HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: etlanar@slartibartfast.ericsson.se (Alan Arthur)
Subject: Re: Notes (was Re: Counterfeitin')
Organization: Ericsson Cellular Division
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 12:18:02 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.110137.20764@nntp.nta.no> styri@nta.no writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.073859.3106@ericsson.se> Alan Arthur writes:
>>
> Hmmm, if you travelled a few hundred miles north, you'd find that in Scotland,
> we still quite happily use 1 pound notes (in fact there's four different kinds
> in common circulation)..
>
>That's the fun of Scotland and Northern Ireland. In these countries the
>banks can print their own notes. (Jersey do as well.) A nice opportunity
>to hoax ignorant tourists, but for all other reasons it's probably just
>one of them ol' traditions.
>
>---
>YuNoHoo  "I'd like to pay with this 1,000,000 pund note, please"


That's not all, unfortunate though it is, if you accidentally wash a bundle of
pound notes in a pair of blue jeans you can pass them off 90% of time as fivers
(or so I'm told 8^)...) and those purply/brown scottish tenners look awfully
similar to English twenties... damn shame I'm always getting mixed up...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Arthur                                                        DoD #1314
EMail : etlanar@deep-thought.ericsson.se                  MEMO : ETL.ETLANAR
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: A bird in the hand v. 10 birds in the FAQ
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Date: 8 Sep 92 14:41:12 GMT

styri@hal.nta.no (YuNoHoo) writes:

>Talking about the thread leading to this entry one of my friends told
>me the following "fact":

>	Birds count "one", "two" and "many".

>Thus, if there are many (ie. more than two) and you add some more, or take
>a few - leaving more than two eggs in the nest - the bird will not notice.

Many birds do get fooled by the addition of cuckoo's eggs to their
nests, and feed the baby cuckoo even if it's several times larger than
their own offspring.  So this probably has some vague basis in fact.

I don't know whether the mother cuckoo pushes eggs out of the nest to
make room for her own.

-- 
Matt McIrvin, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
From: pashley@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Montykins)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: stupid cop tricks & t
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:39:39 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <26317@dog.ee.lbl.gov>, jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov writes:
>
>It occurs to me that maybe some local ordinance or police regulation
>prohibits them from towing a car merely because it is illegally
>parked without first ticketing it.  Whether or not it is illegally
>parked because somebody blew the driver's brains out. 
>

Oh, right. Let's say a car is legally parked, but somebody gets shot
in it. A lot. Bonne & Clyde-type shot. The car is riddled with
bullets.

And your theory is that the cops wouldn't be able to tow the car
away because it wasn't illegally parked? Foo.

 -Paul "Monty" Ashley
   (The car is, how you say, "evidence," no?)
-- 
  "Didn't expect to see me again,         | pashley@sdcc13.ucsd.edu
eh, Svengali?"                            |  [Not a UCSD employee]
     -- Bugs Bunny                        |
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: sasegb@toklas.unx.sas.com (Elizabeth Brownrigg)
Subject: Re: Third to be bombed...
Originator: sasegb@toklas.unx.sas.com
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 17:51:56 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <Bu6tDu.CCH@egsner.cirr.com>, datri@egsner.cirr.com (Anthony Datri) writes:
|> In New Kensington, Pennsylvania, the rumor is rampant that said city was
|> "on" the Nazi bombing list because of the large aluminium plant there.

I heard that Fort Wayne, Indiana, was seventh on Hitler's list.
Don't know why.


Elizabeth "Right Up There After Parkersburg, West Virginia" Brownrigg
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: bobm@Ingres.COM (Bob McQueer)
Subject: Re: The Wildebeast
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:43:32 GMT

In <1992Sep15.151920.14675@unislc.uucp>,
	dated Tue, 15 Sep 1992 15:19:20 GMT,
	dw@unislc.uucp (Dan Wright) writes:
> Thomas Dignan wrote:
> : [ what is a wildebeast ]
> 
> GNU

Yes.  And according to the dictionary, the etomology of wildebeest is indeed
from the dutch wilde + beest for "wild" + "beast".  What I want to know is
why the Dutch thought a gnu particularly more of a "wild beast" than anything
else which might have been wandering around the African plains.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Viruses: was(Re: aids started by cia?)
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 92 20:50:02 GMT

Not likely.  H-IV lacks 5-6 characteristics key to turning it into a weapon.
You would not even start with such a virus.

'u'

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Second Favorite email message: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days
A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya
From: cromar@math.rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Credible Evidence? (Was Re: Faces of Death)
Date: 14 Sep 92 22:05:37 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

snopes%club33@stlth.enet.dec.com (snopes) writes:
>   jlpicard@austin.ibm.com (Craig Becker) writes...

> >There's a guy here in Austin named Mark Weaver who supposedly claims to 
> >have a snuff film 
> >....say this guy pulls out a videotape and shows me the thing and it seems 
> >to be genuine. How can I present this as sufficient proof to the net? (and 
> >thereby get my name immortalized on the AFU FAQ :-) 

: Well, presumably if this person is willing to show you, a total stranger, his
: collection of snuff films, it wouldn't be hard for others to view them as well.
: Why not worry about that detail when you come to it?  Chances are this person
: is going to turn you down flat, come up with some fabricated excuse, or show
: you "Faces of Death".

How about we just add Craig to the afu list no matter how it turns
out?  Like "Mark Weaver claims to have a snuff film but refused to
show it on request," "Mark Weaver claims to have a snuff film and
showed it to Craig," or whatever.  Craig has a point that he'd be
going to an awful lot of work to check out the story.

--Scott
From: simon@ewd.dsto.gov.au (Simon Rockliff)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Thomas Crapper and Spread Spectrum
Date: 9 Sep 92 16:50:50 GMT
Organization: Defence Science and Technology Organisation, Salisbury, South Australia

In article <7844@public.BTR.COM>, grady@btr.BTR.COM (Grady Ward  grady@btr.com) writes:

|> Also, can anyone verify or debunk the notion
|> that Hedy Lamarr (the actress) holds the
|> original Spread Spectrum patent in the 40's?
|> 
|> Thanks!  grady@btr.com
|> .
try IEEE Transactions on Communications, January 1983 (I think), a followup to the
May 1982 Spread Sprectrum special edition, which has further information on the 
origins of Spread Spectrum including a description of Hedy Lamarr and George
Anthiells' patent filed during WW2.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: datri@egsner.cirr.com (Anthony Datri)
Subject: Re: Third to be bombed...
Organization: Central Iowa (Model) Railroad, Dallas, Tx.
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 02:53:47 GMT

In New Kensington, Pennsylvania, the rumor is rampant that said city was
"on" the Nazi bombing list because of the large aluminium plant there.
From: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Sinking libraries
Date: 5 Sep 92 00:31:39 GMT
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Reply-To: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.3-4   

>>   Yeah right.  Buildings don't sink, they crack.  After they've cracked
>>   enough, they fail.

As someone who spends a great deal of his spare time and disposable
income trying to prevent a Victorian from further progress through
the carbon cycle, I assure you that they can do either or both. The
proportions depend on the nature of the sinking and of the structure.
For example, you'd expect a masonry building to crack more than a
wood-frame building.

There are a number of cities -- a Mexico City district built on an
old lakebed is the classic example, as I recall -- where integral 
but sinking buildings may be found. National Geographic once ran a
great picture of somebody walking up the stairs from his "ground
floor" entrance, now about half a story below grade.

Then you have things like the balcony I'm going to get to Real Soon
Now.  One corner sagged.  A previous owner paid a lot of money to
have it re-leveled.  But some fool apparently just poured a corner
foundation pier without a footing beneath, so now it's sagging as
badly as before -- the weight of the structure acted as a sort of
slow-motion pile driver.

>>   I graduated as a Civil Engineer, with a major in Structural Engineering.

I'll bet you and a geotechnical engineer could get into a grand argument
over this one!

Joe "The Incredible Sinking Man" Chew
From: uril@yang.earlham.edu (I will not expose the ignorance of the faculty...)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: The Brady Bunch
Date: 9 Sep 92 15:27:18 GMT
Organization: Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana

In article <c8922369.715760702@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au>, c8922369@jupiter.newcastle.edu.au (Leon James Garde) writes:
> Now, none of the actors who played any of the kids in the Brady Bunch 
> has died, ok.
> However there are lots of stories about the deaths of all the young actors.
> 
> BTW:  David Knight is in Australia at the momemt flogging software, and
> looked pretty much alive . The coincedence is that The Brady Bunch 
> opened as a stage show today, whilst David was around to comment on
> what it was like being a Brady.
> 
> I just thought it would be interesting to hear some of the stories 
> of the deaths of these infamous actors/actresses.
> 
> leon

Recently both "Bobby" and "Cindy" were on the Howard Stern show.  They 
particpated in a game called "Hooker Howiewood Squares."  It was just like 
"Hollywood Squares" except there was a real prostitute in each square.
-- 

Uri J. Lessing |  Earlham College |  Richmond, Indiana
From: neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Mailing Coconuts
Date: 7 Sep 92 15:54:26 GMT
Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA

In article <1992Sep7.160924.1@venus.resntl.bhp.com.au> andrew@venus.resntl.bhp.com.au writes:
> 
>A coconut in its raw state is *not* the "hairy" little sphere you might buy
>at a greengrocer's.
>
   GASP! You mean, "Gilligan's Island" got it wrong? My confidence in the
educational value of quality television programming is shattered forever.
Imagine, all those set designers climbing trees to tie hairy little
coconuts in bunches under the leaves.
   Has anyone ever seen a movie or television show depicting a coconut on
the tree in its 'raw state':

>BTW, the raw coconut is shaped more like a football, slightly pointy ends
>and has a somewhat triangular cross-section, so the tendency to "roll
>around" is less.


   Next people will be saying that spaghetti trees don't actually produce
bundles of thirty centimetre stalks, but that they have to be cut to
size, and bleached to give them the right colour.


-- 
 Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student  | Don't let your mind
 neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca    Ad astra  | wander -- it's too little
 utzoo.utoronto.ca!generic!cneufeld              | to be let out alone.
 "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" |
From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Wild Chicken Flocks
Date: 9 Sep 1992 00:42:55 GMT
Organization: Department of Redundancy Department
Reply-To: TWChan@lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.12.117

  +It's true, the Highway 101 chickens are alive and well in Los Angeles. They
  +are also being harvested and listed on the menu of LA's restaurants as
  +"free ranging chickens"tm, no durgs or hormones just eat the stuff on the
  +side of the road.

No drugs or hormones but how about crap like lead and other automotive
by-products?

Terry "Hmmm, tastes like a heavy chicken" Chan
--
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory                    Internet:  TWChan@lbl.gov
"[PBS viewers] are affluent, highly educated, the movers and shakers, the
 socially conscious and the well-informed.  What about the rest of us?"
                                      -- U.S. Senator Robert Dole
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: steveb@meaddata.com (Steve Brooke)
Subject: Re: Third to be bombed...
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 21:02:21 GMT
Distribution: na

In article <joslin.715979987@c0223.ae.ge.com>, joslin_paul@ae.ge.com writes:
|> bmb1021@ultb.isc.rit.edu (B.M. Buck ) writes:
|> 
|> >In at least two cities I've lived in (Charlotte, NC and Binghamton, NY),
|> >there is the claim that that city is "third" on the list of sites to be
|> >bombed by the Soviets (now that the Soviets are gone, I suspect that
|> >this legend had died, too), because of some strategic importance of the
|> >city.  The stated first two places (when pressed) end up being the
|> >missile sites, and Washington, DC.  After that, comes the current city.
|> 
|> >Is this legend wide-spread?  If you've heard it for your locale, what is
|> 
|> Very wide spread.  Of course, it was almost believable for Colorado
|> Springs CO (near NORAD headquarters), San Diego CA (7 Navy bases), and
|> Norfolk VA (Atlantic Fleet HQ?).   But it was also told to me about Key
|> West, FLA, since "The Russians want to destroy the secret military
|> base", and Cincinnati, since "It is the center of the machine tool
|> industry, and the Russians want to keep us from rebuilding."

And if Cincinnati get it, so does Dayton, OH.  Dayton is the home of
Wright - Patterson AFB, NCR, and Mead Data Central, a huge online information 
retrieval database company (and my employer).  BTW, Cincy is also the
home of General Electric Aircraft Engines.


|> -- 
|>      Paul R. Joslin     |
|> joslin@c0223.ae.ge.com  | "For every problem, there is a solution that is
|>    +1 513 583 3537      | simple, elegant, and wrong."
|>                         | (H. L. Mencken)

-- 
Steve Brooke  		      "Revolution Calling!"          Mead Data Central
BIS Conversion Engineering        -Queensryche   	     P.O. Box 933
uunet!meaddata!steveb                                        Dayton, Ohio 45401
steveb@meaddata.com		   Go Cubbies!               (513)865-7691
From: 01sybok@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Snuff in US Court Case
Date: 10 Sep 92 18:03:30 -0300
Followup-To: alt.folklore.urban
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <BuBqEw.GG.2@cs.cmu.edu>, smith+@cs.cmu.edu (Sean Smith) writes:

[stuff deleted]

> 	Authorities arrested Lambey in August 1989, six months after a
> California undercover officer posing as a bisexual pedophile initiated a
> conversation on a computerized bulletin board.
> 	Lambey told the undercover officer of his plan to kidnap a child for
> use in the pornographic film. He was arrested after he told the officer
> he had spotted a likely victim, a boy about 13 years old.
> 

You really have to wonder about the brainpower of someone like this, don't
you? I mean, if *you* were planning a crime, especially one this heinous, 
would *you* admit it to someone you met on the net, someone who could (and
in this case DID) be something completely different from what they seem?

Also, it makes you wonder just what sort of people are hanging out on the net.

Sacry.

Mike (Honest officer I was just... pushing that little girl home!)
From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: A bird in the hand v. 10 birds in the FAQ
Date: 10 Sep 92 01:54:33 GMT

In article <1992Sep8.170356.8371@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, PAPAI@kcgl1.eng.ohio-state.edu (Jonathan Papai) writes:
> ObFACT : In 1906, a Pygmy was sold to the Bronx Zoo to sweeten a
> deal for a chimpanzee.  They believed the Congolese man, named
> Ota Benga, to be closer on the evolutionary scale to monkeys than
> to humans.  Clergymen raised a fuss, and he was removed from
> display after ten days and placed in an orphanage for black kids.
> _Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo_, P.Bradford, H.Blume, St. Martins
> Press, $22.95

The book is reviewed in this past Sunday's NY Times.  Yes, he
definitely was exhibited in a zoo, though the review makes it seem more
like he was hired, perhaps under some duress, than sold.

The entire story, in fact, is very strange, even given the title.  Ota
Benga was originally rescued -- purchased -- from villagers in the
Congo by an American missionary.  In gratitude, the pygmy persuaded
several of his colleagues to accompany the missionary -- who,
incidentally, is the grandfather of the first author of the book --
back to America as part of an exhibit of ``strange people'' in the 1904
World's Fair.  When they all returned to Africa, the missionary spent
some time posing in a wooden pen for the pygmies as an example of a
white American of the time.  This was Ota Benga's way of explaining
what had happened in the U.S.

Ota Benga didn't want to stay in Africa, so he begged his friend to
bring him back to the U.S.  After that, when they fell on hard times,
Ota Benga was ``roped into service in the zoo, trapped by a conspiracy
of what the authors call "Darwinism, Barnumism [and] pure and simple
racism".''

Eventually, Ota Benga committed suicide, though not before touring
America and meeting many prominent people.  His friend wrote a letter
to the American Museum of Natural History saying ``one of his
descendants would be coming someday to set the record straight''.

The book sounds fascinating; I'm going to have to track it down.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: styri@hal.nta.no (YuNoHoo)
Subject: Re: Annuit Coeptis
Reply-To: styri@nta.no
Organization: Bohemians and Globetrotters, Unlimited
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 14:04:46 GMT

Peter Z. Simpson writes:
>
>     Can we update the FAQ? It seems to be a bit off in the Latin
> department.

Sunt puri puri purilia tragant ?

---
YuNoHoo
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Stephen P. Guthrie)
Subject: Annuit Coeptis
Originator: spg@Xenon.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 21:19:27 GMT

I need to know the significance of a symbol that appears on the reverse
of the U.S. $1 bill. It is in the left hand circle and includes a pyramid
with an eye at the top and the text 'Annuit Coeptis' and 'Novus Ordo Seclorum'.
I'm sure I've seen the symbol elsewhere - I think it might be Masonic and
perhaps used by the Rosicrucians. If so, what is it doing on U.S. currency?
Does anyone have the story behind this, and what does the Latin mean?
From: linden@positive.Eng.Sun.COM (Peter van der Linden)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Ann Landers stops an urban myth!
Date: 11 Sep 92 21:47:02 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: positive

> Later people point to the statue of General X and use it as an example 
> that "3 legs means he was wounded in battle"...  Repeat ad infinitum...
> Does anyone know of statues that do _not_ follow the above?  General
> Custer with 3 or 4 feet on the ground?  General George Washington 

Very, very few generals are wounded in battle.   Even Lord Lucan, who
through stupidity and obtuseness led the charge of the Light Brigade 
directly into the Russian cannon survived unscathed (though almost all
his men died).

I would venture to suggest that since they introduced radio to warfare
in World War One, being a staff officer is one of the safest of all
occupations, safer than being a civilian in a blitzed city for example.

Cf. the tendency of politicians to construct hardened bunkers for them
and their pals' wartime use.


--
----------------
Peter van der Linden       floss@least.twice.daily   (415) 555-1212
Stalk tall strangers, and wear leather. Speak in tongues and post
regularly to Usenet.  Raise big black dogs and sacrifice homework.
From: jlpicard@austin.ibm.com (Craig Becker)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: The Smell of Money?
Date: 4 Sep 92 18:13:15 GMT
Reply-To: craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Object Technology Products
Originator: jlpicard@woofer.austin.ibm.com


Not really an Urban Legend, but somehow I thought of AFU when I 
heard Harry K. Smith today on the CBS morning news show reporting
that "scientists" have developed a scent that makes people want
to gamble. Apparently, slot machines annointed with this chemical
did 40% more business than machines that went without.

Craig

ObUL: pheromones make people fall in love.
-- 
-- "You can expect virtually      Craig Becker, Object Technology Products --
--  anything from a people who had      Internet: craigb@ot.austin.ibm.com --
--  nuclear weapons in the early      IBM TR: craigb@woofer.austin.ibm.com --
--  seventeenth century."                           VNET: CRAIGB at AUSVM1 --
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: gl1@cec2.wustl.edu (Greg Lyon)
Subject: Re: You are humble and loveable.  CHOMP!
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis MO
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 02:25:23 GMT

>sasbmt@jjoyce.unx.sas.com (Bruce Tindall) writes:
>: 
>: Somebody actually did counterfeit nickels back in the '30s or '40s,
>: and ultimately got caught.  Reference:  children's book "Story of the
>: Secret Service," published early/mid 1960s, by Quentin Reynolds (?).
>: 
>
>I wonder where the authors of the book got the story? It would be interesting
>to see if it is actually based on fact, or an UL.
>
>Bill

  This did actually happen.  It was done by a man who had previously 
counterfeitted larger denominations (ie. paper money, I believe).  He
"minted" thousands of nickels in the mid-1950s.  The reason the coins were
easy to identify was that he used the reverse of a war nickel (the ones with
the large mintmarks over Monticello) with an obverse that was not a war
year (so, the large mintmark shouldn't have been there).

 I don't remember exactly where the article was published, but it was by a 
person named Michael Wescott (who has recently published a book on nickels)
and I believe the article might have been in "New Jersey Numismatic Journal",
the magazine of the Garden State Numismatic Association (the counterfeitting
was done in NJ).

Greg
From: news@array.com (news)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Mailing Coconuts
Date: 11 Sep 92 15:55:49 GMT
Organization: Array Microsystems, Colorado Springs, CO. USA

moroney@ramblr.enet.dec.com writes:
: In article <1992Sep5.014623.8618@news.iastate.edu>, glitto@iastate.edu (Scott M Klabacha) writes...
: >>T. You can send a coconut thru the mail without any further wrapping. Yowser!
: 
: >I've wondered about this one for some time now. What are the details? What
: >kind of implement do you use to write on a coconut? Do the stamps just stick
: >on, or do you need to use glue? Would there be any use in writing "This End
: >Up" seeing as how the thing's gonna roll around anyway?
: 
: >Seriously, though, what are the details about this? Why is it possible? What
: >do you do if the people at the post office don't want to accept it?

When my sister in law went to Hawaii on vacation, I recieved a 
coconut in the mail.  I don't remember how the postage was attached
but the address was written by magic marker.  No box, no wrapping,
just a coconut.


  O                
 <M> MerfMan 
_/ \_       
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban