Copyright 1990, Fido Software. All rights reserved. Duplication
and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only.
For use in other circumstances, please contact Fido Software.
FidoNews is published weekly by the System Operators of the
FidoNet (r) International BBS Network. It is a compilation of
individual articles contributed by their authors or authorized
agents of the authors. The contribution of articles to this
compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors.
You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in
FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file
ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. 1:1/1 is a Continuous
Mail system, available for network mail 24 hours a day.
Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of
Fido Software, Box 77731, San Francisco CA 94107, USA and are
used with permission.
Opinions expressed in FidoNews articles are those of the authors
and are not necessarily those of the Editor or of Fido Software.
Most articles are unsolicited. Our policy is to publish every
responsible submission received.
Table of Contents
1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1
I hate it when that happens! ............................. 1
2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2
The BBS Humor Digest ..................................... 2
Too Much Garbage ......................................... 3
An Open Letter to Kwityer Bitchin ........................ 5
Precycle - What is it & How to do it ..................... 8
3. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR .................................... 9
Heidi Seeman update ...................................... 9
4. LATEST VERSIONS .......................................... 10
Latest Software Versions ................................. 10
And more!
FidoNews 7-36 Page 1 3 Sep 1990
Hope everyone has been enjoying themselves in the past week or
two. And that nobody out there is overly impacted by the events
in the Tigris-Euphrates region. At least not beyond the cost of a
"Peace through Superior Firepower" T-Shirt, anyway...
But to the point of this brief "editorial": Could you folk who
sent me update information on your software please do so again?
I'm using a new version of my old favorite message editor and
the most recent surprise it handed me caused me to lose your
update messages.
I can hear my friends chuckling already. So who said I was
immune to such foolishness anyway? I feel so stupid.
Sorry about that. I'll be more careful next time. Promise!
The NEWEST ISSUE of "The BBS Humor Digest" is READY!
That's right, the AUGUST issue is now on the stands! To finish
off SUMMER we've made it 64 printed pages BIG!
What is the BBS Humor Digest? Glad you asked! The Digest is
amonthly magazine that is dedicated to all joke enthusiasts
aroundthe world. The Digest contains many kinds of humorous
materialvarying from jokes to one-liners, limericks to poems, and
otheritems. All material is categorized into sections (sexual,
clean,gross, ethnic, & uncategorized) to make it easier for the
readerto find their area's of interest quickly and to help them
stayaway from stuff they would rather not read.
Where do you Get Your Next Issue of "The BBS Humor Digest"?
Calling on your own:
Pandora's Box BBS You can Download right
(503) 343-4520 from the MAIN MENU!
Eugene, Oregon. Just press 'D' and
enter the file name(s)
File Request (FREQ) by Sysops and Points:
Digest is available on the first call!
14.4k HST Transfer Speeds
Address: 1:152/6 and 8:7702/8
To receive all Digests to date Request or Download: JOKE?-90.ARC
We are on our 4th issue, so if you are behind here's the info you
need to know:
April [28 printed pages]: Joke4-90.ARC (available NOW!)
May [30 printed pages]: Joke5-90.ARC (available NOW!)
June [49 printed pages]: Joke6-90.ARC (available NOW!)
July [61 printed pages]: Joke7-90.ARC (available NOW!)
August [64 printed pages]: Joke8-90.ARC (available NOW!)
Sept. [75 printed pages]: Joke9-90.ARC (available NOW!)
The Digest is pure ASCII, and is pre-formatted so all you have to
do is print it out and enjoy! If you haven't checked us out,
you're missing out!
Thank you: Richard Whitten & Owen Morgan
* REMEMBER: Don't Screw up the Punch Line! *
Each week, you probably throw away two to three cans of garbage.
If you had to keep all this trash in your own yard, it wouldn't
take long before even the mailman might have trouble finding
your address ("Neither snow, nor sleet, nor rain, nor
garbage....!").
But you don't need to trash so much trash. You can easily cut
the amount of garbage you generate in half or even by two-thirds
by making a few wise shopping decisions, reusing as much as you
can, and recycling the rest. Of all the environmental problems
you have to contend with, you can probably have the most
immediate impact on garbage overload just by creating less waste
in your own home.
Every day, Americans jettison food, from potato peelings and
apple skins to the leftovers after supper or the last piece of
crust in a loaf of bread. For every ten pounds of garbage the
average household throws out each week, from one to three pounds
are food that could be fully recycled. Here are a few
suggestions for keeping the treasure out of the trash:
* Separate your food waste and other organic material from the
rest of your garbage. Even if you live in a high-rise apartment
building, you can keep your food scraps separate from the trash;
and if you dispose of them in a paper bag, rather than plastic,
they'll compact more densely in the landfill and make room for
more garbage (if the landfill is designed correctly organics
will not decompose, as the landfill should be virtually air
tight). To prevent the bag from leaking, put some newspaper in
the bottom of the bag, or wrap juicy waste in newspaper before
you toss it out.
* Compost it. If you live in a house, townhouse, or apartment
that is on or adjacent to some parcel of land, you should not
only separate your organic waste from the rest of your garbage
but compost it as well.
Compost is nothing more than decayed organic matter. In many
ways, it is the perfect form of recycling, not only because it
converts organic wastes into rich fertilizer and thereby helps
restore the soil, but because it's easy. Once the compost bin
itself is built, it is just as quick to take your food scraps
out to the compost pile as to your garbage can.
* Reduce the amount of organic garbage you produce. Instead of
tossing leftovers out, freeze them for later use in soups and
stews. Or, if that doesn't suit your cooking style, try to cook
more accurate portions so that you only prepare as much food as
you're going to eat at one sitting. And don't go out to a
restaurant when you have a refrigerator full of food at home;
eat what's in the fridge first, and save dining out for an
FidoNews 7-36 Page 4 3 Sep 1990
occasion.
In addition to food waste, packaging creates an unholy amount of
trash. Fully one tenth of the average weekly shopping bill is
spent on the packaging alone. To minimize your rubbish:
* Use cloth napkins and dish towels instead of paper. Keep old
towels, stained napkins and cloth diapers around to use as rags
for mopping up spills.
* Bring home groceries in the fewest number of bags possible.
Ask for paper bags and remember, the fewer bags you bring home,
the fewer you'll have to throw away. Try to reuse the bags you
do bring home by taking them back to the store the next time you
shop, using them as garbage bags, or storing your newspapers in
them for recycling.
* Buy food and other products wrapped in the least amount of
packaging possible. Skip prepackaged produce in favor of bulk
fruits and vegetables you can bag yourself, and ask your grocery
store to stock paper, not plastic, produce bags. If paper isn't
available, plastic produce bags can be washed out, dried and
reused time after time.
* Use glass dishes and cups and metal silverware instead of
plastic. In fact, avoid buying anything that's plastic unless
it's extremely durable, you can use many times over, and you
have no other option.
* Recycle glass and aluminum. If you can, buy the largest size
glass container of the product you want, and reuse the container
at home for iced tea, juice, or other food storage. No matter
how many containers you reuse, though, you'll reach a point
where you'll either have to start throwing them out or recycling
them, along with your aluminum cans. Ask your local recycling
center if it will accept aluminum, glass and newspapers. If
not, find one that does.
Remember, if you're not recycling you're throwing it away.
While the minor brouhaha over the switch from FNEWS*.ARC to
FNEWS*.LZH appears to have died down now, I still must respond to
what I think are some problems with your approach. It seems to me
you are confused over the true nature of both today's network and
its users.
While Fidonet started life as a loose organization of computer
hobbyists, it has grown to be much more than that. While studies
show that entirely too many people today are computer-illiterate,
when Fido got its start the problem was substantially worse.
Computers were rare and expensive, small and underpowered, compared
to today. Initially, much like amateur radio, the content of the
messages was subordinate to the fact that they were sent.
Today that has changed. The typical user of virtually all of the
bulletin boards that I know about is /much/ more interested in the
content of the message than the mechanics of how it is transmitted.
I can think of more than a few sysops who don't know diddly about
programming, and who are able to run their boards quite competently
because of the few well-documented programs that are available and
because of co-operative, friendly net coordinators and fellow
sysops.
In today's world, IMHO, some sysops and most users are here
strictly for the information exchange. "Fixing a batch file" is
quite a task for some of them. This is not intended to be a put-
down. I have done quite a few different things in my life and like
to think of myself as competent and successful. I use the medical
system when I need it and, along with most people, I imagine, view
many operations as "simple." I wouldn't, however, want to remove
someone's appendix. It might be simple to a doctor, but it's not
simple to me.
Because of these changes in the network, and if we assume for this
discussion that the switch to .LZH was a good thing, ranked with
motherhood, apple pie, and the Fourth of July, we have to make some
observations:
1. We needed notice, at least a week, about the change.
A lot of people needed to take action, preferably on a
planned basis.
2. We need to remember the difference between portabili-
ty and interoperability.
FidoNews 7-36 Page 6 3 Sep 1990
Even if the proper executables were available for all machines in
the network, sysops and coordinators deserved the opportunity to
prepare on a reasoned basis for the event. Even a week would
arguably have been enough, but it's not considerate to do it
without any notice at all. In my own mind, it was annoying.
Probably not excessively annoying, since I use an MS-DOS machine
and had all the right files somewhere, but still annoying.
What you appear to overlook is that .LZH utilities were not, and
maybe are still not, available for all machines used by sysops,
not to mention users, in the network. Since the network today
exists much more for the information it transmits than for the joy
of transmitting it, this becomes important.
While the founders of FidoNet were invariably programmers, and
often talented programmers, such as your yourself appear to be,
that is simply not the case of users and sysops today. One simply
cannot assume that the public existence of source code for one
machine equates to a working program on another. /You/ might be
able to port it over in a relatively short time, but not everyone
can and maybe it just can't always be done.
Since LHARC source code is available, we can say that .LZH is
portable (this might not always be true, but let us assume so for
this discussion). It still was not interoperable until someone
wrote or obtained the utility programs. In our network we have
several systems using CP/M. While within a week or so they were
able to obtain workable utilities, many of them did not have it
when the FNEWS*.LZH arrived in the mail. Other letters in previous
issues of FidoNews have pointed out that some other systems (the
CoCO, for example?) still don't have .LZH compatibility. This does
not bode well for information exchange.
Finally, let me point out that someone suggested that it might be
a violation of policy for an intermediate node in the distribution
to change the flavor of the compressed news. Policy, as I remember
it, provides that:
2.1.5 No Alteration of Routed Mail
You may not modify, other than as required for routing
or other /technical purposes/, any message, netmail or
echomail, passing through the system from one FidoNet
node to another. (emphasis added)
I would note that FIDO*.NWS is the message, and the compression
method is a mere technique of transmission. I personally don't
feel repacking from .ARC to .LZH is modifying the message. Given
the problem of interoperability, it seems to me that it would at
least be annoying, and perhaps excessively annoying, for a coordi-
nator /not/ to repack FidoNews for a system that didn't have .LZH
capability, and his doing so would seem to be purely for "technical
purposes."
FidoNews 7-36 Page 7 3 Sep 1990
So Kwityer Bitchin, I think you need to reassess the differences
between the network of today and the network started by Tom, Dick
and Harry. To sum it up, Kwityer Bitchin.
Have you ever heard of "Precycling"? This is the practice of
buying products packaged in biodegradable, recycled, and/or
recyclable material. One out of every $11 that Americans spend
on food goes for packaging. In fact, we spent more on the
packaging for our food last year than American farmers received
in net income.
Did you know that:
* Each American uses about 190 pounds of plastic per year - and
about 60 pounds of it is packaging which we discard as soon as
the package is opened.
* About 30% of all plastics produced are used for packaging.
* Americans go through 2.5 million blastic bottles every hour.
* Packaging waste accounts for approximately a third of all the
garbage Americans send to landfills.
* Roughly 5 million tons - more than half of all plastics we
throw away each year - are packaging.
Simple things you can do when you shop:
* Keep your eyes open when you shop. everything you buy has an
effect on the environment - try to make it a positive one.
* Buy eggs in cardboard - not styrofoam - cartons.
* Most cereal boxes are made of recycled cardboard. It's easy to
tell - the boxes are grey on the inside. The packaging for many
varieties of cookies, crackers, dry goods etc. are also recycled.
look for the "recycled" logo, or send for the "Environmental
Product Shopping List" from, Pennsylvania Resources Council, 25
West 3rd St., Media, PA 19063.
* Buy in bulk: It's cheaper, and uses minimal packaging (in some
places you can even bring your own container).
* Buy beverages in glass or aluminum containers, which are easy
to recycle. You can also choose sauces, condiments, baby foods,
spreads, etc. that are packaged in glass instead of plastic.
* Avoid plastic containers, especially "squeezable" ones, which
are ade up of different types of plastic in several layers, and
are dramatically non-biodegradable.
If 10% of Americans purchased products with less plastic
packaging just 10% of the time, we could eliminate some 144
million pounds of plastic from our landfills, reduce industrial
pollution, and send a message to manufacturers that we're
serious about alternatives.
=================================================================
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
=================================================================
Nick Mesquiti
Fido 1:387/406
Vince, I want to thank you for putting the Heidi Situation Sheet
in the current newsletter. Unfortunately Heidi's body was found
Saturday in Wimberly, TX about a 1 hour drive from San Antonio.
I and the other volunteers appreciate your help.
Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by
reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list
all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity.
5 Oct 1990
21st Anniversary of "Monty Python's Flying Circus"
6 Nov 1990
First anniversary of Van Diepen Automatiseert, 2:500/28
14 Nov 1990
Marco Maccaferri's 21rd Birthday. Send greetings to him at
2:332/16.0
1 Jan 1991
Implementation of 7% Goods and Services Tax in Canada. Contact
Joe Lindstrom at 1:134/55 for a more colorful description.
16 Feb 1991
Fifth anniversary of the introduction of Echomail, by Jeff Rush.
7 Oct 1991
Area code 415 fragments. Alameda and Contra Costa Counties
will begin using area code 510. This includes Oakland,
Concord, Berkeley and Hayward. San Francisco, San Mateo,
Marin, parts of Santa Clara County, and the San Francisco Bay
Islands will retain area code 415.
1 Feb 1992
Area code 213 fragments. Western, coastal, southern and
eastern portions of Los Angeles County will begin using area
code 310. This includes Los Angeles International Airport,
West Los Angeles, San Pedro and Whittier. Downtown Los
Angeles and surrounding communities (such as Hollywood and
Montebello) will retain area code 213.
1 Dec 1993
Tenth anniversary of Fido Version 1 release.
5 Jun 1997
David Dodell's 40th Birthday
If you have something which you would like to see on this
calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1.
The following is an excerpt from a letter I received a few
days ago:
Dear Sir;
We would be grateful if you would, like us, respond to
this request and help Craig.
Craig is a seven-year-old boy who has a brain tumor
and has very little time to live. It is his ambition
to gain entry to the Guiness Book of Records for the
largest number of get-well cards ever received by an
individual. Please send a card to:
Craig Shergold
36 Selby Road
Carshalton
Surrey, CN8 1Ld
England
The letter requested that I send this information on to ten
(10) other people. As a Fidonet sysop, I have decided sned
it to the 10,000 plus readers of FidoNews instead.
Please pass this information on to as many people as you
can. Better yet, if you are a sysop, place it as a
bulletin for your users to read. Send Craig a card today!
