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
