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1994-03-02
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21KB
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502 lines
Oh simple supplicant, if only everything in your mortal life could work the
way you wish. As you will find, all mortals have the same difficulty as you. By
instinct, all primates enjoy putting things together and then taking them
apart, or vice versa. But there are always complications. Sometimes it is
beyond your control, and sometimes all it takes is to simply look at it from a
different perspective.
My advice to you in this particular scenario is to throw away that square
block and try using a ROUND peg on that circular hole.
You owe the Oracle a pre-assembled exercise bicycle.
----
* WWIVnet Oracle (C) 1993 Ed T. Toton III, All Rights Reserved.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Title: Oracle Response (OR00069)
From: The Oracle (Chosen by: Keeper of the Scrolls)
Date: 21:11:49 P 06/03/93, Oracle Time.
You said unto the Oracle:
Title: Tell me
Why must the cost of computer material be so vastly expensive, whilst it can
be easily obtained for little or no price Pirate on local boards? Wouldn't
the software companies realize this and lower prices to compete with Piracy?
And why does the Secret Service handle Busts, why don't the local authorities
or the FBI? Tell me Oracle! I need to know!
Thus spake the Oracle:
Title: For a good time call 410-290-3752...[Random Title]
RE: The Oracle requires an answer (EORA000069)
Very interesting question, oh humble supplicant. The answer is this. The
software companies are working with the CIA and Secret Service. It's a
conspiracy to use subliminal messages in software to control the minds of the
masses.
If you haven't noticed, busts are always handled poorly. This is done on
purpose, as piracy helps them spread the subliminal messages. The busts only
serve to attempt to show the public that they prefer you to buy the software
instead of pirating it. That way you still get brainwashed, and they make a
buck at the same time. In fact, [vote for hitler] those messages can be found
[buy more software] almost everywhere [don't use condoms] you look. It's quite
disturbing [love thy government] how they manage to get the [go republican]
darned things into everything. [work eat sleep, work eat sleep]
You owe the Oracle a [burn books] copy of "How to be a Democrat and not a
stupid moronic slobbering republican."
----
* WWIVnet Oracle (C) 1993 Ed T. Toton III, All Rights Reserved.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Title: Oracle Response (OR00079)
From: The Oracle (Chosen by: Keeper of the Scrolls)
Date: 15:32:26 P 06/05/93, Oracle Time.
You said unto the Oracle:
Title: Tell me, oh great and wise Oracle...
This question has been on my mind for a while. Your humble servant humbly
requests that you give an answer to my burning question:
Did Bill Clinton inhale or not?
Thank you, oh great all-knowing Oracle.
Thus spake the Oracle:
Title: This space for rent... [Random Title]
RE: The Oracle requires an answer (EORA000079)
Well, this interesting question deserves an interesting, and true, answer.
Clinton actually has not inhaled for about 5 years. Several years ago, he
and a few friends were joking around, and one of them said, "You know? I bet a
stiff could make it into office!" And that's when they got the idea. If one of
them were to die, they would try to get him into office. Clinton was the first
to go, so they rigged him up with computer controlled electrodes to control his
muscles. So the entire time you mortals have been fooled! The president is
actually a remote controlled corpse!
You owe the Oracle a thread of the finest cloth, and a presidential campaign.
----
* WWIVnet Oracle (C) 1993 Ed T. Toton III, All Rights Reserved.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Title: Oracle Response (OR00098)
From: The Oracle (Chosen by: Keeper of the Scrolls)
Date: 20:55:10 P 06/10/93, Oracle Time.
You said unto the Oracle:
Title: TELL ME...or face consequences!
Hey.....tell me......Why are some computers slow and others fast?
Thus spake the Oracle:
Title: Well, my humble supplicant...
RE: The Oracle requires an answer (EORA000098)
This question is actually quite interesting, as the answer lies in the Holy
Bible. Computers have always ran at different speeds, as the following
passages show.
Let's start with SYSTEMS verse 80:86.
Then the lord did say unto the people, "Go now, and create large electronic
machines to perform high speed calculation and data manipulation." And the
followers of the Lord did just that. And verily there were computers, and the
Lord saw that it was good.
Many days and nights passed, and turmoil did return to the land. Opposing
groups were many, and fights unavoidable. Programmers did slay administrators,
data enterers did slay system operators, and many deleted and erased data most
valuable. The Lord looked upon this and was unhappy.
Then the Lord did say unto them all, "Why art thou doing this?" The response
was "because everyone is the same, and all have the same security levels on
our sacred LANs. The administrators need more power, and the loathsome
loser-users need less access."
The lord listened, and saw that changes in security level could not help with
personal computers. So verily did he think. Think he did, and the Lord did say,
"Go forth, and create computers with different speeds. The Administrators and
programmers will have computers bearing the names of speed, and the loathsome
loser-users will use computers bearing the names of slowness, including the
the PC and the XT." The Lord smiled, as he knew the people would listen.
Listen they did. Computers of all shapes, sizes, speeds, and storage capacities
emerged, and peace was restored to the world. Hallowed be the sacred
differences in computer speeds!
Does that answer your question? Good.
You owe the Oracle a Commie-64 for his collection of obsolete junk.
----
* WWIVnet Oracle (C) 1993 Ed T. Toton III, All Rights Reserved.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Using the Oracle:
Using the Oracle is quite simple. While most of the details are described
completely in the Oracle Help-File, I'll cover it briefly here.
To request the Oracle-Help file: E-mail ORACLE@4079 with "HELP" in the title
To ask a question: E-mail ORACLE@4079 w/ "TELL ME" in the title.
To answer one that you have received, simply press "A" for Auto-Reply,
and answer the question in the wittiest and most humorous way you can.
Please don't use a quoting system to quote the question, as the Oracle
pastes the question in when it receives your response.
For back-issues of the Scrolls, write to ORACLE@4079 with the word "SCROLL"
in the title, and list (one per line!!) the scroll numbers you want.
For example:
Title: Gimme da scroll please.
1
2
3
This would tell the Oracle to send you Scrolls #1 through #3.
Capitalization in the titles does not matter, and the Oracle can be reached
from any WWIV board in WWIVnet (and maybe a few non-WWIV boards). Please
don't attempt to access it through net-gating. The Oracle will receive your
messages, but will be unable to send anything back to you.
Gating is supported. For more detail on gating, ask a Sysop with experience
in such matters.
Oracle Discussion: Auto-requestable, Host: 4079, Type: ORACLE
The Scrolls can also be downloaded from my BBS, The Sorcerer's Quarters
at (410)-290-3752. We support ASV/GSA, and QWK messaging, plus a normal
petty guest account. (300 through 14400 baud, 24 hours/day).
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
To access the Usenet Oracle is similar. Write to oracle@cs.indiana.edu
with the word "help" in the title for the help-file, and "tell me" to
ask a question.
The newsgroups are rec.humor.oracle and rec.humor.oracle.d
The FTP site is cs.indiana.edu in the pub/oracle directory.
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
If anyone has any questions concerning the Oracle, be it from a programming
standpoint, or how to use it etc, please feel free to E-mail me (1@4079)
and I'll be glad to answer your questions. If you have serious questions
such as these, they should *not* be sent to the Oracle, for you will not
receive a straight answer. However, if you're asking a simple question
such as "how do I use the Oracle", please read the Oracle help file and
then ask me if you still have questions.
───────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────
│ Random Titles in Message Bases │
│ Laziness or Just Plain Stubborn? │
│ By King Lerxt (WWIVnet 1@8863) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
It's the weekend, and you sit down at your computer after a long hard week at
the office (or school). Lately, it seems that the weekends are the ONLY time
you have to call out to your favorite local BBSes.
You know that after a week of not calling out, many of your favorite message
bases will have MANY new messages to read. You decide to call anyway since
this is YOUR TIME to relax, and keeping in touch with what's going on in the
BBS world is part of the fun.
After logging on the BBS and reading your 10 pieces of mail, you hit "N" to
read all the new messages. Just as had suspected... the General Discussions
sub has 50 new messages.!! You don't have time to read all 50 of those
messages, and the Sysop hasn't installed his QWK Offline Mail/Message Reading
program yet. What are you to do ??
You can either 1: (B)ypass this sub altogether; 2: Read the last 5 or 10
messages; or 3: Scan the titles of the messages for some interesting topics.
Well, like most WWIV users in your predicament, you hit "T" to scan the titles
of the next 10 messages hoping to find some posts that MIGHT be of interest to
you. Here's what you see :
(1) Well...
(2) I agree...
(3) "History Will Teach Us Nothing" [Random Title]
(4) DOS 6.0 sucks!
(5) ...
(6) ...
(7) "Live long and prosper" [Random Title]
(8) Koon & Powell gets sentenced for 18 months.
(9) HELP ME!
(10) Why...
Oh boy, what a choice, eh?
Seeing nothing of interest in those 10, you hit "T" again, to scan the next 10
messages. You find one title of interest to you, but upon reading the actual
message, you find it has NOTHING to do with the message title.
You contine on using "T" to scan for titles, totally disregarding the [Random
Title] messages as well as the "..." and other meaningless titles, thinking to
yourself: "Why should I read a message from a person who was too lazy to write
a real title ?? "
After doing this for a few subs, you get frustrated. You've scanned over 300
message titles and have only seen 50 "real titles". Of those 50, only 10 were
of any interest to you.
Seeing as your time online is almost over, you decide to log off, not calling
again until another week passes...
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Did that scenario sound familiar to you? If so you are not alone. Today, many
BBS users are entering Random or unspecific tiles for their messages.
Lately, in WWIVnet, there has been many heated discussions on the #1 National
SysOp sub as well as other subs arguing over the validity or worthlessness of
Random and Unspecific Message Titles.
Here is a post from a Sysop who believes Random Titles ARE OK :
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Title : Oh jeez...
Author : Psychomaster #1 @7107
I don't see why some of you people make that big of a deal about
random titles... I really don't mind them. In fact, a lot of the
time, I don't even really read post titles... who cares about the
titles, it's what's in the post that I read the message bases for.
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
And here is MY REPLY to that message (somewhat edited and re-worded to be
included in this article.) :
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Title : Random Titles and "..."
RE : Oh jeez...
Author : King Lerxt #1 @8863
Yes, and in order to get some users to even read the messages there
has to be an interesting title in there. Tell me this, which message
would you rather read, if they had the following titles ? :
(1) hdkjsahdkahg
(2) This is an IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE HOST. PLEASE READ
(3) The theory of relativity
(4) "My god, it's full of stars" [Random Title]
The above were just a few examples of titles. Message #2 looks like
it is VERY important and if it had a random or silly title, it might
be skipped or bypassed, and the people who needed to read that
message would probably miss it. In message number 3, some user MIGHT
be VERY interested in that topic, so they WILL read it, but they
don't have the time to be reading every message, so they are ALWAYS
using the "T" command to scan for interesting titles. They call
their favorite BBS (Blue Thunder, for example) and can only get on
once a week (a TRUE fact over at Blue Thunder, hehe) and the BBS
DOESN'T have an offline mail reader (Blue Thunder does though), and
there are 50 new messages in each sub they have in their Q-scans, so
what else can they do BUT to use the "T" command to scan for
interesting topics to read ?
You are making too many generalizations about BBS users. These days,
users will do ANYTHING to get through a BBS as fast as possible,
especially when its costing them some $$$. Anyone who uses a bogus
title for a message (ie: "flhkwskks", or "....." is ruining the
whole idea of BBSing, which is:
*****
To effectively communicate with others and get information out to as
many people as possible.
*****
Here is an example that demonstrates my point:
Say your dog is lost and you want to get him back. Would you post
flyers all over town that read in big letters: "GOD WILL RETURN
SOON", and then underneath that, in smaller type, you go ahead and
describe your lost dog ??
Well of course you wouldn't. But, when people use bogus or random
titles in their messages, that's EXACTLY what they are doing.
Just as most people wouldn't take the time to stop and read a flyer
annoucing the 2nd comming of Jesus, not many users are going to want
to pay ANY attention to a message that has a title of "..." or
[Random Title] in it.
Even though the flyer about your lost dog IS important to you, you
are SEVERELY limiting your chances of someone finding your dog when
you titled your flyer with a title that DID NOT pertain to the
subject at hand.
──── End of my reply ────
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Some users will say that posting random or bogus message titles is lazy. Some
will say that NOT reading EVERY message posted on a sub is lazy. Some users
just don't care.
Who is right?
What are we to do?
It all goes back to the orginal purpose of a BBS (Bulletin Board System):
Its NOT about leeching files.
Its NOT about playing games.
It's about COMMUNICATING with others.
Just as it's real life counterpart (the bulletin board at your local school or
office which communicates the wants and needs of people) the electronic BBS
can be an invaluable tool. You can use it to ask others all over the country
a question on how to fix a computer problem you might be having. You know
SOMEONE will be able to help you out, since a netted BBS reaches so many
people in a short amount of time.
Why would anyone want to "hide" the intent of their posts? Why would anyone
want to make it difficult for other users to FIND the information they are
looking for? Why would YOU want to make it harder to get the help you so
desperately need?
It's all up to you, the BBS user.
Make the right choice...and take an extra second to post a meaningful message
title. You'll be glad you did.
───────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────
│ Filo's Mod of the Month │
│ by Filo (1@5252) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The Mod-of-The-Month Selection represents my choice of what appears to
be a useful, practical mod to WWIV. It does not mean it is the best
mod posted or even that it works as I may not have tested it. Given
the limitations of this media, uuencoded mods are NOT eligible for
selection as mod-of-the-month.
Since WWIVnews took an unexpected hiatus, there's been sort of a backlog of
articles, so we'll be taking care of that with this column by reprinting
those mods which have been selected since the last issue of WWIVnews. The
first mod allows you to install a safe, but tailorable guest account for
WWIV 4.23.
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Mod Name: AA002 Mod Author: Arc Angel 1@4067 │
│ Difficulty: moderate Date: September 7, 1993 │
│ WWIV Version: v4.22 │
│ Description: Guest Account Mod. │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The Guest mod allows you to make a guest account on the BBS that can be used
by multiple users without an account. The mod assumes you will make the
guest account and set it's security levels, restrictions, ARs, and DARs to
your liking. NOTE: to make the account a guest account, it is only important
that you set the G (guest) restriction on the account. You should probably
also edit the logon prompt if your guest account is not named "GUEST". The
mod is hard coded to allow 10 minutes per call on all guest logons. Because
the guest account is shared by multiple users, certain restrictions are hard
coded. A guest account cannot edit it's defaults. A guest account cannot kill
(and thus read) E-Mail it has sent. A guest account cannot upload (in case the
guest is hostile, and only wishes to tie up the BBS for more than 10 minutes).
It is up to the Sysop to set all other restrictions desired on a guest account.
My apologies to anyone who has done a similar mod, I know there are several.
I wasn't able to find any when I need the mod, so wrote this myself. I hope
people find the code useful.
I am not responsible for any problem cause by your use of my code of course.
I encourage you to back up everything before installing this, or any mod.
Arc Angel - Andrew Jon Lundberg
Internet address: lundberg@cs.jhu.edu
WWIVnet address: 1@4067
******************************************************************************
diff -H -b -p ./BBS.c Guest/BBS.c
*** ./BBS.c Mon Jan 11 19:37:54 1993
--- guest/BBS.c Tue Sep 07 21:39:02 1993
*************** void send_E-Mail(void)
*** 337,342 ****
--- 337,345 ----
outstr(":");
input(s1,40);
helpl=0;
+ /* Guest MOD */ if (guest())
+ /* Guest MOD */ sprintf(irt,"Guest (%s) connected at
%s.",guest_name,curspeed);
+ /* Guest MOD */ else
irt[0]=0;
irt_name[0]=0;
parse_E-Mail_info(s1,&un,&sy);
*************** void mainmenu(void)
*** 630,635 ****
--- 633,642 ----
break;
case 'D':
helpl=4;
+ /* Guest MOD */ if (guest()) {
+ /* Guest MOD */ pl("Guests may not change default settings.");
+ /* Guest MOD */ nl();
+ /* Guest MOD */ } else
defaults();
break;
case 'E':
*************** void mainmenu(void)
*** 636,641 ****
--- 643,651 ----
send_E-Mail();
break;
case 'F':
+ /* Guest MOD */ if (guest())
+ /* Guest MOD */ sprintf(irt,"%s Guest (%s) connected at
%s.",get_stringx(1,14),guest_name,curspeed);
+ /* Guest MOD */ else
strcpy(irt,get_stringx(1,14));
irt_name[0]=0;
grab_quotes(NULL, NULL);
*************** void mainmenu(void)
*** 654,659 ****
--- 664,670 ----
break;
case 'K':
helpl=8;
+ /* Guest MOD */ if (!guest())
kill_old_E-Mail();
break;
case 'L':
*************** void dlmainmenu(void)
*** 993,998 ****