HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gugler-sean@cs.yale.edu (Sean Gugler)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: What one-liner, joke, saying would you like to see on a T-shirt
Date: 24 Jan 1993 02:18:48 -0500
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Undergraduate
Distribution: usa
	<C1AH0J.Gup@news2.cis.umn.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: newt.zoo2.cs.yale.edu
In-reply-to: rgeorge@seasnake.micro.umn.edu's message of Sat, 23 Jan 1993 04:12:17 GMT

In article <C1AH0J.Gup@news2.cis.umn.edu> rgeorge@seasnake.micro.umn.edu (Rogers George) writes:
>In article <C18G3u.9wn@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> saddler@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Ray, just Ray) writes:
>>sunday@cup.portal.com (Sunday and Associates) writes:
>>>	We are preparing a commercial release of T-shirts intended for
>>>the Usenet civilization and related societies.
>>
>>Altho not gut-busters, here's a start:
>>
>>- Visualize Whirlled Peas  <-- I'd buy that one!
>>- You have new mail.
>>- $rm -r /
>>- /earth is 98% full, please delete anyone you can

>how about...
>- [fodder for the line eater]
>- I bet K*bo won't see this.

I wish I had the original attribution; I've seen this in a .signature:

It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
exercise for your kill-file.

-- 
Sean Gugler                         gugler@cs.yale.edu     <-- Internet
P.O. Box 1902 Yale Station         gugseap@yalevm          <-- Bitnet
New Haven, CT  06520   USA         sgugler@music.yale.edu  <-- NeXT
(203)-436-0861            We both have truths; are mine the same as yours?
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: all folklore
From: stoddard@milori.ccit.arizona.edu (MJ STODDARD)
Date: 26 Jan 1993 08:59 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <XcoXXB6w165w@mertwig.uucp>, daniel%mertwig@uunet.uu.net  (Daniel Drucker) writes...
> 
>I'm writing an essay on 'computer folklore', and I know that I'm
> <deleted>
>If anyone could email me things they have, or better, point me towards
>some ftp sites, it would be greatly appreciated.
> 
>I'm looking in particular for older things; more 50s-70s than 80s.
> 
Gopher to Univ Minnesota, Fun and Games, Humor -- one or two of the
stories are Before Hackers. 

Is 1970 really 10BH? -- Jargon file does not give a date for origin
of term.

MJ

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: nolan@lurch.twg.com (Nolan Hinshaw)
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing games too long when...
Reply-To: nolan@twg.com
Organization: Somewhere West of Nowhere
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 19:33:58 GMT


In article <C1H5x5.Cz7@acsu.buffalo.edu>, dudek@acsu.buffalo.edu (The Cybard=) writes:
|>...you dream in 640x480x256 VGA!

I most certainly do not! I dream in 1280X1024X256 on my RISC workstation!

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.lang.misc
From: dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks)
Subject: Re: BCPL
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 18:21:13 GMT

spackman@disco-sol.dfki.uni-sb.de (Stephen Spackman) writes:
| Just exactly the same as C, given a tolerably intelligent compiler, but
| without the "extra unnecessary" datatypes. Not that data types are ever
| extra or unnecessary, but you see what I mean - you could generate
| identical object code once you had re-extracted the type info from the
| source.

No; in C, a pointer always knows what type it is pointing to, so "add 1"
is actually compiled as "add sizeof base type".  In BCPL, there is not
necessarily any information around at compile time as to what the
programmer had in mind for this variable; all variables are declared
without type.  "Add 1" always has to do just that.

| |>    IF 4 <= x <= 8  $( ... $)
| |Usually converted into two tests and a /\ in the first stage of syntactic
| |analysis, though :-)
| 
| Oh, no, probably not. I'd guess (not knowing the language) that if x has
| side effects you can tell the difference. Can it?

The language didn't define how many times x is evaluated.  The standard
analyzer would turn this into a shortcircuit evaluation when it deemed
that safe, but no guarantees.
-- 
David Brooks					dbrooks@osf.org
Open Software Foundation			uunet!osf.org!dbrooks
Shine out, fair sun, with all your heat!  Black winter freezes to his seat...
The boneless fish close quaking lies...the stars in icicles arise!
From: st1g9@rosie.uh.edu (Lee Preimesberger)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Pentia
Date: 23 Jan 1993 16:32 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <alien.02ns@acheron.amigans.gen.nz>, alien@acheron.amigans.gen.nz (Ross Smith) writes...
#If a "586" is a Pentium (pl. Pentia?), then are 386s trivia?

	Hmm, then I guess the P6 will be ye-cleppen the "Sexium."  I can 
hardly wait for the ads! :-)

			  Lee Preimesberger
st1g9@jetson.uh.edu ----- Undergraduate Scum ----- University of Houston, USA
         All models over 18.  Copyright (C) 1992 LP Productions.
                Email for PGP 2.1 Public Encryption Key
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu (Simon E. Booth)
Subject: Re: Creator's room
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 22:24:50 GMT

In article <ENTROPY.93Jan19075507@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu> entropy@gnu.ai.mit.edu (maximum entropy) writes:
>In article <1993Jan19.003804.13715@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu (Simon E. Booth) writes:
>>In article <2086@blue.cis.pitt.edu> wbdst+@pitt.edu (William B Dwinnell) writes:
>>>Anyone remember the "Creator's room", in that "adventure" game, on the
>>>Atari 2600?  Anyone know of other more contmporary things?
>>I remember this!  It was a LONG time (1983 or so) ago, but I only found it
>>once with the help of a friend, but I forgot the exact procedure.  If I recall,
>>you had to find a small dot in the catacombs, then take the dot and literally
>>run into a wall, and with the dot you would go thru the wall, and into the
>>'creator's room'.
>>
>>
>>It's been a while, so my info is faulty.
>
>Aww, you can do better than that...
>
>You needed the invisible dot (from the hidden room in the blue (?)
>maze) and a few other objects, either one gold object or two non-gold
>objects (i think) and then you could go through the gold line (one
>room down, one room right from the gold castle) or some other
>combination of objects (which I forget) to go through the blue line
>(one room down, one room left from the gold castle).  Then you get to
>see a message "Created by Warren Robinett" in flashing colored
>letters.  Oh boy.
>
>The real question is...did you find this out for yourself, or were you
>told about it?  I remember spending hors trying to figure out what
>the hell that dot was for, and being pretty surprised when I got
>through th

No, I a friend and I spent a good several hours hunting around the whole
Adventure game looking for the dot. He had heard about the procedure, but
actually finding the dot and the hidden room was still hit and miss.

Was the hidden room story actually written someplace or did someone just
find it by accident?  Or did the programmer leak the info?

Simon
From: pt@geovision.gvc.com (Paul Tomblin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: You know you've been playing games too long when...
Date: 27 Jan 93 15:19:35 GMT
Reply-To: pt@geovision.gvc.com
Organization: Not officially GeoVision Systems Inc., Ottawa, Ontario

ina_craig@actew.oz.au (Craig Alexander) writes:

>I have heard stories of the game Tetris affecting people like this but much
>more severely. Some people have said that they have gotten to the stage where
>they can play tetris in their heads without needing a computer. 

Yes - our term for it here was ``Tetris Dreams'', and they can be very
distracting.  One of my friends would page out during a conversation, and
come back and say `Sorry, just fitting a S block'!

And Eric wouldn't take the term `Tetris Dreams' for his jargon file.

-- 
Paul Tomblin, pt@compass.gvc.com
(This is not an official opinion of GeoVision Systems Inc.)
I've always wanted to know what's around the next bend
   - Herman Smith (Jackrabbit) Johansen. 1875-1983
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: kodak@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Jason 'KodaK' Balicki)
Subject: Re: VIC-20 returns!
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 03:54:29 GMT

In article <C1D5EH.4zM@newcastle.ac.uk> S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk writes:
[]
>duck before a dart gun fired one of those rubber air-propelled
>darts at about throat level.
[]

Where does one get large amounts of rubber air?

>Scott
>EMAIL: S.A.McIntyre@durham.ac.uk   OR   scott@shrug.dur.ac.uk (NeXTmail)


-- 
Jason Balicki | kodak@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: mdw@theory.TC.Cornell.EDU (Matt Welsh)
Subject: Re: <None>
Organization: Jim's Burger Hut and Ferengi Tavern, Deep Space Nine
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 06:20:02 GMT

In article <1993Jan20.230754.13884@bsu-ucs> 01ksdavis@leo.bsuvc.bsu.edu (Rebel without a pause.) writes:
>In article <17989@umd5.umd.edu>, matthews@oberon.umd.edu (Mike Matthews) writes:
[ article deleted ]
>> ------
>> Mike Matthews, matthews@oberon.umd.edu (NeXTmail accepted)
>> ------
>> There is no remedy for sex but more sex.
>	Too true.
>
>	How about one for Amigas?

I'm sorry, I totally read this out of context. I thought the "Too true"
and "How about one for Amigas" had something to do with the sex quote...

mdw

-- 
Matt Welsh     mdw@tc.cornell.edu     Cornell Theory Center
  "Donuts. Is there anything they can't do?" 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phill Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: BCPL
Keywords: where`o'where
Reply-To: Hallam@zeus02.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 18:37:49 GMT

In article <30241@optima.cs.arizona.edu>, dave@cs.arizona.edu (Dave Schaumann)
writes:

|>In article <P9aqXB1w165w@mantis.co.uk> tony@mantis.co.uk (Tony Lezard)
|>writes:
|>>I can't think of any languages [besides BCPL] where you can make tests of
|>>the form
|>>
|>>    IF 4 <= x <= 8  $( ... $)
|>>
|>>(with the test succeeding if x is between 4 and 8 inclusive.)
|>
|>You can do this in icon.

You can also do it in Z since it is logicaly equivalent to

4 <= x  AND  x <= 8

However the same may not hold for animated (ie executable) versions of Z.


--

Phill Hallam-Baker
From: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Creator's room
Date: 22 Jan 93 16:03:29 GMT
Reply-To: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson, TX
X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson.
              Any opinions expressed are strictly those of the
              user and not necessarily those of Ericsson.

Simon E. Booth writes:
>
>Was the hidden room story actually written someplace or did someone just
>find it by accident?  Or did the programmer leak the info?

According to the programmer, some kid found it first and leaked it to
Atari.  It's much different nowadays when game companies intentionally
hide important features and then send out press releases to get more
publicity.  (The ultimate example of this is in the recently released
TurboDuo--there is an entire _game_ hidden in the system which can be
accessed by pressing a certain key combination.)

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
From: frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger)
Subject: So you want to be an apprentice
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Keywords:  
	Everybody wants to be a wizzard, but we forget that before we become
	wizzards, we have to be apprentices sometime. We all forget the dumb
	things we did when we were new.
Reply-To: frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Organization: Joint Center for Radiation Therapy
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 17:15:00 GMT

	To commemorate this, I suggest forming apprentice awards, based upon
	the sci-fi character of Wuntvor, apprentice to Ebenezum the wizzard,
	(thrust into a starring role when his master becomes allergic to doing
	any magic.) The award should be the "Wuntie"

	Here's my submission, a piece of code to convert a date string in the
	form 11-JAN-93 into a form that works out to be day of century. It of
	course has to account for leap years...

	MOV	(R1)+,R5	;YEAR IN R5
	BIT	#3,R5		;IS YEAR DIVISIBLE BY 4?
	BNE	NOTLPY		;NO ITS NOT LEAPYEAR
	INCB	DAYSMO+2	;INCREMENT # OF DAYS IN FEB TO 29
	NOTLPY:

	Works fine the first time you call it, but if you don't reset FEB
	back to 28 before exiting the sub, ... Golly, Februarys seem to be
	getting longer all the time...

   Frank R. Borger - Physicist    __       George Halas had two heirs; one
Michael Reese - Univ. of Chicago |___      carried his seed and one carried his
  Center for Radiation Therapy   | |_) _   soul. ... One can imagine the wisper
    "Birthplace of Softball"       | \|_)  of George Halas, rooting for his
Internet:  Frank@rover.uchicago.edu   |_)  soul. - Jeannie Morris
Phone : 312-791-8075 fax : 567-7455        
Xref: sparky alt.folklore.computers:19282 comp.lang.misc:4154
From: lgraham@aisun2.ai.uga.edu (Laurel K. Graham [MSAI])
Subject: An addition to a strange occurance
Organization: University of Georgia
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 12:28:19 GMT


I just wanted to ask if anyone had also experienced anything similar to what
I described?  If so, please post the experience or send me e-mail.  I have
never met anyone who has experienced this also.  

Thanks.
Laurel.
From: masri@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Ouija
Date: 28 Jan 93 20:54:20 GMT
Reply-To: masri@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University

I remember we did an experiment on this in my psychology class in college.

The reason the ouija board tells you things only YOU know is because it's
you telling yourself things.  The was the professor showed us was to have
a girl (me) take her necklace with a pendant on it off and hold it hanging
down from her hand.  You can try this at home.  Hold a necklace with some-
thing heavy hanging on the bottom.  Hold the clasp part of the necklace 
between your index finger and your thumb.  Now ask the necklace a yes or
no type question.  If the necklace swings right to left the answer is "yes"
if it swings forward and back the answer is "no".  

We did this in class and the answer was ALWAYS right!  Then the professor
explained to us that the reason is because (even though you think you're
holding the necklace still) you are very, very subtly causing the necklace
to swing in the right direction for the answer.  So, for example, you could
ask the necklace a question only you know the answer to and it's going to
give you the right answer exactly because you know the right answer.  If you
ask it a question that you don't know the answer to, it will tell you what
you THINK the answer is.  

In other words, it's just your sub-conscious acting out what you believe.
The professor told us this is the same principle as the ouija board.  And
that people hear what they want to from a ouija board.  He also said that
usually when people are playing with one of those things, if they want to
be scared they will be and if they want to "contact" someone they will --
but only in their own mind.

My .02 worth.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
From: reynold@binah.cc.brandeis.edu ("Susan Reynold (w/out the s)")
Subject: Re: THE CAT
Reply-To: reynold@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 19:21:09 GMT

In article <1jntdpINNif7@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>, molin@ptb.cl.msu.edu (Michael Olin) writes:
>trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks) writes:
>
>> What's so bad about being haunted by a cat? Unless you don't like cats, that
>>is...
>>Give it a name and it'll probably get bored and go away...
>
>Better yet, befriend it...  Lord knows, if you can be haunted by a cat,
>there's probably also a mouse or two hiding in your fears.

I'm allergic to cats.  Perhaps a ghost cat would make a great pet for
someone like me!  Or perhaps it would make me sneeze anyway?

Susan
From: st17y@jane.uh.edu (Belding, Troy C.)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Re: An addition to a strange occurance
Date: 25 Jan 1993 17:29 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: jane.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1993Jan24.181412.10129@iscsvax.uni.edu>, mcmurtrey@iscsvax.uni.edu writes...
>In article <93023.233329LMS5@psuvm.psu.edu>, <LMS5@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>> In article <1jt3ftINN52t@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu>, probe@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Prabal
>> Nandy) says:
>>>
>> 
>>   Things like this used to bother me until I found out from an eye doctor that
>>   have 'floaters'. I am not exactly sure what they are composed of but they
>>   make you see dark images like the above. Now, when I see something like that,
>>   I kinda find it amusing :-)
>> 
>        I occasionally have a problem with floaters also, they are strands of
>tissue that are in you eyes.  They are situated on the outside of the eyeball
>but inside your lid. They look much like a clear hair up to an inch long.  They
>don't hurt luckily.  I have no idea why they occur.  I do know that when one
>drifts across your cornea (they float around) it causes a very weird bluring or
>distortions.  They're not as wide as your cornea so only a band of bluring will
>occur.
> 
>        Any help?
> 

The closest to this that I have run across is Cholesterol.  It floats around 
in the fluid on your eyes, and then when it passes across your field of view
it causes blurring.  This is because it is semi-transparent, and can let
some, but not all light through.  It is annoying, but not harmful, at least
according to my doctor.


>                                                        Diana
> 
> 
> 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'll get a life when it is proven          Troy C. Belding
and substantiated to be better             ST17Y@JETSON.UH.EDU
than what I am currently                  
experiencing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: probe@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Prabal Nandy)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Re: Shadow Creatures
Date: 25 Jan 1993 00:45:06 -0500
Organization: Homewood Academic Computing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu
Keywords: shadow, ghosts, animals, rats, corner of the eye

   I've also seen quite a bit of 'detail' out of the corners of my eyes with
these shadow creatures, and have often gotten the 'impression' of added
detail as well... The funny thing is that the more I think about them, the
more detail I feel like I've seen... 
   Again, I think it's the brain having a little bit of REM type sleep while
we're not paying total attention to everything in our peripheral vision...
When I have a full night's sleep, I never have these visions...


-- 
      /| ________________   |probe@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu|  Lord of the Flies 
O|===|* >________________>  |probe@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu|  1st MPC Division
      \|                    | nandy@scivax.stsci.edu |  Colony Mechworks
  Velox - Durus - Infestus  |  nandy@fos.stsci.edu   |  Colony World Myops
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
From: trifid@agora.rain.com (Roadster Racewerks)
Subject: Night struggles
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 11:20:47 GMT



My long-time "boyfriend" (we're 50-something, but there isn't a better word, I
guess) has this inability to move while becoming conscious at night, and since
I'm a light sleeper, he's asked me to wake, or at least shake him when I hear
him struggling. Doesn't happen every night, but I've learned to notice the
signs, which include soft, incoherent attempts to tell me he's become "stuck"
as he calls it, once again. (He remembers it as actually saying words but no
one understands him..) I shake him a bit and he either wakes up or goes back
to a more relaxed sleep mode. Evidently he finds it unpleasant enough to want
to be "rescued" even though he knows what it is. I, on the other hand, when it
happens to me take the attitude "Oh, I'm paralysed again," and since I know it's
not permanent, and that it's normal, I just go back to sleep until it passes
by itself. When I was small, though, it used to bring on nasty nightmares, 
often of being run down by a horse or car (I love both and hung around them a
lot) and not being able to run or move out of the way. Obviously a semi-aware
result of really being unable to move. The nightmares stopped when I said to
myself "Well, I know I don't die when I have these dreams, I think I'll just
wait and see what happens." What happened is that if I didn't struggle, the
dream ended before I "died". That seems to have cured that particular sort of
dream for me. (Thank heavens!)

But the paralysis is certainly better than being able to "run" in your sleep,
because before I figured it out, sometimes I did manage to "break free", which
always resulted in my falling out of bed, sometimes from the top bunk!

Ouch!

Suze
(Just call me "lumpy" ;-)
trifid@agora.rain.com

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
From: jhunter@willamette.edu (Jason Hunter)
Subject: Re: Campus Ghosts or Legends? (was Re:...)
Organization: Willamette University, Salem OR
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 21:01:10 GMT

  I'll add a little of Willamette University's ghost-legends.  In Lausanne
Hall there has always been a rumor that one girl hung herself in the closet
and has since haunted the room.  Which room it happened in wouldn't be
disclosed to us, just that it was on the second floor.  Well, people told
stories about hauntings like hearing noises in the attic.  As I understand,
when people investigated the noise, they found a couple buck naked.  However,
one day I was touring a prospective student and her mother.  It was
interesting because the mother had been a student here years ago.  In fact,
she had lived in my hall... Lausanne.  Well, she said that she lived in the
haunted room and had experienced some form of lights going across the room
accompanied by sounds of walking.  I knew the girls who lived in her old room,
so we decided to stop by.  I greeted my friends in a funny way, telling them
that there room was indeed the haunted one.  The girl who answered the door
seemed shocked when I told her the symptoms of the hauntings because she
claimed to have seen them too.  I was skeptical until she woke up her roommate
that was napping and said, "This woman used to live here and saw the same
things we did the other day!"  The napper knew what she was talking about.  It
makes a person wonder.

-jh-
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
From: linkletter@venus.cc.hollandc.pe.ca (CUM SUAS A' GHAIDHLIG)
Subject: Re: Ouija Boards
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: Holland College - Charlottetown PEI
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 17:59:00 GMT

In article <gj156879.727631066@cunews>, gj156879@alfred.carleton.ca ( gj student 156879) writes...
>I'm new to this particular group, so I have no idea if this topic has
>been broached before, but has anyone in here had bizarre experiences
>with those spooky hunks of cheap pressed wood?  They can make for
>great fun and weirdness, both scaring you silly and for strange
>laughs.
> 
>My own experiences are long and strange (too long to describe, unless
>someone pushes me into doing it) but involved demons, trees, wizards,
>dryads, lying spirits, etc.
> 
>At least that's what they SEEMED to be.  That's what they SAID they
>were, if/when they did say it.
> 
>My opinions on the matter:  maybe it's real, maybe it's not, I don't
>know.  It can really be proved so never mind.
> 
>I heard one person (professional occultist???) on some tv show say
>that using a ouija board is like opening all the doors and windows in
>your house and waiting to see who shows up.
> 
>          Any other experiences out there?
>                              Nik
> 
I would be ineterested in hearing about your experiences with a ouija board!
Tell us about them!!
                                    Michael