HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hucke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Matt Hucke)
Subject: Re: Mnemonics
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 01:14:56 GMT

In article <37452@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> pashley@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Montykins) writes:
>   (On advice, I've whapped rn around so it puts in a comma up in
>the attribution line. I'm grammatical now! Joy! Tears of joy!
>Unbounded happiness!)
>   (Five points to anyone who knows where the "Joy! . . . happiness!"
>quote is from)

Churchill.  Or maybe John Belushi.
-- 
"...no identification of self or mission; no interference with social develop-
 ment of said planet; no references to space, to other worlds or more advanced
 civilizations."   The PRIME DIRECTIVE, by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon.
hucke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu             _V_a_l_h_a_l_l_a BBS, 217-352-3682, WWIV4.21, 14.4k
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth)
Subject: Re: The Flat Earth Society???
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 92 21:01:47 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Aug28.235719.26789@mumbo.apple.com> johana!tsw@apple.com (Tom Watson) writes:
>
>Other factoid:  If the earth were the size of a marble, you wouldn't
>be able to tell that it had mountains 5 mi. high.  Very insignificant
>in relation to the whole thing.

Would you explain something to me, please?  How can something the size of
a marble have features that are 5 miles high/wide/long?  Are we talking 
about the small, glass spheres that many children play with?


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: pratta@rpi.edu (Anthony Edward Prattico)
Subject: Re: Sinking libraries
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 15:16:01 GMT

In article <1992Aug31.091358.5977@news.columbia.edu> lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
   In article <1992Aug27.132339.9018@bsu-ucs.uucp> 00tdspence@bsu-ucs.uucp writes:
>>
>>
>>Hi.
>>
>>I'm a student at Ball State U. in Muncie, IN
>>and I work at the U library.
>>A co-worker of mine says he heard from "a friend who knows somebody" in
>>the Architecture College that when our library was being designed,
>>the architects did not figure in the weight of the books and therefore
>>the building is slowly sinking into the ground.
>>
>>I know this is an urban myth.
>>Could anyone please verify that it is so I can convince the guy I work
>>with that he shouldn't beleive everything he hears???
>>
>Tell him that they did take into account the weight of the books, but forgot
>the weight of the people who might read them.
>
>cjl

Well, if it helps, RPI has the same problem with its library as well. Along
with the engineering center, the student union and a few other buildings that
are slowly sinking due to less that stable ground.
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: The Flat Earth Society???
Date: 29 Aug 92 20:25:03 GMT
 <mcirvin.715035875@husc8> <08rpbfdf@csv.warwick.ac.uk> <mcirvin.715100340@husc8> <BtrACp.903@news.cso.uiuc.edu>

mjg51721@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael James Gebis) writes:

>I thought that some people (And I'll assume these are smart people who know
>better but just feel like arguing against those who don't know better) used
>the mathematical trick of 'mapping' to mathematically make a flat earth make
>sense.  (Yeah, mapping.  Like you use when doing Jacobians.)  Unfortunately,
>I can't seem to be able to come up with system that works.  Has anybody out
>there seen anything like what I'm talking about, or am I just suffering from
>delusions?

Any such map will always have a rip or singularity in it somewhere,
since the topology of a sphere is not like anything you can make out
of a flat sheet.  Aside from that problem, you can make everything
look like the world is flat-- just apply the world map projection of
your choice (Mercator will do) to the entire universe.  Things then
become very large as they approach the "poles," and light bends in
strange ways, and all sorts of bizarre things happen-- but except
for possible problems with the poles (which are infinitely far away,
but you get infinitely big when you reach them) and the meridian
along which you cut to unroll the globe, everything's self-consistent.

-- 
Matt McIrvin, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA 
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: lindaj@solbourne.com (Linda Weygant)
Subject: Social Security Numbers
Organization: Solbourne Computer, Inc., Longmont, CO
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 18:23:59 GMT

Regarding the question of whether or not social security numbers are given out
based on region?:

	The answer is emphatically: yes
   Back when I worked for a collection agency (no flames please), One method
  of finding old deadbeats was to determine where their social security number
  came from.  Calling information in that state (social security is by state
  only)  and asking for listings of the last name (obviously only works with
  more obscure names), it was possible to get listings for relatives and 
  occassionally the actual person!!
From: bls@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM (Brian Scearce)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Flat Earth Society
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:54:54 GMT
Reply-To: bls@sector7g.Eng.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems
NNTP-Posting-Host: sector7g

In article 23656@news.columbia.edu, lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner) writes:
> Or why can I fly from their headquarters in any direction I chose, and
> find that as I traverse the world I come back to the same place,
> passing over that portion of the rest of the surface that is consistent
> with a somewhat round shape?

(a) You've done this?
(b) Even if the experiment were performed, this would still be
    consistent with a toroidal world.  How do you feel about that as an
    alternate hypothesis to the "spherical" Earth?

Brian "Accidental Torus" Scearce
---
Brian Scearce                               bls@sector7g.eng.sun.com
        The above does not necessarily represent Sun policy.
          It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: doctor1@cbnewse.cb.att.com (patrick.b.hailey)
Subject: Re: Chef Boy-Ar-Dee commercial
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 08:47:35 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.184114.26074@unislc.uucp> dw@unislc.uucp (Dan Wright) writes:
>Some I would like to have on tape:  Alka-seltzer "I can't believe I ate the
>whole thing" and "Try it, you'll like it".   Burger King (or was it
>Wendy's?)  "Where's the beef?"  Federal Express debut speech compression
>commercial.   Miller beer "When the day's land surveying is over, and
>you've sighted that last target and pounded that last stake, now comes
>Miller time..."  (I used to be a surveyor)

At the Museum of Broadcast History in Chicago, IL, USA they had a special
presentation of a collection of somebody's idea of the "best" commercials.
It was old stuff and new stuff, from around the world.  I only saw about
an hour of the tape, and it was a delight!

So, I wonder if anybody makes and sells tapes of great old commercials?

  Thanks awfully,
             Patrick
From: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: North Pole (was: The Flat Earth Society???)
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:08:37 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   

>My reference is not at hand, but a few years after the Nautilus sailed 
>under the Pole, the USS Skipjack bashed through, and the sailors had 
>leave to wander about on the ice.

The book was entitled, descriptively enough, _Surface at the Pole_.
Quite interesting even if you're not into submarines.  I seem to 
recall that the divers on board even jumped in -- maybe not at the
Pole but at some other place where they surfaced.  "The water's 
warm and clear as crystal!" is a line I remember.

Of course, they couldn't just bash through at any arbitrary point; 
they had to look for relatively thin ice.  Still, the demonstration
of this capability gave joy to the Armaggeddon industry and no doubt
made their Soviet counterparts even unhappier than before.

You could probably find out more from some of the former submariners
who hang out on sci.military (one of whom has about the best .sig
around: "I'd rather serve on a ship not designed to sink").

Joe "Sure beats a dogsled, though" Chew
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban,alt.cascade
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: apples to teachers - idea why
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 02:41:46 GMT

In article <1992Aug23.154218.4040@cs.mun.ca> carlos@garfield.cs.mun.ca (Carlos Borges) writes:
>thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
>>In article <BtFA6L.E45@egsner.cirr.com> datri@egsner.cirr.com (Anthony Datri) writes:
>>>>"What? Over? Did you say it's over? Nothing's over, till we decide it is! 
>>>> Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" --John Belushi
>>>
>>>Bill Murray.
>
>>Winston Churchill.
>
>Or was it Disreali?  (Duck!)

Disraeli Duck?

Ted "yeah, it was Huey, Louie, and Disraeli -- or was it Gladstone?" Frank
-- 
             ......................................................
             ted frank | thf2@midway.uchicago.edu | std disclaimers
             the university of chicago law skool, chicago, illinois
             it's log!  log!  log!  it's big, it's heavy, it's wood
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Thomas Crapper and Spread Spectrum
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 07:43:08 GMT

In article <25882@dog.ee.lbl.gov> TWChan@lbl.gov (Terry Chan) writes:
>rocher@husc8.harvard.edu (Jean-Marc Rocher) writes:
>
>Yep, and it's even more complicated than that.  But anyways Cecil does
>note that the Titzling one was bogus, but really doesn't address the
>issue of the Crapper one one way or the other (other than to relay
>that many thought the Crapper book was bogus since the Titzling one
>obviously was).

Hopefully, this isn't a reference to a remote control device.

cj (crap on, crap off, crap on crap off crap on, the CRAPPER) l
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva)
Subject: Re: butter flavored Crisco
Keywords: lock and, lime pie, note, phrase
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 11:30:28 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.154203.18246@ra.msstate.edu>, bill@AEC.MsState.Edu (bill balcerzak) writes:
> I once had a girlfriend who liked to bring the dog, the cat, about two
> yards of nylon webbing, several pairs of handcuffs, and a large tin of
> buttered flavored Crisco to bed ...  oops
> 
> Wrong newsgroup.

I'm amazed you didn't cross-post this to rec.food.cooking.
-- 
Stephanie da Silva                                    arielle@taronga.com
  "Isn't it romantic?  When roosters fall in love... they lose
                                     all reason...." -- Peepers the Mouse
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: You are humble and loveable.  CHOMP!
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 08:37:42 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.103546.12825@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> me@csri.toronto.edu (Daniel R. Simon) writes:
>
>I find this explanation quite implausible.  Gold coins haven't been in 
>common circulation for a very long time (if they ever were), and the act of
>biting a coin has a distinctly plebeian flavour, if I may put it that way.
>Moreover, the colloquial phrase "don't take any wooden nickels" suggests a 
>rather less exotic alternative explanation.  Back in the days when coins
>had real value, it might well have been a common practice among counterfeiters
>to coat wooden discs of the appropriate size with some metal, stamp them with
>some approximation of the image of a coin, and try to pass them off.  The
>idea is similar to that of "silvered pennies", meant to be mistaken for dimes,
>of which I have actually seen an example in my lifetime.

I understand that the 18xx era nickels with the Roman numeral "V" on it were
gold-plated and passed off in the old West to unsuspecting people as the
government's new five-dollar gold piece.  (I think it doesn't say "cents" on
it anywhere.)

This also sort-of reminds you of the lettered stamps of recent years to match
the unstable soon-to-be-determined stamp rate (A, B, C, etc.) and those
"this raises the last stable value to whatever it takes to get to the new
stable value" stamps, so they can print up enough to get by before stepping
up production on a "real" one.  (Stamp script?)

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: damian@cs.monash.edu.au (Damian Conway)
Subject: Re: 3 small legands
Organization: Computer Science, Monash University, Australia
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 03:53:06 GMT

jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) writes:

>>    I heard last night that Micheal Jackson has an 8 mile by 8 mile square
>>concreate pad, painted orange, and is just waiting for aliens to land on it.

>If John Allen Paulos wants to write another sequel to _Innumeracy_, this
>UL would make an excellent example, as a phone call to your local ready-
>mix company and a bit of arithmetic would demonstrate.  He didn't sell
>THAT many copies of "Thriller."

It's only 1mm thick.

He's expecting very light aliens.

damian
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  who: Damian Conway                 email: damian@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au
where: Dept. Computer Science        phone: +61-3-565-5184
       Monash University               fax: +61-3-565-5146
       Clayton 3168                  quote: "A pessimist is never disappointed."
       AUSTRALIA
From: joanne@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Joanne Petersen)
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 21:09:19 GMT
Subject: Re: Mnemonics
Organization: Hewlett-Packard PAITC Data Center
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban

One of my favorites is the one coined by Robert Heinlein, "tanstaafl" --
"there ain't no such thing as a free lunch".  He also published "tanj"
("there ain't no justice").  (At least I believe these were created by
Heinlein -- if someone else made them up first and Heinlein merely used
them in his books, don't tell me. :-)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Screaming Peaches and Terrified Eggs
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Distribution: alt
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 05:13:37 GMT

In article <PHR.92Aug22111130@soda.berkeley.edu> phr@soda.berkeley.edu (Paul Rubin) writes:
>There are some stories like this in "The Secret Life of Plants".
>Supposedly plants get scared when you even THINK about hurting them.

Sounds like you've been watching Space 1999.  (The Rules of Lutan)

cjl

(Commander, the moon is being invaded by Roaches, do you copy?)
(But Commander, the Alphans are smoking the Roaches, do you copy?)

Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From:  serge@ippi.msk.su (Serge Volkoff)
Subject: Moscow phones (was Re: NYC phones)
Reply-To: serge@ippi.msk.su
Organization: (n.) Body of persons united for a specific purpose
            <1992Aug17.160028.8473@panix.com>
            <1992Aug18.133000.6852@athena.mit.edu>
            <1992Aug19.150036.18920@panix.com>
            <1992Aug25.160326.10350@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 16:53:47 +0400
Return-Receipt-To: serge@aragorn.pvv.unit.no

In <1992Aug25.160326.10350@news.cs.brandeis.edu>
st890270@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (LUCIFER) writes:

>Talking of tapped phones, if the tap is poorly done, the phone will ring for
>no reason every once in a while.
>
>(this was verified in the USSR 5 years ago - I was staying in a two room
>hotel suite, and in each room there were two plastic cones on the ceiling,
>connected by a wire running the legth of the  room. And the phone rang like
>krazy. the Sovs didn't particularly care if you knew that they were listening
>in (hell, I joked about listening devices in the suite, and talked to the
>taps a couple times. an amusing way to kill a couple minutes))
>

Might as well have been as simple as a fire/smoke detector [or are you
kidding].  One of these things is installed in my office (a plastic cone
on the ceiling, right) but it's connected to the fire alarm station.
So disappointing.  As for the phone going krazy [crazy?], the telephone
network in downtown Moscow used to be quite unreliable with noise,
misrouted calls, etc. until very recently when older exchanges [heard
that some of them were operated since 1911, but I personally don't
believe that] were replaced [and lots of ## changed in the process].

A Soviet UL:  Americans staying in an Intourist hotel in Moscow messing
with these things on the ceiling [now guess what happened...] the room
flooded with water from the sprinkler (sp?) system.

Serge



Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: eadengle@watcgl.uwaterloo.ca (Ed "Cynwrig" Dengler)
Subject: Re: ice_cubes
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 03:40:36 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.214944.11525@newsgate.sps.mot.com> rrgd50@email.sps.mot.com (Chris Terwilliger) writes:
>Here's one I remember from long ago and recently started a war at work with...
>
>"Ice cubes freeze faster when you use hot water..."
>

Actually, the way I remember this (and I believe it is true, but that is
just my gut reaction, and thus has nothing to do with reality as we all
know it) is that by using hot water, the ice cubes are formed slower, thus
allowing most of the air bubbles in the water to escape and producing
"clearer" ice.

>
>* Chris Terwilliger, KB7PPT                rrgd50@email.sps.mot.com *
>* Motorola                        "And now, the sequence of events, *
>* 2100 E. Elliot Rd. EL374         in no particular order."         *
>* Tempe, AZ  85284                                     - Dan Rather *
>

Ed
From: tsmaster@media.mit.edu (David LeCompte)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: QWERTY
Date: 2 Sep 92 23:44:18 GMT
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory

In article <1992Sep2.162554.16959@pony.Ingres.COM> sweeney@Ingres.COM (Tony Sweeney) writes:
>Since no-one's mentioned it this time round, I'd like to point out that
>it is probably no coincidence that all of the letters of "typewriter"
>are on the top row.
I don't believe I saw it in the FAQ... so:

I heard that 'typewriter' was all top row keys so that typewriter
salesmen could pound it out quickly.

or maybe not.

	-Dave
-- 
Your Mom!       The Carburator!         |I'm not paid to HAVE opinions.
Your Shoes!     A gardenhose!           |
You got to got to got to got to ...     |This sig can be yours; send $15 to
SCUD MISSILE!!!	-"Scud Missile", Grunge |tsmaster@athena.mit.edu
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov (gary l. schroeder)
Subject: Re: Just One Calorie...?
Organization: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 14:08:36 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.160453.22813@news.cs.brandeis.edu> st890270@pip.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>About PHENYLALANINE.
>
>A friend of mine (I don't know if he has PKU) always feels sleepy after 
>drinking (or eating) anything w/ NutraSweet. Even if the beverage contains
>caffeine.

Is this like mixing amphetemines and depressants in the same handful
before gulping?


Caffeine!  I'm up!  *whack*  Nutrasweet.  Kill me.

I'm just waiting for the day when the FDA will announce that NutraSweet
causes cancer in laboratory rats as well as edema, halitosis, epilation,
and intestinitis.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Schroeder	                |  Warning: prolonged exposure to this
schroede@bnlux1.bnl.gov         |  .sig may cause retinal damage and 
Brookhaven National Laboratory  |  blistering skin rashes.
From: klg@panda.mc.duke.edu (Kim Greer -- rjj)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Counterfeiting
Date: 1 Sep 92 18:24:23 GMT
Organization: Duke University, Nuclear Medicine

In article <Btv7M2.9vD@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> hucke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Matt Hucke) writes:
>In article <4978@news.duke.edu> klg@panda.mc.duke.edu (Kim Greer -- rjj) writes:
>>"1"'s would be in the corners.  Only on the right hand side there had
>>(badly) cellophane taped the corresponding strips of the side "20"'s from a
>>20-dollar bill.  
>
>Didn't Monty Python once make a $20 bill with three sides?

No.  The sides are: top, bottom, left, right, front and back.

  Actually it was the $10 bill with three sides.  Being half the size of the
$20 bill, it only had half as many sides.

k "I bought this electric dog polisher for $5.  I bought some junk, too" g

-- 
Kim L. Greer                       
Duke University Medical Center		 klg@orion.mc.duke.edu
Div. Nuclear Medicine  POB 3949		 voice: 919-681-5894
Durham, NC 27710  		         fax: 919-681-5636
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: styri@hal.nta.no (YuNoHoo)
Subject: Re: What makes an urban legend work?
Reply-To: styri@nta.no
Organization: Bohemians and Globetrotters, Unlimited
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 14:54:37 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.174142.29091@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, bruce watson writes:
>
> [stuff about mice in coors deleted]
>
> I don't know about happens to Colas but I would believe that 
> cockroaches in soft drinks are also a.f.u-s.

Have a look in TVH ("The Kentucky Fried Rat" and Other Nasties) to see
what Brunvand writes about `cokelore'. No mention about this in the
FAQ, however. Rats (sic), we have to run this thread to frills...

---
YuNoHoo  "the mice in coors is probably dead because rodents cannot puke"
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: jfreter@triton.unm.edu (The Myth)
Subject: Re: Gold coins (Was: Re: You are humble and loveable.  CHOMP!)
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 92 03:40:15 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Here's something that you won't hear frequently on this or other news groups:

I made an error!  I confused all those special commemorative coins that the
Marshall Islands mint and advertize during the late shows on various cable
channels with coins minted by the US gov't.

If this has crunched anyone's cookies, I'm sorry.  I'll try harder to munch
them all the next time...


Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Subject: Re: Of Butterflys and Hurricanes
Reply-To: lasner@watsun.cc.columbia.edu (Charles Lasner)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 09:06:46 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.112301.1@ulkyvx.louisville.edu> amconn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu writes:

>don't commit Reader's Digest to memory): A butterfly fluttering in Tokyo can
>cause a storm in New York two weeks later. I realize that this is a gross
>oversimplication of sensitivity to initial conditions in any long-term,
>multivariable modeling system, but is there any truth to this at all, if _all_
>variables can be accounted for? When I sneezed two weeks ago, did that cause
>Hurricane Andrew?

But what about the Moody Blues song about the sounds of a million Butterflies
sneezing?

cjl
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban