HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jim@visix.com (Jim Edwards-Hewitt)
Subject: Re: Filthy Pierre's Convention List -- how to get?
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 17:20:56 GMT
Reply-To: jim@visix.com
Organization: Visix Software Inc., Reston, VA


>Jonathan Monsarrat (jgm@cs.brown.edu) wrote:
>: How can I get Filthy Pierre's list of conventions? I need the street
>: address and the asking price.
>
>I need it to.  But please don't mail the info to the address in the header;
>send to mavra@wizards.com.  Thanks!

Since it seems to be a FAQ:

The SF Con Register
Box 3343
Fairfax, VA 22038

I don't have current issue handy, so I can't quote the subscription prices,
but you can find out by calling:

Filthy Pierre's HOT LINE: (703) 2SF_DAYS (273-3297), 10am-10pm Eastern Time.

	-- Jim

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Edwards-Hewitt               jim@visix.com | Life is a game where 
President, Interactive Literature Foundation   | you play yourself.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
From: exile@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Heresiarch)
Subject: Re: Looking for dates and places of "proof-of-age-required" cons.
Reply-To: exile@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Organization: The Torch of Chaos and Doubt
Distribution: rec
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 00:00:20 GMT

gaylaxicon always requires proof of age.  persons under 18 must be
accompanied by a parent.  while i lament the fact that gayness is
assumed to be a topic for adults only, the age limit does allow
gaylaxicon to have many racy panels and artwork that would not be
allowed in an all-ages con.  btw, at the last gaylaxicon in
philadelphia, the only security incident of note was some mundanes who
wandered into the art show and were immediately confronted with lots
of lovely paintings of satyrs with erect penises.  said mundanes got
royally offended, but there wasn't much they could so since the art
show had big, blatant signs that said "convention members only" and
"NC-17".  

gaylaxicon '93, which was supposed to be held in chicago, has been
cancelled, due to lamentable fact number two.  when playing major gay
activities two or three years in advance, one must allow for the fact
that some of the planners may be too ill (or, in fact, deceased) to
complete the planning.  gaylaxicon '94 will be down near dc.  probably
in july, but i don't remember exactly when.

but ultimately, there aren't many sf cons for adults only.  they would
die out rather quickly without a pool of enthusiastic young people to
replace the burned-out committee members.
--
<SIG>___________________________________________________________________
blues-hearted lady, sleepy was she
    love for the devil brought her to me
                                           -aerosmith             </SIG>
From: ig25@fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Thomas Koenig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Niven/Pournelle, continued
Date: 23 Jan 93 13:54:18 GMT
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, Germany
NNTP-Posting-Host: fg70.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de

mt90dac@brunel.ac.uk (Del Cotter) writes:

>puckett@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov (Jim Puckett) writes:
>>Wow! All these different Niven male/female disparity thingies going on, and
>>nobody mentioned the Grendels, where the females (those are the big, ugly
>>dragon critters) _eat_ the males (being the samlon - no, i didn't misspell
>>that, read the book) and are _much_ more intelligent, agressive, etc.

>Sorry, the adults of both sexes eat the young, of both sexes.  Read the book.

No.  The young ones are the males, which get eaten by the adult females.
Those that don't grow up to be females themselves.
-- 
Thomas Koenig, ig25@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25@dkauni2.bitnet
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double logarithmic
diagram.
From: demon@desire.wright.edu (Not a Boomer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Pern/Computers, and DOS
Date: 22 Jan 93 15:39:04 EST
Organization: ACME Products

In article <1993Jan22.012023.63037@cc.usu.edu>, sl7sg@cc.usu.edu writes:
> 
> 	Sorry, if this has been discussed already, and all the other
> disclaimers...(for some odd reason, my site did not have this higharchy of
> groups...)
> 
> 	Anyhow, I just finished reading the last pern book, and I was hit with
> something odd.  Did you notice that when the AI told Jarom (sp?) to run a
> program onboard the ship, to turn the shields on (during a swarm of thread,
> still in space) it said run DESTROY.EXE
> 	Don't you think that is odd, you would have thought they would have
> gotten away from dos, by that timeperiod...(at least the .exe extension).
> 	also, I wonder what type of computer Anne Mccaffery uses?   :)

	Just more evidence that authors who happen to use word processors
should not try to describe AI (or any advanced computers).

	Did you note the "cursor" on the screen?  Like an AI would still be
using a CLI?

Brett
________________________________________________________________________________
	"There's nothing so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an
intellectual conviction."  Sean O'Casey in _The White Plague_ by Frank Herbert.
From: mc7f+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael P Collins)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Covenant with AIDS
Date: 24 Jan 93 18:22:16 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.rec.arts.sf.written: 20-Jan-93 Covenant with AIDS
by aaron@atlantis.uucp 
>  
> He wouldn't be able to determine the effects of the hurtloam as quickly,
> since I don't think AIDS has as perceptible symptoms as leprosy.  And the
> constant need for VSE's in leprosy doesn't really have an equivalent in AIDS.
> But a good writer could, perhaps, think of equivalents or merely obviate the
> need for them.

I don't think so.  The real essence of Coveneant's Leprosy is delineated
in LFB.  Remember the doctor saying that Leprosy is not a "Romantic"
disease?  

Because of his leprosy, Covenant becomes a pariah, reviled by all the
people in this world.  Regardless of how noble an action on earth is, he
is never accepted by his fellows on earth.  In contrast, any action he
takes in the Land, regardless of how reprehensible it is, is accepted.  

The other little detail is that leprosy is a...hmm..."Cynic's" disease. 
Like Donaldson says, fantasy is the death of lepers; you end up
hungering for everything you cannot have because your survival depends
on a strict regimen of self-discipline.

Just a thought here, but Donaldson keeps repeating that Leprosy is an
arrestable disease.  Covenant can life a (relatively) normal life so
long as he VSE's and takes his drugs.  That's one of the major
underlying themes of Covenant:His survival hinges on his free-will.  HE
decides whether he's going to live or die.   That's a liberty robbed
from AIDS patients.

No, I don't think it would work. Too many of the major themes would be
destroyed.
From: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge's new book...
Date: 26 Jan 93 14:22:58 GMT
Article-I.D.: netnews.106607
Reply-To: weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
In-reply-to: matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)

In article <MATT.93Jan25121231@physics2.berkeley.edu>, matt@physics2 (Matt Austern) writes:
>We can imagine that the postings seem more sensible to the alien
>civilizations that posted them than they do to us, and that the
>sophomoric flavor of many of the postings is just the way that the
>translation programs attempt to deal with what are really
>incomprehensibly alien viewpoints.

Death to vermin.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: smb@research.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Subject: Re: The the great ongoing misogyny/misandry discussion
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 02:27:51 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories

In article <1jp3rqINNkk5@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, phydeaux@guru.med.cornell.edu (Dave Weingart) writes:
> Worst example of a War-Between-the-Sexes I can recall was a book (by an
> author mercifully forgotten) called "Native Tongue," about a tribe of
> professional translators on an Earth where women are legally inferior
> (apparently deemed so by some bizarre scientific finding in the past,
> although the woman who wrote it never bothered to explain it).

For what it's worth, I enjoyed the book.  Be that as it may -- if the
perceived ideological bias offends you, think of such books as counter-
weights.  And if you ask ``counterweights to what?'', I'll reply, ``My
point exactly.''

Need another clue?  Think about how women are generally portrayed (or,
oftentimes, not portrayed) in most science fiction, especially anything
more than 15 or so years old.  It isn't really relevant that you (and I)
think that most authors wrote that way because of how they were brought
up -- what I'm saying is that given the existing corpus, an alternate
view (and isn't that what science fiction is about?) is both useful and
necessary.

		--Steve Bellovin
From: phardie@nastar.uucp (Pete Hardie)
Newsgroups: misc.written,rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: A *what* fingered hand?
Date: 20 Jan 93 16:09:07 GMT
Organization: Digital Transmission Systems, Duluth, GA.

In article <1993Jan19.052153.8148@nwnexus.WA.COM> elf@halcyon.com (Elf Sternberg) writes:
>   I ran into an interesting problem last night, and it's a bit of a
>show about how frustrating these little details can be sometimes when
>writing science fiction.  Let's say I have a character with the
>following hand:
>        _   _   _
>   _   | | | | | |  Basically, this is a poor ascii attempt to render a
>  / \  | | |_| | |  hand with four digits.  But I can't stand the word
>  | |  | | [_] | |  'digits.'  So, let me ask my question:
>  \  \_| | | | | |
>   \             |  Is this a four-fingered hand or a three-fingered
>    \            |  hand?  In either case, do I count these fingers
>     \           |  (from left to right) as 'Thumb, first, second,
>      \          |  third,' or is it 'Thumb, second, third, fourth?'
>

IMHO, if the creature has X digits, with Y of them non-opposable and 
Z opposable, the opposable digits are thumbs, unless Y = 0, when you
call the Zs fingers/toes.  If Y = 1, it's really a Z.


-- 
Pete Hardie:  phardie@nastar  (voice) (404) 497-0101
Digital Transmission Systems, Inc., Duluth GA
Member, DTS Dart Team           |  cat * | egrep -v "signature virus|infection" 
Position:  Goalie               |
From: mjw@ocf.berkeley.edu (Marshall Wang)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Aes Sedai
Date: 27 Jan 1993 08:47:41 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: maelstrom.berkeley.edu

In article <93026.134439CSD108@psuvm.psu.edu> <CSD108@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>
>2 at end of EOTW - Aginor and Balthamel
>One Rand caught - Asmodean
>One with Morgase - Rahvin (?)
>Butt-whipped by Nynaeve - Moghedien (sp?)
>One killed in Tear - Ishamael (?)
>
>Sammael, I think is running around in Illian.
>And if I can remember right, Moiraine nailed Belal with balefire (currently
>in the process of re-reading The Dragon Reborn- that part's coming up)

	Does anyone know the gender of all of the Forsaken?  The ones
that we know for sure are:

Male:				Female:
	Aginor				Lanfear
	Asmodean			Moghedien
	Balthamel			Graendal
	Be'lal				   (mentioned by Lanfear in TSR)
	Ishamael
	Rahvin
	Sammael

Unknown:
	Demandred
	Mesaana
	Semirhage

	From one of Egwene's dreams in TGH, there are supposed to be 5
female out of the 11 Forsakens left at the time.  Mesaana sounds female,
so that's accounts for four.  I'd think the last one is probably Semirhage.

	Also, since most of the male Forsaken went after positions
of power, some of the females should have done the same.  Maybe the trouble
in Saldaea is caused by one of them.  Any other ideas as to what they're 
up to?

>--Craig D.
>
>_______________________________________________________________________
>|  Trouble with Tribbles? Try  |  Internet: CSD108@psuvm.psu.edu      |
>|       - N E R P S ! -        |  Bitnet  : CSD108@psuvm              |
>|        For Tribbles          |  "668: Neighbor of the Beast"        |
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------

						Marshall Wang
						mjw@ocf.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: dcs@neutron.chem.yale.edu (Dave Schweisguth)
Subject: Re: Vernor Vinge's new book...
Organization: Yale University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 17:47:18 GMT

Lenore Levine (levine@symcom.math.uiuc.edu) wrote:
: [A Fire Upon the Deep] ... just came out in paperback; and I really enjoyed
: reading it. I liked the original scientific concepts and species design
: (which seem to be very rare in 90's SF). 
: I would like to know what people think of this book.

Just finished it. I particularly liked the Tines/Packfolk version of group
minds, and was sorry that none of them made it to the Beyond. The several
distinct side effects of the radio cloaks were well worked out. On the other
hand, Vinge is no Wolfe, and the aliens were altogether too human. I was
reminded of Hal Clement on a larger scale. Mind you, I do like Hal Clement.

: P.S. Notice how well he's captured the flavor of the Net? I'm sure
: that "Death to Vermin" guy's posted here before :-) . 

See alt.fan.rush-limbaugh. The "is-Vinge-on-Usenet?" business was discussed
to death here when the hardback came out, and I can't see why. It's such an
obvious steal, right down to the cheesy headers. If 50,000 years and the
computational advantages of the Beyond don't improve network communications,
I'll stick with the Slow Zone. I only caught one glimmer of technological
innovation, when a burning smell on the Olvira turned out to be a
_diagnostic_.

Cheers,

--
| Dave Schweisguth   Yale MB&B & Chemistry   Net: dcs@neutron.chem.yale.edu |
| Lab phone: 203-432-5208     Fax: 203-432-6144    Home phone: 203-624-3866 |
| For complying with the NJ Right To Know Act:  Contents partially unknown. |
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: martinw@comm.mot.com (Martin Wetterhorn)
Subject: Re: Aes Sedai(apology) 
Organization: Motorola LMPS Research; Schaumburg, Il
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:57:57 GMT

		I keep losing parts of my messages. Please bare with
From: rmv@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Robin Vickery)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Bridge of Birds
Keywords: book
Date: 21 Jan 93 13:14:16 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh

In article <1993Jan20.030613.19617@netcom.com>, dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
> "The Bridge of Birds" is by Barry Hughart.  Great Stuff.  There are
> two sequels, "The Story of the Stone" and "Eight Skilled Gentlemen",
> both of which are also worth seeking out.
>

I thought the sequels were no where near as good as Bridge of Birds, they seemed
much too contrived, however that's just my opinion.
I particularly like the way Number Ten Ox appears to be such an innocent, but the
way he makes friends in the city...

	-rob
 
 _____    _____    _____  
|  _  \  |     |  |  _  \    Rob Vickery - rmv@uk.ac.ed.dcs        |||||
|     <  |  X  |  |  _  <                                         ( o o )
|__|\__> |_____|  |_____/       Murphy was an optimist       --ooO--(_)--Ooo--
From: Beth.Friedman@p5.f341.n282.z1.tdkt.kksys.com (Beth Friedman)
Sender: FredGate@tdkt.kksys.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Woman of the Iron People; was: (Re: H.B. Franklin (was Re: SF as ..
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 20:18:18 -0600

 G> Did it get at least nominated for something important 
 G> in its year?
  
Depends what you mean by "important."  It was up for the Minnesota Book Award in
the SF/fantasy category (I think Will Shetterly's ELSEWHERE won) and it won
whatever award the Mythopoeic Society gives out.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: aaron@atlantis.uucp
Subject: Canadian Slave Magic
Organization: Atlantis Communications, Edmonton, AB, Canada
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 05:16:25 GMT

I just got finished reading two books, both(not coincidentally--it's Aurora
time again)by Canadian authors, both fantasies.  Snowbrother by S.M. Stirling,
and Greenmagic by Crawford Kilian.  (Yes, r.a.sf.w's very own.  I'd appreciate
your input on this one too, since you wrote one of them...)

Both of them had certain features in common.  Specifically, there were two
races, one of which was militarily inclined, and had a magic that suited that
inclination--straightforward, mostly, and geared towards practical and often
destructive ends.  The other race was more pacifistic, tried to live in
harmony with nature, and had a magic that also sought this resonance with
nature.  The military race took the other race as slaves quite commonly.

I don't think it's spoiling too much in the plots of both books to say that,
by and large(in Snowbrother it's more ambiguous)the slave race are the more
sympathetic, but the master race also have their own system of thought, and
can't understand how their slaves think, nor the basis for their magic.  The
slaves' magic, while more subtle than the masters', does prove effective to
some extent(moreso in Greenmagic than Snowbrother).

Comments?  I guess what I'm driving at is--is this tiny subgenre of fantasy
a distinctly Canadian phenomenon, or can non-Canadian examples be found as
well?  And, Crawford, I'd be interested in what led you to come up with the
configuration you did, if possible...

-- 
---Alfvaen(Still looking for "October's Baby")
"I tell everyone a different story...that way nothing's ever boring."              ---Jane Siberry
Current Album--Paul Young:The Secret of Association
Current Read--Michelle Sagara:Into The Dark Lands
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: gt3617a@cc.gatech.edu (GRIZZLE)
Subject: Re: Looking for obscure O.S.Card and H.Ellison
Reply-To: gt3617a@cc.gatech.edu (GRIZZLE)
Organization: College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 20:01:51 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.091534.1@ducvax.auburn.edu> cwalters@ducvax.auburn.edu writes:
>Hi all.
>
>I'm trying to test out this new rare/hard-to-find book searcher
>here in town, and I need some help... :)
>
>A friend once told me of a book by Orson Scott Card called "Saint Speak:
><something I've forgotten>".  He had a co-writer on this thing, too. I


I have a book by O. S. Card called _Saints_ I havn't read it yet, like alot of
my other books, but is this the same book as _Saint Speak_ ?

Just Wondering.
					
					-Jon Grizzle (gt3617a@cc.gatech.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: martinw@ss14.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Martin Wetterhorn)
Subject: Re: Aes Sedai(mat) 
Organization: Motorola LMPS Research; Schaumburg, Il
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 19:53:26 GMT
Keywords: My sincere apologies for my botched replies. I'm still working
	bugs out for using the net.

	What I keep trying to say in regard to mat, is that he began
	speaking the old tongue, during the fight against trollocs
	before reaching Shadar Logoth.
From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Is SF imaginative? (somewhat long)
Date: 27 Jan 1993 05:55:47 GMT
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
NNTP-Posting-Host: cobra.cs.berkeley.edu

In article <1993Jan26.145933.25389@cs.rochester.edu> garrett@cs.rochester.edu (Bill Garrett) writes:
>
>I'm not impressed by SF authors who wave around scientific theory and
>basic, bastardized theories of history, economics and ecology, while
>displaying massive ignorance of sociology, psychology  and the 
>human condition.

Ah, but sir; no one knows anything about sociology, psychology,
or the human condition.  (Although the pretence can be pleasant.)

And all theories of history, economics, and ecology are
bastardized, because if they weren't they'd be far too complex
for any human to understand.

So what you are left with is the choice between scientific
theory and no scientific theory.  

Many scientists find this an easy choice.

Me I like my fiction 100% fact-free.  Excess attachment to
reality is a sign of deep insecurity.  Unca Ergot tell me dat.
Yeah.

c
From: hammerl@acsu.buffalo.edu (Valerie S. Hammerl)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Jordan's Wheel of Time
Date: 27 Jan 93 19:09:08 GMT
Organization: UB



This may be farfetched, but I thought I'd throw it in anyway...

House of Damodred -- is there any relation of this to Mordred,
Arthur's son?  Is there a relation in lineage to the house as a
descendant of Artur Hawkwing?

I really ought to reread the books...


-- 
Valerie Hammerl 	       John Sr. would lift Pat over the boards, grab 
hammerl@acsu.buffalo.edu       his hand, and start running around the outside,
V085PWPZ@UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU  faster and faster.  "I wanted to learn how to 
get that feeling, and the only way was to learn how to skate."  P. LaFontaine
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
From: robertm@alumni.cs.colorado.edu (MONTGOMERY ROBERT PH)
Subject: Re: Tolkien's (and Donaldson's) style (was Re: writing Styles)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 02:14:03 GMT

On the subject of Middle-Earth maps, I'd like to thank Erich
Schneider for the following suggestion:

> Very good maps of Middle-Earth, with annotations of things like travel
> paths and times, are to be found in Karen Wynn Fonstad's _Atlas of
> Middle Earth_.

-Rob
From: mlo@bio-rad.COM (Mark L. Olson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: How Can You Lose a Planet?
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:56:53 GMT
Reply-To: mlo@bio-rad.com

I think that you are all still underestimating the size and
complexity of the Library.  To begin with, I don't think that
a 'text-only' library is at all plausible.  Galactic information
technology is quite a bit advanced beyond 1993's technology and 
even today images and the like are starting to show up.  Within
my company email has just started to routinely include whole
Excel and WfW documents.  

In the long run, pure text will be a miniscule part of any library.
And what format will the rest be in?  I doubt that the Galactic
culture has had stable and universal software standards for the past
billion years -- to a good first approximation, *all* the data
in the library is in obsolete formats.  Perhaps, depending on
whether there's much technological change, even on obsolete
types of media.  I would think that a major part of the Library
Institute's job is bringing data into useable formats.

Estimate the volume of the data.  Make the unit the U which is the
volume of the data produced by the US on computers since the begining.
An entire world of US's would produce 10**2 U of data.  I believe that
the multimedia, etc., revolution that hasn't yet begun will result in
a 10**2-10**3 increase in annual output volume.  For all practical
purposes, the entire US production of data has been in the last ten 
years.

So.  That give a world output of data at 10**4 E/year/world.  10**9
years.  10**5-10**6 worlds on average.  Call it 10**18 U of data.  Not
10**18 bytes, but 10**18 U!  And I think that I've *greatly* underestimated
the rate at which data is produced by an advance society.  (BTW, I'm
not assuming that most of it is particularly valuable data or that
there isn't vast duplication, but that doesn't help the Library much!)

Obviously much of this data is never exported to the Libarry in the
first place.

Secondly, indexing.  All that data -- in alien languages, formats
and media -- must be indexed to be useable.  I can't believe that 
the Galactic Library Institute is up to the task!

I imagine that the way a subset library is produced is that the
subset library is entirely digests, excyclopedias, reviews, monographs
and the like with relatively litle original data.  Given the volume of
data it's the only way to produce a maximally useful subset.  If
true, it's easy to imagine that critical data might be missing from
a branch.

It's much harder to see how Earth could be missing from the
mass of raw data unless there was some ongoing suppression of
it whenever an indexer stumbles upon some data about it.

--mlo
----------------------------------------------------------------
Mark L. Olson    Bio-Rad / 237 Putnam Ave. / Cambridge, MA 02139
mlo@bio-rad.com                                     617-868-4330

Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written