HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: charless@sco.COM (charles stross)
Subject: Re: more advertisements
Organization: The Somewhat Contagious Operation, Inc.
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 08:08:35 GMT


In article <1992Jul22.014605.694@syma.sussex.ac.uk> serget@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Serge A Thill) writes:
>Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford) writes:
>
>: Peeve: French farmers. Like the lorry drivers, but worse. Seems to me that
>: French farmers will protest about, then set fire to, almost anything.
>
>...English. Anybody knows why?
>
It's obvious; we've been at war with them for 750 out of the past 
1000 years. It's a cultural thing; ``remember Agincourt!''

Actually, this explains a lot.

Why the hell else do you think the government is building a new
nuclear weapons factory at AWRE and comissioning more Trident
subs when everyone else (except the French) are disarming?  The
Cold War, an era in which we lived in fear of an all-out global
nuclear superpower confrontation, is being replaced by the
new World War Three paradigm: the half-hearted trans-Manche
nuclear midi-power confrontation. Both sides co-operate in 
developing new war machines like the Eurofighter, and in 
building old ones, like Tornado, because (a) it's cheaper, and
(b) it gives them a chance to spy on the other side. Still, pretty
soon now Major is going to do exactly what all politicians do
in the middle of a depression that won't shift, and demand the
return of Normandy. Or maybe SNCF is going to try to buy out
British Rail. And then they'll have an excuse for an eyeball
to eyeball fingers-on-the-button nuclear confrontation. There's
nothing like facing down an Evil Emperor to win elections,
and by the time John Major gets round to 1997, let's face it,
he's going to need all the charisma he can get. Not to 
mention the plutonium.

Me, I think I'll emigrate to Scotland. (Scotland's traditionally
tended to ally itself with the French, hasn't it? Explains
a lot.)

[[ This mindless drivel (c) Charlie Stross, 1992, all rights
   reversed. ]]


-- 
Charlie Stross aka charless@scol.sco.com ..... UNIX oriented text mangler
WARNING: The opinions voiced in the preceding electronic document are the
product of a warped mind. Take two before meals. 
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
From: yarvin-norman@CS.YALE.EDU (Norman Yarvin)
Subject: Re: BDI On Board
Organization: Yale Computer Science Department
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 02:22:37 GMT

Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford) writes:
>It's always puzzled me just how they *know* these little gems of
>information like "Oh, a baby is capable of withstanding much higher
>G-forces than an adult"? Do they have a big lab somewhere where they
>destruct test toddlers by firing them with an air cannon at walls or
>something? "18-month toddler, acceleration 25g, terminal velocity 300m/s.
>Target material - granite. Testing!"

It's a general principle: smaller animals are more resistant to being thrown
around.  A mouse will not be injured if you drop it from the top of the World
Trade Center.  A cat would have a small chance of survival.  A cat would be
fine if dropped from a four story building, where a human would be pretty
surely dead meat.  A fall that will injure a human will kill a horse.

The reason for the principle is that weight increases with an animal's
volume, but bone strength increases with the cross-sectional area of the
bone.  An animal scaled up 2x in all directions would have 4x bone
cross-sectional area, and 8x weight.  Thus the bones in large animals have
to be a higher proportion of the animal.  And even with more bone, large
animals are more delicate with regard to getting thrown around.

The whole point of having physics is that we don't have to do experiments
every time we want to know how something will turn out.

--
Norman Yarvin						yarvin@cs.yale.edu
 "If something is right in theory, it cannot be wrong in practice."
	- Vilhaldjmur Steffanson
From: egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Bike Helmets
Keywords: bikes, safety, law
Date: 31 Jul 92 10:47:07 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <40397@skye.dcs.ed.ac.uk> Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford) writes:

=> Wasn't it you, Jeremy, that just said something about
=>many cyclists veering between considering themselves as "road users" and
=>"augmented pedestrians"?

It was, but I couldn't resist a bit of stirring!

On a not-quite-so-similar note:

I took a pleasant evening stroll yesterday, through Princes St. Gardens and
over North Bridge. The temperature was pleasant and the streets were thronged
with happy holidaymakers. Unfortunately the street was actually thronged with
idiots digging up the street with jack-hammers, so I got my ear-drums pierced.
I suppose someone thinks its a good idea to render the major touristy-bit of
the city unbearable precisely during the peak of the tourist season.

Extra-peeve: I am pissed off with bloody tourists parking in my parking spot,
for which I have paid good money. Of course it's difficult to deter people
with foreign or rented cars using only tickets, so I penned a diplomatic
missive to the Chief Cunt^H^H^Honstable to suggest that he get of his fat 
arse and clamp some wheels. He responded by phoning me up to say that in
fact the police tow away a large number of foreign cars from my area. All well
and good except that:
a) this is an absolute lie. I've lived in my present location for about a year,
for a good portion of which I was also working at home (cue peeve about inadequate
working conditions at the university) and I have not seen a single car towed; I 
haven't even seen a tow truck.
b) it is obviously not much of a deterent to tow cars, because all you do is
leave a space for another illegal parker. Unless you actually SEE the car
being towed, or the presence of a tow-truck, or a sign indicating that cars
will be towed, there is nothing to put you off. Seeing a clamped car just
a few feet from the spot where you're planning to leave YOUR car might,
however, give pause for thought. But did PC Plod figure this out? Did he bloody hell.



-- 
-Jeremy Henderson        egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk   

(or am I?)
From: donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Oh, and one more ...
Date: 23 Jul 92 19:52:09 GMT
Organization: TOSHIBA America MRI, South San Francisco, CA

In article <l6r896INN3p9@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM> geoffm@purplehaze.Corp.Sun.COM
(Geoff Miller) writes:
>What I don't understand is why the Powers That Be are so spinelessly eager 
>to trip all over themselves in their haste to cave in to such crackpot 
>malcontents.

In order to seem "responsive", perhaps?  They get to give in on things
that don't really matter, while avoiding substantive changes?

Just a thought.

   don
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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of Charlie Manson on crack with a .357 marching through the local high skool
playing helter skelter! "
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don Baldwin  -  Software Engineer  - e-mail to:  donb@tamri.com
From: Claudio.Terrorist@ed.ac.uk (ObTerrorist)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: The Peever's Dictionary, Volume II
Date: 22 Jul 92 07:16:27 GMT
Reply-To: Claudio.Terrorist@ed.ac.uk (ObTerrorist)
Organization: The Exploding Hot Drink

Chris Baldwin writes:
> 
> 	Also, its not that I don't believe that you exist. Its just I
> doubt that your metabolic processes are functioning properly. You could
> visit me with a few fiends^H^H^H^H^Hriends. It is called a haunting. I
> would be forced to retaliate by calling for an exorcist. Then you'd be
> sorry.

I wouldn't trust exorcism. You may find out that ghosts like better to haunt
places after the exorcist has came. Like the fact that there are vampires
who eat garlic (*).

(*) Yes, I have evidence for it. Mike can withness that I am a vampire,
and Scott can withness that I eat garlic. Therefore "there is at least
a vampire who eats garlic".

--
The ObTerrorist
From: fofp@castle.ed.ac.uk (M Holmes)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Drug testing and welfare
Date: 30 Jul 92 14:39:03 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

yarvin@highlite.gotham.com (Curtis Yarvin) writes:

>I want to apologize to the good peevers in Scotland and elsewhere
>for indulging in tedious discussions of American political history;
>hopefully you'll find it vaguely amusing in a cruel sort of way
>like watching a wheelchair-bound ex-rugby-jock trying to climb
>a flight of stairs.

Don't worry about it dude. I was waiting for the bit where Anslinger
hijacks the Constitution and starts the stuff you're arguing about just
now. BTW Jenni, Anslinger wasn't elected and the laws you're referring
to are debateably legal in terms of the Constitution. Check your
history.

Peeve: once they had all this nonsense in the US, they foisted it
elsewhere by forcing international agreements.

>c

FoFP
From: dourish@EuroPARC.Xerox.COM (Paul Dourish)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Drug testing and welfare
Date: 27 Jul 92 15:23:05 GMT
Reply-To: dourish@EuroPARC.Xerox.COM (Paul Dourish)
Organization: Rank Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge, UK

In article <5wPkoB14w165w@mantis.co.uk>, mathew@mantis.co.uk (mathew) writes:
> People receiving welfare cheques might be spending the money on stolen goods,
> did you think of that?

Hey, it goes deeper than that. They might be buying tacky furniture,
for instance, with horrible flowery patterns which us honest
tax-payers might violently object to. Or Hawkwind albums, even. Or
worse (if there *is* worse).

I think it's about time this was stopped. Where might it all lead?



--
Paul Dourish, Rank Xerox EuroPARC, Cambridge, UK   <dourish@europarc.xerox.com>

          "Ain't they got no barbers where you come from, boy?"
From: pwg@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Paul Goldberg)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Our dear alma mater
Date: 30 Jul 92 15:21:51 GMT
Reply-To: pwg@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Paul Goldberg)
Distribution: alt
Organization: Laboratory for the Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh U

In article <24312@castle.ed.ac.uk> egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson) writes:
>I have just been hit with a bill for #100 for photocopying that
>piece of crap which I elevate by calling it a thesis.

It's part of the drive to get people to write shorter theses. Take me
for example. I ran out of ideas after 98 pages. Everyone I talk to
seems to think that this is a Good Thing.

Paul.


Voltaire to Rousseau, on reading Rousseau's "Ode a la Poste'rite'":
"Mon ami, voila une lettre qui ne sera jamais recue a son addresse"
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
From: rickg@netcom.com (Rick Gordon)
Subject: Re: Another dental peeve
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 92 23:13:39 GMT
Organization: Netcom - SF Bay, Cal Northifornia 
Followup-To: alt.peeves

In article <1992Jul21.161824.7263@sco.COM> charles stross writes:

>Today I had my final encounter with my dentist (at least, this
>year's final encounter -- fingers crossed). He's extremely
>good; it was totally painless, except for the final wallet
>extraction (which was carried out without benefit of local
>anaesthesia).

This delicate procedure is known in the medical trades as the
Extranasal Cashectomy.
 
>Charlie Stross aka charless@scol.sco.com ..... UNIX oriented text mangler

-- 
Rick Gordon       | "I was gratified to be able to answer promptly
rickg@netcom.com  |  and I did.  I said I didn't know."  M. Twain
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 19:04:54 EDT
From: Jenni Sheehey <JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Things that go *** in the night
Distribution: alt

In article <24361@castle.ed.ac.uk>, eset08@castle.ed.ac.uk (J Strobridge) says:
>
>And they are followed by the street cleaners -
>sloop, roar, trundle - down one side, up the other.

Peeve: The thought or mention of street cleaners gives me the creeps.
This may be (in fact undoubtedly is) the result of watching a good
number of full rehearsals and a few performances of Tenessee Williams'
Camino Real for a project for my theater class a few years ago.  The
play is great, and the effects for that particular production were just
*too* good.

                                                 --Jenni
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
From: rickg@netcom.com (Rick Gordon)
Subject: The further end of the world as we know it
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 21:14:38 GMT
Organization: Netcom - SF Bay, Cal Northifornia 
Followup-To: alt.peeves

This morning the San Francisco Chronicle ran a full-page ad from The
Emporium (department store), *in color*, announcing their newest
line of neckwear for gentlemen.  The ties are designed by Jerry
Garcia.  Yes, *that* Jerry Garcia.  His smiling countenance graced
the ad.

What's left?

-- 
Rick Gordon      | "It sure was a lot easier to be a political radical
rickg@netcom.com |  when I wasn't making any money."  -- Chris Baldwin
From: geoffm@purplehaze.Corp.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: more advertisements
Followup-To: alt.peeves
Date: 31 Jul 1992 18:49:35 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Menlo Park, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: purplehaze.corp.sun.com



In article <1992Jul30.200617.10544@syma.sussex.ac.uk> serget@syma.sussex.ac.uk
(Serge A Thill) writes:

>They don't. Build their own ones. European cooperation has not yet
>succeded to make the the French and English build the same war planes.

Ever heard of the Jaguar?



Geoff


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Geoff Miller                    + + + + + + + +        Sun Microsystems
geoffm@purplehaze.Corp.Sun.COM  + + + + + + + +     Menlo Park, California
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Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Cain't DO that in Austin!
From: peregrin@husc13.harvard.edu
Date: 28 Jul 92 10:58:20 EDT
Organization: Harvard Business School

> 	Some of the Austin onramps are about 50 feet long and
> 	BING! you is in traffic, NOW.
> 
	Reminds me of the traffic signs on highways in Spain, where your
are warned that the lane ends 10 feet before it does.

> 
> 	Don't try this on the Patriot Expressway or I-10
> 	in El Peso....you won't be able to accelerate more
> 	than 100 meters before encountering yet another
> 	BDI putting along at 40 mph in the right AND left
> 	lane. One thing's for sure; they get their taxes
> 	worth out of the road, by using as many lanes as
> 	possible.
> 

	Ah, El Paso.  I used to love puttering along in my '62 Ford pickup
going about 40mph down I-10.  Feeling relaxed...  singing "On the road again,
I just can't wait to get back on the road again."

-James
From: masticol@cadenza.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: SysAdminPeeve (was 35, and mind already starting to go.....)
Date: 22 Jul 92 14:08:23 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

bberbeni@nyx.cs.du.edu (Bill Berbenich) writes:

>Peeve:  Site Administrators ...

[ etc usw fnord plugh ]

>I believe it is all the result of a
>little Napoleonic/Perotista weasel of a man who was once here but who
>has since departed the campus (and who may even be reading this peeve
>from his current site).  The guy was on a serious power trip.  A real
>control freak of the first water, he was.  I worked for him.  He hired
>me.  He was a jackass.  He left no friends and no sympathetic ears
>behind him because he was a predatory little shit who could care less
>about the people who made him look successful.

Why do so many sysadmins fit this mould (sic)? Does the job attract
antisocial little office generalissimos?

There was a droid I shall call "Larry Solomon," who ran a PDP-11
system at a mythical place I shall call "Kulicke and Soffa Industries,
Inc." His idea of Making der System Safe fur Demokracy was to snoop on
people's files and delete them if he thought they were objectionable.
Once he deleted a game program from a co-worker's directory. Said game
took up little space and wasn't used during work hours. Said co-worker
flatly refused to do any more work on the computer until "Larry
Solomon" mended his ways. I don't remember who won that one.

"Larry Solomon" was also afraid that the computers might someday
become too useful, and refused to run RS-232 lines out to the factory
floor, where they were desperately needed. I guess we were supposed to
download software into RAM and hand-carry the boards back before the
bits disintegrated. I finally ran a line myself, without asking
permission; it impersonated one of our terminals. Worked fine.

"Larry Solomon" also wanted to standardize on Fortran as a language
for machine control. He understood Fortran, I guess.  Well, he didn't
have to write in it... 

A friend of mine, who used to work at RCA, heard me mention the name
of the Evil One and replied, "Omigawd, `Larry Solomon' is working
there?!?!?" He'd apparently had the same rep at RCA, and ducked out at
some point.

I could write a book about the shitty power games, management by
continuous crisis, gigantic egos, ass-kissing, trechary, rewards to
quislings, and punishment of the competent that occurred at "Kulicke
and Soffa."  The whole place was an excellent field study of why the
Japanese are, and probably should be, beating our pants off in
international competition. "K&S" was an education in itself. But
that's a subject for another peeve.

- Steve "Quit with one week's notice, which is more than they
  deserved" masticol@cs.rutgers.edu.
From: geoffm@purplehaze.Corp.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Re: Oh, and one more ...
Followup-To: alt.peeves
Date: 22 Jul 1992 17:55:50 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Menlo Park, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: purplehaze.corp.sun.com



In article <17076@autodesk.COM> booter@Autodesk.COM (Elaine Richards) writes:

>People have utterly no sense of humor about their school mascots. 


I'm *still* incredulous about the change of Stanford's mascot.  The teams
from Stanford used to be known as the Indians -- a fine mascot, that, with
implications of fierceness and pride, and a real slice of Americana to
boot.

But then the Humorless People stepped in and claimed that this mascot was
demeaning to "Native Americans" -- known in the real world, of course, as
"(American) Indians."  How they managed to reach this conclusion is still
unclear, since the moniker was not "Dirt-Poor and Disenfranchised Reservation 
Indians," "The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indians," "Shot By John Wayne 
Indians, or even "Pure and Noble "Dances With Wolves" Indians," but simply 
"Indians" -- a neutral term if ever I heard one.  There are people around,
I've noticed, who are perpetually poised on the balls of their mental feet,
ready to be offended at a moment's notice over the most incredibly trivial
minutiae imaginable.  Merely *mentioning* the name of a racial or ethnic
group -- in any context -- in the absence of pointed, overt praise is enough
to set them off.  Such people should be cuffed heartily across the chops and 
surgically rendered incapable of reproducing.

So now the Stanford mascot is the Cardinal -- not the bird, which wouldn't
be awkward and contrived enough, but the shade of red.  Now is that lame, or
what?

What I don't understand is why the Powers That Be are so spinelessly eager 
to trip all over themselves in their haste to cave in to such crackpot 
malcontents.  Doesn't anybody have the strength of character to tell anyone
to fuck off anymore?  There's no such thing as standing up for a principle
these days, only finding the path of least resistance.  It would've made
my day to hear Donald Kennedy (was he Stanford president at the time?) say,
"I am the president of this university, and you people will not dictate to
me and my administration how to run it.  You are mere *students,* and if
you know what's good for you, you peons will go back to your classes -- 
remember those? -- and concentrate on working toward your degrees, which is
presumably why you're here -- before we expell your whiny asses.   Now run
along before we bring in the truncheons, attack dogs and water cannons."


Geoff


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                      will be retained by the SCCA."
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From: bberbeni@nyx.cs.du.edu (Bill Berbenich)
Subject: Re: Newbie Alert!
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 18:00:06 GMT

In <1992Jul30.051003.2323@cs.yale.edu> elliott-bruce@CS.YALE.EDU (Bruce Elliott) writes:

>In article <1992Jul29.165501.1365@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu> sac@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu writes:

>>peeve: waking up after sleeping with some sufficiently protruding body part
>>resting firmly on the eyelid and having to deal with 20/100 vision through that
>>eye for most of the day.

>This conjures up some really, um, unusual mental images.

Yes, indeed it does.  Hey, sac, can you also part your hair with your tongue?
--
"I am a Dan Quayle Republican and damn proud of it!"
  -overheard at a $1000 per couple Republican fundraiser.
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
From: yarvin@highlite.uucp (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Re: Drug testing and welfare
Summary: O joy of polemic
Organization: Gotham Communications Research
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 05:48:32 GMT

In article <92209.113511JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu> Jenni Sheehey <JMS111@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>
>You don't have Narcotics Anonymous over there?  I know quite a few
>people who have been over here.  Because nobody forced them, they were
>allowed to totally and completely screw up their lives before receiving
>any treatment.  They lost jobs, spouses, they had debtors following them
>everywhere, lost cars, homes...  I'm sure they're really glad now that
>everyone just let them rot.

"You don't have Automobiles Anonymous over there?  I know quite a few
people who have been over here.  Because nobody forced them, they were
allowed to totally and completely lose their lives before receiving
any treatment.  They lost livers, spleens, they had demons following them
everywhere, lost legs, heads...  I'm sure they're really glad now that
everyone just let them rot."

Drugs kill 6000 people every year in the USA; cars kill 50,000.

"You don't have Fatguzzlers Anonymous over there?  I know quite a few people
who have been over here.  Because nobody forced them, they were allowed to
totally and completely screw up their lives before receiving any treatment.
They gained pounds, stones, they had asses the size of a full-grown bull
hippo following them everywhere, gained kilos, okes...  I'm sure they're
really glad now that everyone just let them bloat."

Drugs kill 6000 people every year in the USA; heart attacks kill zillions.

And, of course,

"You don't have Alcoholics Anonymous over there?  I know quite a few
people who have been over here.  Because nobody forced them, they were
allowed to totally and completely screw up their lives before receiving
any treatment.  They lost jobs, spouses, they had debtors following them
everywhere, lost cars, homes...  I'm sure they're really glad now that
everyone just let them rot."

Drugs kill 6000 people every year in the USA; alcohol kills 130,000.

>>Well, given that it costs more to keep addicts in jail than to give them
>>treatment for their addiction, I'd say your big concern should be stopping
>>the "war on drugs" and spending the money on rehabilitation centres.  Then
>>there'd be no money wasted on jailing drug users, and everyone who wanted
>>treatment would be able to get it.
>
>Well, given the fact that the bill doesn't propose to put anyone in
>jail, but merely force them to get treatment...

Ooh, the kindler & gentler approach.  Having given up on the traditional
'Arbeit Macht Frei,' today's hip brownshirt digs a new tune:  'Clean Macht
Frei!'  It's hot!  It's here!  It's nineties! 

c
"Fun stats c/o the Surgeon General's Actuarial Report, 1990"
Newsgroups: alt.peeves