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My brush with greatness, 20 year anniversary
by Keith Wright Sept. 14, 2002

Sept. 14, 2002

I've long had vague memories that I was present at the creation of the emoticon, but did not remember the details and had no proof---until now. Slashdot has a story about the first smiley, which links to a site that has a copy of a bulletin board thread from 1982. My contribution was the suggestion that the character should be chosen to look like something. It doesn't appear in the quoted part of the thread, but I remember advocating that the parenthesis should appear in balanced pairs, to form "joke brackets" which mark the beginning and end of the joke. This suggestion never caught on, which is a bit surprising because Scott Fahlman is a Lisp guy. (-: I would throw a big party to celebrate the 20'th anniversary of the smiley, but I hate the damn things :-) -- Keith ----------------- From: http://research.microsoft.com/~mbj/Smiley/Smiley.html I think this is the best research ever done at MS. ---------------- <discussion of strange physics Gedanken experiments> = 16-Sep-82 12:09 Neil Swartz at CMU-750R Pigeon type question This question does not involve pigeons, but is similar: There is a lit candle in an elevator mounted on a bracket attached to the middle of one wall (say, 2" from the wall). A drop of mercury is on the floor. The cable snaps and the elevator falls. What happens to the candle and the mercury? = 16-Sep-82 17:21 Howard Gayle at CMU-780G WARNING! Because of a recent physics experiment, the leftmost elevator has been contaminated with mercury. There is also some slight fire damage. Decontamination should be complete by 08:00 Friday. = 16-Sep-82 21:34 Rudy Nedved at CMU-10A Re: WARNING!! The previous bboard message about mercury is related to the comment by Neil Swartz about Physics experiments. It is not an actual problem. Last year parts of Doherty Hall were closed off because of spilled mercury. My high school closed down a lab because of a dropped bottle of mercury. My apology for spoiling the joke but people were upset and yelling fire in a crowded theatre is bad news....so are jokes on day old comments. = 17-Sep-82 10:58 Neil Swartz at CMU-750R Elevator posts Apparently there has been some confusion about elevators and such. After talking to Rudy, I have discovered that there is no mercury spill in any of the Wean hall elevators. Many people seem to have taken the notice about the physics department seriously. Maybe we should adopt a convention of putting a star (*) in the subject field of any notice which is to be taken as a joke. = 17-Sep-82 13:04 Scott Fahlman at CMU-10A Elevators (*) Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the elevator... Unfortunately, the center elevator now contains what seems to be the remains of 40,000 two-pound pigeons in an advanced state of decomposition and the right elevator contains a bear of indeterminate color. The left elevator appears to be safe, but when you stand in it for too long, your voice gets squeaky and you start running into the walls, causing the elevator to rise. Despite the * in the header of this message, this is not a joke and should be taken quite literallly. Do not panic -- taking the stairs is good for you. = 17-Sep-82 14:59 Joseph Ginder at CMU-10A (*%) I believe that the joke character should be % rather than *. = 17-Sep-82 15:15 Anthony Stentz at CMU-780G (*%) How about using * for good jokes and % for bad jokes? We could even use *% for jokes that are so bad, they're funny. = 17-Sep-82 17:40 Keith Wright at CMU-10A *%&#$ Jokes! No, no, no! Surely everyone will agree that "&" is the funniest character on the keyboard. It looks funny (like a jolly fat man in convulsions of laughter). It sounds funny (say it loud and fast three times). I just know if I could get my nose into the vacuum of the CRT it would even smell funny! = 17-Sep-82 17:42 Leonard Hamey at CMU-10A {#} (previously *) A detailed (i.e. > 1 minute) study of the aesthetic and pictographic effects of the characters available in the ASCII set has led to the following suggestion: I think that the joke character should be the sequence {#} because it looks like two lips with teeth showing between them. This is the expected result if someone actually laughs their head off. An obvious abbreviation of this sequence would be the hash character itself (which can also be read as the sharp character and suggests a quality which may be lacking in those too obtuse to appreciate the joke.) = 18-Sep-82 20:40 Guy Steele at CMU-10A ! Joke markers again I hope everyone realized that my previous remark about non-use of joke markers was a joke, and was flagged as such by the absence of a marker. This message is not a joke, as indicated by the exclamation point. = 19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-) From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c> I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers: :-) Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use :-( = 20-Sep-82 16:23 Dave Touretzky at CMU-10A (-: bboard software change As of October 1st, the General bboard will be renamed the Jokes bboard. Please update your SWITCH.INI file. In the event of a serious notice, we will post it under the name "Sharon Burks". When the bboard contains messages whose total bogosity score exceeds 5000 microLenats, the file will be zeroed so novice bboard players can have a chance to score. =

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Mozilla 1.1 icon
by Bill Mills-Curran Sept. 13, 2002

Sept. 13, 2002

I installed mozilla 1.1, and I no longer have the nice dinosaur icon when I iconify it in fvwm2. Is there a simple way to get that back? Thanks, Bill

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Converting an iPAQ
by Wesley Allen Sept. 12, 2002

Sept. 12, 2002

For the last few months I've been hoping to save up some money and get a Zaurus, I don't think that it's going to happen any time soon. So, I've got an iPAQ that I can't sync, or even connect, with my linux laptop and it's beginning to get on my nerves. So, even though I've got some software on my iPAQ that I'll miss (a Bible Reader with the Greek Text and SimCity 2000), I'm thinking that it's time to take the plunge and get Linux and Qtopia on my 3835. Three Questions, 1. Has anyone on the list done this, especially with this model? 2. Has anyone who has done this used any of theKompany's embedded apps? 3. Is there anyone willing to help me do this face to face? I could do this on my own, but the idea of potentially owning a $599 paperweight dims my enthusiasm when I think of going it alone. (I'll buy the coffee) I've got a serial adapter, so that's not a problem. So, what do you say, anyone out there willing to teach me something new? Wes --

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linux arm
by brad Sept. 12, 2002

Sept. 12, 2002

While we're on the topic, some of you guys might be interested in knowing that there is a Linux for Ipaq Developers meeting in cambridge in early October. It's not often that these things come around. For more info. http://handhelds.org/events/devweekend.html -brad

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Free to a good home
by Scott Venier Sept. 10, 2002

Sept. 10, 2002

I've got a 20" Sun branded Trinitron monitor (GDM-20D10) that is yours if you just come fetch it from me in Worcester. Why is it free? Because the cable that's pigtailed on is busted and it doesn't do red very well anymore. The connector on the end of the cable is at 13W3. It should be fixable by just opening the thing up and replacing the cable. Any takers? Scott

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RE: [Wlug] Stat Gathering
by Marc Hughes Sept. 9, 2002

Sept. 9, 2002

I found a nifty utility called HotSaNIC that does exactly what I was looking for. http://www.bernisys.prima.de/linux/HotSaNIC/ Thanks anyways, -Marc -----Original Message----- From: stoffel(a)lucent.com [mailto:stoffel@lucent.com] Sent: Monday, September 09, 2002 11:37 AM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Cc: wlug(a)wlug.org Subject: Re: [Wlug] Stat Gathering Marc> I'd like to collect some stats on a few servers over time. Things Marc> like bandwidth usage, load averages, used/free memory, disk I/O. Marc> Does anyone have any favorite tools to do this easily. Also... Marc> Anything that makes pretty graphs to show management would be Marc> bonus points. You want to use either MRTG (www.mrtg.org) or Cricket (http://cricket.sourceforge.net/) which is based on top of the RRDtool from MRTG. Very nice stuff. John John Stoffel - Senior Unix Systems Administrator - Lucent Technologies stoffel(a)lucent.com - http://www.lucent.com - 978-399-0479 _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Stat Gathering
by Marc Hughes Sept. 9, 2002

Sept. 9, 2002

Hey Guys, I'd like to collect some stats on a few servers over time. Things like bandwidth usage, load averages, used/free memory, disk I/O. Does anyone have any favorite tools to do this easily. Also... Anything that makes pretty graphs to show management would be bonus points. Thanks, -Marc

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overlay/watermark???
by Bill Mills-Curran Sept. 5, 2002

Sept. 5, 2002

I'm generating a document with good old latex, and I'd like to be able to add a figure as the background to each page, something like a watermark, or the background capability of html. I'd be happy to use a post-processing step to do this. I've been looking at the ps utilities, but there's nothing that looks like it will work. Any ideas? TIA, Bill

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WLUG's membership in BUG
by Andy Stewart Sept. 4, 2002

Sept. 4, 2002

Hi everybody, Last year around this time, an organization was formed called the Boston User Groups (http://www.bostonusergroups.com) WLUG was invited to participate. As a group, we decided to pay our $50/year membership fee to participate for the first year. Some of you might remember this meeting, where the general consensus was "OK, let's try it for a year and see how it goes". Our yearly membership dues are being requested by BUG. I had some questions about whether or not WLUG should continue its participation in BUG. I had a discussion with the WLUG members who attended the BBQ. Several of those people thought that the discussion should take place among the entire WLUG membership. The timing of BUG events is such that I'd like to settle this issue before our next WLUG meeting (ideally within the next week). Take a look at the BUG webpage as you consider my comments and those of other WLUG members. Please take note of the other groups who are current BUG members. There are 3 Linux groups, a Palm group, a Mac group, and some others, not to mention the wide variety of Microsoft related user groups. Given that Microsoft is a documented monopoly (a court said that, not just me), this distribution of member groups should not be a surprise to anybody. Some of the commentary below assumes familiarity with the contents of the BUG website. My initial question (if I recall correctly) was to wonder about what tangible benefit WLUG received for its $50 expenditure. a) BUG has a link to the WLUG website on its website b) WLUG had a table at last year's MegaMeeting and gave out literature advertising the group, its meetings, etc. c) I met some leaders of other regional user groups while eating free pizza, drinking free soda, and touring the US DataCenters facility in Marlboro, MA. d) I know that we got at least one new WLUG member from the MegaMeeting. Perhaps there were others, or folks who shortly thereafter joined the mailing list, but I have no way to know for sure. The BUG website also has a calendar of group activities onto which WLUG's activities were never placed. The calendar is designed for groups who meet, say, every 2nd Thursday of the month. WLUG's schedule is not as regular as that, and hence our information was not put onto the calendar after two requests by me. Rick Zach is the current BUG president. He recently sent an e-mail to the user group leaders (attached) wherein he describes some of the benefits of BUG membership. I also have personally spoken to Rick to make sure my information about BUG is correct so that I can present it fairly to the WLUG membership. My question to WLUG is: Do we as a group wish to continue our participation in BUG for $50/year ? Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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Importing email from Eudora or Outlook...
by Stephen C. Daukas Sept. 4, 2002

Sept. 4, 2002

I didn't see this covered in any of the posts I could read in the Mozill groups, nor the FAQs, so here goes... I am trying to import email into Mozilla 1.0. I tried importing from Eudora and got the account settings OK, but did not get the entire address book (notably distribution lists) and couldn't get all the email. I received no error for the address book, but did get an error saying "cannot create proxy object for destination mailboxes" about half way throuhg the import, at which point all the folder that were created were moved to Trash. I decided to try Outlook just in case the Eudora code was messed up, I first imported from Eudora into Outlook, but I got the same problem. In both cases, I get the impression that the import code can't do too much with nested information (email distribution lists and mail folder that contain other folders), but Mozilla seems to be able to get started without any trouble. Then again, there is a lot of email involved and I'm also wondering if there are some limits set somewhere in the code before it gives up... Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!! Steve

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