Collage 278               H u m o u r N e t               27 JUN 96

Warning!  Alcoholics Anonymous parody detected in immediate vicinity!
Warning!

My name is James R., and...I'm a HumourNet guest moderator.  I've been
subscribed to HumourNet for about six months (I'm not exactly sure,
though...).

I'm a computer geek - in fact, every week I "upgrade" to the next model
of $3.99 pocket calculator.  It's an illness.

A sample telephone conversation:

Me: "Hello?"
Voice: "Hello, sir, we think you may be interested in purchasing
Sears...oops, wrong script...hold on."
*shuffling sounds*
Voice: "Ah, there it is.  Er, is this Mr. Renken?"
Me: "Yes, it is."
Voice: "All right...Mr. Renken, I'm doing a consumer research survey,
and I'd like to ask you a few questions.  How many computers do you own,
how many software products do you own, and how often do you go into a
software store?"
Me: "Eight (six are working), six hundred, and at least four times a
week."
*click*
Me: "That wasn't meant to be a joke..."

Actually, that's overstating the case...a little.  I run a one-man
software company, and probably own enough computer stuff to make Bill
Gates green with envy.  No, I can't make CD-ROMs for you (yet).  I
regularly dream about owning a Sun Ultra Enterprise 6000 server (just
about the closest to a mainframe you can get) and a T3 connection (about
10 MB of data per second); it's only a matter of time.

Anyway, greetings from the Land of 10,000,000,000,000 Mosquitoes
(Minnesota).  Descriptions of the wonderful climate (would you like your
climate Insta-Freeze or Air Made of Molasses today, sir?) aside, I was
visiting Iowa recently for a convention, and, of course, brought my
laptop computer along.  The first several hours in the hotel were spent
typing things like:

9,1,800-225-5288,,,,,1,,,,,(insert access provider's phone number
here),,,,,(insert AT&T calling card number here)

...and hoping the hotel used a standard, not Digital PBX, phone system,
because a Digital PBX system can supposedly fry your modem.  I don't
know why; it has something to do with frequencies.  I was lucky,
however, and the phone system was standard.

On this trip, I met another computer person.  Needless to say, we were
soon talking about computers, HTML, operating system wars, etc.  One of
the topics that we discussed was the future of Microsoft; he predicted
that some small company with a slingshot is going to slay the Gigantic
Horrible Nasty Creature.  Since I run my own software company, this is
encouraging ;-).

Anyway, I'm going to wrap up this extremely short opener so that it
doesn't dwarf the actual contents of the Collage (or maybe it's because
I'm lazy).  Thank you for using AT&T!  Oh...wait...never mind.

Thanks to today's contributors:

Tom in Florida for "The Ten Usenet Commandments",

Richard in Phoenix for "Sys Admin Help",

Tina in Florida for "Handling CyberIsolation",

The infamous Shawn in Vancouver for "Creative Uses For Computer
Peripherals", which I _hope_ is an urban legend,

and Brett Sabio (Vince's brother) in New Jersey for "Reverse
Netiquette".

...and sorry for sending the Collage out late.

Again, thank you for using...
~**02*C&WIH@HGI*GE*WF#GFE*hf8(Y@4yrt*&TF87wft&#@
NO CARRIER

- James Renken
  HumourNet Guest Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1996 by James Renken
  Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
  please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________

SUBJ: The Ten Usenet Commandments

The brothers Usas and Senda, despairing of the state of UseNet, went
unto the mountain at the feet of Net.God. "Oh Net.God, there is
confusion and sorrow in your place of UseNet. The people worship
false gods and knowst not your will."

Net.God spoke unto Usas and Senda. "YOU PLAYETH THE GAME BY
NET.GOD'S LAWS, OR THE BAT WILL BE DEPOSITED IN THE LIGHTLESS
PLACE."

Usas, being devout and greatly afeard of Net.God, prayed. "Lord,
how am I to know your will?"

And Net.God, being wise in the ways of Usas, spake thus, "THOU SHALT
OBEY THE LAWS OF USENET, THERE BEING TEN, OR BE DAMNED UNTO THE LAST
GENERATION," for He is a merciful God.

So did Net.God deliver unto Usas the Commandments.

THE TEN USENET COMMANDMENTS:

1. Thou shalt not battle over operating systems. I am wise and in
My wisdom have created diverse and various operating systems. Be
true unto the chosen system and neither covet nor despise your
neighbour's operating system.
[Editor's Note: BUY A MACINTOSH! </james>]

2. Thou shalt not battle over nationalities or tribes. I have
placed the UseNet aside from all things, and granted it unto Usas.
I am blind to the place in which pray, all prayers being equal in
Virtual Heaven.

3. Thou shalt not flame. Your Net.God has anger in His heart for
those who flame without cause or who do persecute the spelling of
others. In my wisdom I have created opinions to be as armpits;
your's is warm and secure but thine neighbour's stinks. Tolerate
others as you would be tolerated. Flames are Mine, and I do
preserve some good ones for these people.

4. Thou shalt not MAKE-$$$$-FAST. I have made Usas wise that the
love of money is the root of all evil. He who angers his neighbour
by the wasting of bandwidth shall anger Net.God, and also by
spamming or cluttering. I reserveth a special Hell for these, and
great shall be their sorrow.

5. Thou shalt quote meaningfully. Net.God loves not the man who
taketh more than needed nor he who quoteth all, including the sig.
Render unto Net.God what is Net.God's, render unto Usas what is
Usas; credit Senda for he is good.

6. Thou shalt e-mail personal prayers. I have rendered unto Usas
the ability to talk to all the peoples of the world. I tell you, it
is better to whisper into an ear than shout into a crowd.

7. Thou shalt not me-too. Make not your prayers to the Senda the
knowledge of thine neighbour. The wisdom of Usas is the ability to
speak to all people, and to choose to speak to one.

8. Thou shalt not cross post unwisely. The place I grant thee for
rec.pets.cats is not the place of comp.unix.advocacy.
[Editor's Note: Siamese cats are like Solaris 2.4... </james>]

9. Thou shalt not post tests in profusion. I giveth unto you the
lands of alt.test to learn of your God. Tend to Usas as I do My
calves; let the new gather the strength to stand before joining
with the herd.

10.Thou shalt send complete offerings. Send not to your God
incomplete offerings. If the parts of the sacrifice number all the
people of the world times ten your God will not be pleased to
receive all but two. The blessing of Net.God is upon he who posts
fewer large parts that he who posts many small ones.

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Sys Admin Help

Hints and Tips to get the best performance from your Sysadmin. All
you users take note!

1. Do not ask your sysadmin "did you get my mail?" Your sysadmin
receives more mail in an hour than you do in a week, and may well
have already read and forgotten your mail. If he hasn't answered it
could be that he has more important things to do, like restoring the
passwd file on the main server.

2. Do not page the sysadmin at 1am to ask him simple shell
programming questions. Your sysadmin has made the wonderful and
enlightening set of UNIX man pages available to you to answer just
that kind of question.

3. When in doubt, assume that it's your fault. It probably is.

4. If the networks' down and your sysadmin is laboring feverishly in
the machine room, please do not pound on the machine room door to
tell him that the network's down. He already knows.

5. Overly-general questions like "what's wrong with my computer?"
or "what did you do the network?" do little except annoy the
sysadmin and make him quiz you to find the actual symptoms that
you are experiencing.

6. Accusing your sysadmin of favoritisim ("you won't fix my problem
because you like the other engineers better") is infantile and
ridiculous. Your sysadmin holds all users in equal disdain and is
ignoring your problem because he has more important problems to
deal with.

7. Do not, under any circumstances, walk into your sysadmin's cubicle
and announce "I have no problem, I just wanted to tell you what a
wonderful job you're doing" unless you want your sysadmin to drop
dead from shock.

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Handling CyberIsolation
(From the Mr. CompuPotato cartoon by Tina Koenig;
<http://www.webcom.com/getagift/CompuPotato.html>)

You are trapped on a desert island with your laptop and no modem jack.
You can...

A) Type Ctl, Alt, Delete to end it all.

B) Tilt your monitor toward the sky and hope a passing plane can see
your screen saver.

C) Find a friendly native with a POP account willing to send an SOS
message.

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Creative Uses For Computer Peripherals

A friend of mine was on the phone with a tech rep from another
company. That tech rep called in to ask some questions about system
setup, as the company this tech works for actually sells, installs
and warranties systems. While they were on the phone, this tech rep
received an incoming call, which he took after. When the caller
hung up, the tech rep came back on the phone, laughing like a crazy
person. This is the call he took:

Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"

Tech Rep: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"

Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my
warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"

Tech Rep: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"

Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."

Tech Rep: "Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it's because I
am. Did you receive this as part of a promotion, at a trade show?
How did you get this cup holder? Does it have any trademark on it?"

Caller: "It came with my computer, I don't know anything about a
promotion. It just has '4X' on it."

At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he
couldn't stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the
CD-ROM drive as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive.

[Editor's Note: Dayton's won't accept my PCMCIA card! </james>]

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

SUBJ: Reverse Netiquette
Excerpted from C|Net ...

With scant apologies to Virginia Shea, whose book "Netiquette"
defines proper Net behavior, here are the rules of reverse
Netiquette, presented for those of you who wish to flame properly.
Believe us, given the commentary he's received about Apple,
Microsoft, OS/2, and joblessness, our top ten author really knows
what he's talking about...

Rule 10: Never forget that the person reading your mail is a
person, with feelings that can be hurt. If you see the opportunity,
hurt them.

Rule 9: Behave online as you do in real life. This way, you can
act like a total jerk under all circumstances.

Rule 8: Lurk until you get a feel for what's acceptable in a
particular forum or newsgroup. Then leap in and do the opposite.

Rule 7: Be aware of others' time and bandwidth. Never post
anything shorter than seven paragraphs. Ensure your sig is at least
a screen long.

Rule 6: Make yourself look good online--always post your abuse in
complete, grammatically correct sentences.

Rule 5: Share expert knowledge. If you know how to push someone's
buttons in a forum, send private email to everyone else telling
them.

Rule 4: Help keep flame wars under control: lead the charge.

Rule 3: Respect other people's privacy...if you have some dirt
about a member of a newsgroup, spread it only via private email.

Rule 2: Don't abuse your power. Flame only those who disagree with
you.

Rule 1: Remember: You were a network newbie once, too. You
deserved all the flaming you got then. The current batch deserves
no less.

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