content that rendered it illegal under the Communications Decency Act. DoJ technicians turned off the server on Saturday morning and restored its proper content, but not before enterprising Netizens captured the doctored site in all its glory and reposted it elsewhere. There has been a new development in the spam wars. A company called CyberPromo, well known to spamfighters, has come up with a new twist to avoid ISPs' prohibitions on unsolicited commercial messages. > A friend of mine got an innocuous e-mail with a reply-to address of > zol@answerme.com, saying that she was the recipient of an "electronic > postcard"... [she was instructed] to reply with the word "POSTCARD" in > the mail header. So she responded (thinking that this was a new twist > to the recent Web greeting card fad): It was a marketing spam! However, > because the original was not commercial and the actual content had to > be "requested," it was not unsolicted... In my book, this is worse than > being direct about it! So if spam offends you, don't reply "POSTCARD" to an unknown address. The next time Cyber-Promo runs this spam the return address will almost cer- tainly be different. Anatoly Karpov took on the world when he played a chess match via the internet. The world was given seven minutes to vote on each next move, with the most popular move being used. Karpov played black, and won in 32 moves. Around 250 players from all over the world took part, and the majority eventually resigned. Why you should never ask Australians for advice on Usenet, or, Ask a stupid question... >From Grube (grube@aol.com): [$ where else? :-) ] I am coming to Australia for a 3 year stay. Should I bring my CD's to play on Aussie equipment? >From: adrose@news.gate.net (Adrian Rose) You will need an American to Australian converter device. This is usually hard wired into the CD player by a reputable Australian tech. They are all familiar with the device. Just pop into any CD store and request the phone # of the nearest CD converter tech. Its usually only around $30 and you will not even know it had been done. You will be able to play not only US cds, and Australian, but as a bonus, European ones too! Caution: do not try to play bootleg CDs after the conversion, you will ruin the cd player. >From: adrose@news.gate.net (Adrian Rose) Sorry about that last post - to play your US cds in Australia, they merely need to be passed thru a strong magnetic or x-ray field, such as you get at Customs. Be sure to pass each one thru separately,as bulk passage may leave the ones in the middle unplayable in Oz. >From: "Mark A. Gray" Well...this may gave worked for you, but I found that the only way the get 'em playing was to smear the shiny side with a very thin layer of Vegemite (Marmite). 'Course this makes the inside of your CD player rather sticky, so make sure you have lots of tissues. >From: andersen@s4.elec.uq.edu.au (Hans Andersen) Don't listen to them. To play American CDs in Australian CD players, you will need to regroove them. This is because Australian CDs have a different track-width (i.e. 10 ums instead of 5 ums). To do this you will need to buy some fine-grade sandpaper. Try to find some with a grain size of between 8 and 12 ums (micrometers for non-technical people). Put a piece of the sandpaper on a table with the rough side up. Now put your CD on the sandpaper and turn it slowly in a clockwise direction, pushing down hard. Oiua la (spit) - now you have Australian standard CDs. >From: M.J.Jennings@amtp.cam.ac.uk (Michael Jennings) No. That is completely wrong. Australian CDs are exactly the same as American ones except for the fact that the 'groove' goes in the opposite direction. That is whereas an American groove goes inwards as you go clockwise an Australian groove goes inwards as you go anti-clockwise. This is because Australian cars drive on the left and American cars drive on the right. If the groove direction was not reversed there would be parity problems with car CD players. Unfortunately, this means that you cannot play an American CD on Australian equipment. >From: spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Stephen P. Guthrie) You smarta**e. Obviously this is nothing to do with the side of the road cars drive on. Do you seriously expect anyone to swallow that? Anyone with a brain knows that it's related to which direction water goes down the plughole in the Southern hemisphere. In other words in the US the cd rotates in a clockwise direction. In Australia it rotates anticlockwise. Of course this is also true if you play your cds in South America for example. This is actually quite neat because if you play your Beatles cds in the Southern hemisphere you hear all this neat 'backwards masking' stuff about Paul being dead and taking marijuana. Also I heard that you hear all sorts of satanic stuff in other rock albums, but I'm not a fan myself. >From: jtchew@netcom.com (Joe Chew) Since the Earth rotates in the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere, the AC power there is supplied 180 degrees out of phase with ours. Thus your CD should work just fine, although some audio purists insist on a motor- generator set to supply "American" electricity and then determine the phasing themselves. >From: oauld@ponder.csci.unt.edu (Orion Auld) At the equator, the cd's stop rotating, so the cd players there must rotate the laser about the stationary cd. The units are very expensive. By contrast, at the north pole, cd players are very cheap. This is because neither the laser or the cd require a motor to provide rotational energy; the cd is placed precisely on the north pole, tied to the firmament so that it doesn't spin , while the laser is fixed to the earth, slightly off-center, and the earth provides the rotation. Taglines (.sigs) you prpbably have not seen yet: He has a mind like concrete - permanently set and thoroughly mixed. Diets are for people who are thick and tired of it. I'm not egotistical, I just admire people of great talent. $ Resources: http://www.lia.co.za/users/iandoug/movies/index.htm Movies for Africa http://pathfinder.com/technology/ghostsites/ghost1.html Ghost (dead) sites http://pathfinder.com/technology/latestnews/techdaily.html daily news http://pathfinder.com/technology/gizmo/ gizmos and gadgets http://pathfinder.com/Netly/daily/nnhome.html humourous daily news http://pathfinder.com/technology/latestnews/quains.html people & web events http://pathfinder.com/technology/netdecency/index.html all about the CDA http://web.idirect.com/~canuck/canzine.html Online Literary Magazine http://web.idirect.com/~canuck/training/fall96.html Online Writing Courses http://www.olvit.iasnet.ru/projects/floridaz Russian mail order brides http://www.PythOnlinee.com Monty Python =========================================================================== 12. Recipes Spiced carrot and yoghurt puree serves 6 =============================== 750g carrots, scraped and sliced salt to taste 250ml plain low-fat yoghurt pinch of mace (or nutmeg) freshly ground black pepper Put carrots in boiling salted water and simmer for about 15 minutes, until tender. Drain, keeping the cooking fluid. Blend carrots and yoghurt to a puree in a blender, adding a little of the cooking fluid if necessary. Return the mixture to the rinsed-out pot and stir in the mace, salt and pepper. Reheat carefully and serve. =========================================================================== 13. Things to Think About For the Empress: Things you didn't do ==================== Remember the day I borrowed your brand new car and I dented it? I thought you would kill me, but you didn't. And the time I dragged you to the beach and you said it would rain and it did, I thought you would say "I told you so," but you didn't. And the time I flirted with all the guys to make you jealous and you were, I thought you would leave me, but you didn't. Remember the time I spilled blueberry pie all over your brand new car rug, I thought you would smack me, but you didn't. And the time I forgot to tell you that the dance was formal and you showed up in jeans, I thought you would leave me forever, but you didn't. Yes there were a lot of things you didn't do, but you put up with me, and you loved me and protected me. And there were so many things I wanted to make up to you when you got back from Vietnam, but you didn't. Anon =========================================================================== Sections marked with a '$' are original and CopyLeft 1996 by Ian Douglas. See Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" for explanation of the '$'. The rest is part direct lift from various Net sources, and part paraphrased or directly lifted from various print media. Permission to reproduce is granted as long as source is credited. Back issues available on my web site. To subscribe, send a message to mlist@neptune.infolink.co.za. In the body of the message, put subscribe f13 Distribution: F13 is distributed with Rob Fisher's RobList, the List of all South African BBS's, which can be found on all decent SA BBS's, where it is downloaded by hundreds (thousands?) of surfers. RobList can also be found on http://www.lia.co.za F13 is also available as a read-only mailing list on the Internet, with over 260 subscribers in 29 countries at the moment. Current countries represented are: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Namibia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, Trinidad & Tobago, UK, USA. If your country is not listed, please advise me... -------------------------------------------------------------------- iandoug@lia.co.za P.O. Box 484, Sanlamhof 7532, South Africa 36 : 1,73 : 58 : blue : dark brown PGP key available http://www.lia.co.za/users/iandoug Proudly iN*T*j.