HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tz@ll.mit.edu (Taras Zommers)
Subject: Re: Mucus... how good is he?
Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 18:24:12 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.155351.22472@dsd.es.com> mmoore@itchy.dsd.es.com (Michael Moore) writes:
>In article <l8juinINNcjl@alcor.usc.edu> rone@alcor.usc.edu (Ron Echeverri) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug12.203717.5544@dsd.es.com> mmoore@itchy.dsd.es.com (Michael Moore) writes:
>>>	spaceace, amazing, ginger lynn, duck dodgers, freekill, hector,
>>>red shirt, mergatroid, videodrome, zznewguy, gadfly, mojo, wreck,
>>>mr. wizard, quodavis, sandia, spaceman spiff, eek, yea boy!!!,
>>>washout, ayeser, d'spayre, drewskii, luri, mind crime, rjones, 
>>>darkhorse, fillintheblank, old nick, icarus, bav, spaceghost, beck,
>>>balton, helix, sunscreamer, and myself.
>>
>>Who ARE these people?
>>
>>5150
>>miffed he wasn't included :-)
>

All this talk about who is best and so on and so on but it's quite obvious
who MUST be the best.  Quovadis HAS to be the best since he took a bunch
of no-names from scws9.harvard.edu (a.k.a. Gashouse Gorillas) and made
us look like we knew how to play netrek almost as good as a CMU player. :)

Please... no flames.  I was just trying to give our MVP a plug! 8^)

Psycho Squirrel
Burt Hoots
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: petonak@chem.psu.edu (Paul Petonak)
Subject: Re: What's your biggest netrek screwup...
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 05:11:32 GMT

>At least one Kling seemed to think it was funny.  I didn't hear anything
>from the rest.  Paul, you can consider this post an act of contrition.
>And everyone else, remember not to freeze your controls, while flying 
>into the wall, past a last planet, on the server where torps hitting the wall
>damage only your teammates, while carrying your teams armies.

I thought it was amusing in that we were touting ourselves as the only 'clued'
Klingons. However, you probably wouldn't have been trashed had we not 
established the addendum to the Klingon code of Hounour: blast your team-mates
when they get near the wall....... Hell, it was more fun then the Orion 
taking attempts. Especially the,

'HEY, what the hell did you do that for?' 

which followed the first blasts.


Big Nifty Balls
Icarus
Oral Annie

Paul
From: harris@epcc.ed.ac.uk (T J Harris)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Just the FAQs mam...
Date: 20 Aug 92 11:15:01 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre


Is there a FAQ for this group?  Or perhaps some friendly "clueful" 
nettreker can give me some inspiration and pointers on how to get
started on this cool sounding game?

Cheers,

Tim Harris
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre     
JCMB, The King's Buildings              email: harris@castle.ed.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh, Scotland       tel  : (031) 650-5022
EH9 3JZ                                 fax  : (031) 650-6555
From: tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Timothy C. Worsley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: From the councilboy: Toss out home/away concept?
Date: 21 Aug 92 22:42:46 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.netrek: 21-Aug-92 From the councilboy:
Toss .. Jaye Mathisen@cs.montana (4700)

> 	b)  Stats would be timely.  People are still sending me stat files
> 		for the summer INL... I don'tneed them any more.  w/o all,
> 		or at least a vast majority of the files (in a format that
> 		I can use), they're worthless.


	BTW, Is there any chance we could see the stats for the RankScum vs. GBO game?

ZZnew guy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: mmoore@iguana.es.com (Michael Moore)
Subject: Re: Ged. . . how good is he?
Organization: Evans & Sutherland
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 21:57:29 GMT

In article <2437@cronos.metaphor.com> polk@Metaphor.COM (Ben Polk) writes:
>
>AGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
>
>How many posts and follow on flames per day would SIX Geds generate!


	This is something that I have never understood myself.  I am a
fairly boring fellow, so why is it that when I post people get so
upset?  Maybe it is because I am seen as a hypocrite, or perhaps
because the things I say seem so obviously wrong that people jump in
guns blazing, with me standing there going "whoa whoa, hold on a
sec...".  Or maybe when people hear my name they sneer and say simply,
"whiner".

	Whatever the cause, it has always baffled me.  As Mr.
Dangerfield would say "I get no respect."

	But above all, the thing that amazes me most is how seriously
people can take the things discussed in this group.  How can you make
an enemy of those you've never even met?  I still find people who
won't give me the time of day simply because I said something stupid
or insulted their idol on r.g.n.  That blows me away.

	Personally, I've never taken anything said here to heart.  I
may get upset and such, but it is simply a nice way to vent
frustration.  The day I start hating people because of what they wrote
about a silly game, that's the day I hang in the towl (which btw, the
Hitchiker's Guide says is one of the most massively usefull objects an
interstellar traveller can own).

	-Michael (Ged)



-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
|Michael Moore                      \  "Pleasures must be arranged in |
|Evans & Sutherland Employee         \  a hierarchy if we are to get  |
|University of Utah Student          /  the greatest enjoyment out of |
From: tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Timothy C. Worsley)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Honorary CMUer
Date: 20 Aug 92 04:42:00 GMT
	<16u0fsINNik0@agate.berkeley.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

In article <16svidINNetm@agate.berkeley.edu>
labc-4aa@web-2h.berkeley.edu (CS 60C Lab Assistant) writes:
>
>Honorary CMuer?????????????
>
>
>DON'T THINK SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

	We have a lot of respect of Duck here.  Even the most arrogant of CMU
players are forced to admit that you're comprable with our best.

ZZnew guy
From: tom@soda.berkeley.edu (Tom Holub)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: SINL playoffs
Date: 14 Aug 1992 11:28:47 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

In article <l8mpjeINNmu3@alcor.usc.edu> rone@alcor.usc.edu (Ron Echeverri) writes:
)
)Er, do tell, Mojo.  Why are _we_ the #1 seed?  According to the statpeoples'
)stats, we were #3.  Also, why is 12AM charted?  I thought they had already
)agreed to drop out.

No, according to the 'power rating' you were number three--the INL
treats 'power ratings' the same way the NCAA does, it ignores them.
You are the #1 seed because you were 4-0 and had more total planets
for than the other 4-0 team (Arrogant Assholes).  It's true that that
AA's had a tougher schedule, but we don't have 1700 sportswriters to
vote for #1, so we stick with the tiebreakers.

12 Angry Men will not be the 12 Angry Men of old; their captain, Ray
Jones, will not be playing, and neither will Ged or sunscreamer (I believe).
Because they lost a good portion of their players, a few of them posted
messages about the end of the 12 Angry Men, but the remainder decided
to soldier on.  I actually am glad; it's good to see an at-large team
in the playoffs.
 -Mojo
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 03:24:18 -0400 
From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: inoffensive INL change
	<1992Aug18.030029.19415@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>

In article <Bt4IBD.JCq@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>
ahabig@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) writes:
>In article <QeXh6mq00Vp_Eoe25f@andrew.cmu.edu> tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Timothy C. Worsley) writes:
>>
>>	I would like to suggest that the INL change its name to the
>>INTERNATIONAL NETREK LEAGUE.  This would not only suggest that people
>>other than collage students play, but also encourage play from abroad.
>>
>>ZZnew guy
>
>The name change might be cool, but play from abroad is nigh on
impossible in an
>INL type setting.  I'm in Italy now for an extended stay, and while I would
>very much like to join in the INL fun, here's why it wouldn't work -
>
>1) Time zones.  I'm 6 hours offset from EST.  A game starting at 8pm EST (a
>common time, it seems) would start at 2:00 am for me.  It'd be even worse for
>the Aussies out there.
>
>2) Lag.  I get ~600-900ms average ping times (for 1000 byte chunks) to CMU 
>servers.

	AA played an interesting game agaisnt a French team (On a French
server).  The lag was pretty bad, but certainly playable.  Better than
Reed.  Not that good a game, but the net will only get better.  Besides,
there are getting to be quite a few Canadian players.

ZZnew guy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: davidt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Teo)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: gfborg 4.1
Date: 17 Aug 92 23:44:13 GMT
Reply-To: davidt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Teo)


gfborg 4.1 (possibly the last, I hope) is out in
grind.isca.uiowa.edu
/unix/netrek/binaries

Give my friend some time to set it up.  I just sent it there a moment ago.
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: rjones@itchy.dsd.es.com (Ray Jones - Perp)
Subject: Re: Tiebreakers in the INL
Organization: Design Systems Division, Evans & Sutherland, SLC, UT
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 92 05:12:36 GMT

In article <MeXPWve00Vom848CtC@andrew.cmu.edu> "Joseph E. Beck" <jb8n+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>
>Sunscreamer: 
>>What makes Team CP better than
>>us playoff-wise, except for the fact that they're from CMU?
>
>1:  CP was winning when the ghostbusts began.

Lag was making the game nearly unplayable beforehand (I stretch the word
unplayable.  I consider playable if I can fire.  Hitting anything is
another matter.)  Ghostbusting is not a black and white process.  It begins
with lag, goes to worse lag, and finally ghostbusts.  

>2:  12 AM were genocided by AA, and CP lost to AA by 12-8 2 (i
>     think)

That was at the beginning of the season, when 12AM basically had never
played before as a team.  We were so unorganized I considered our chances
of winning *one* game about 10 to 1.  We worked, slaved, practiced, and got
better.  We started depending on one another in the game.  We started
trusting each other.  We called each other idiots.  We bitched and moaned
at each other.  And somewhere along the way, we became one of the best
teams.  We started winning.  We started eating bases for lunch, two or
three at a time, with or without armies, and we used battleships to pick
our teeth afterwards.  

Consider the AA vs 12AM game played Friday.  Final score, 19-1. Score
at/near the half, somewhere between 12-8 and 14-6.  And that was without
their captain(me), their best planet taker/base(Ged), and the best SC
bomber I have ever played with (sunscreamer.  Hi Felix! nice account..
Gallo?).  I consider two of those people the best players on 12AM, key to
several of our harder wins.  If you think that the outcome would have been
the same if the 12AM had been the same 12AM of old, you're simply
incorrect.  If you think the CP game actually meant anything, then you
should reconsider, play in a game where your entire team is subject to the
lag we had, and then reconsider again.  

>any other questions?
>
>	joe
>	Purple haze


Ray
rjones, former memeber of 12AM, and by far the *proudest* captain of an INL
team, *ever*.
--
                                          Ray Jones
                                          rjones@dsd.es.com
From: davidt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Teo)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: gfborg 4.01 updated in grind ftp site
Date: 15 Aug 92 17:30:20 GMT
Reply-To: davidt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Teo)


I've fixed certain stuff.  I've also sent in the files seperately
instead of a single tar file, just in case some of you do not know how
to untar.

site : grind.isca.uiowa.edu
dir: /unix/netrek/binaries
From: stimpy+@cmu.edu (Rick)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: BRONCO!!!!
Date: 14 Aug 92 22:02:12 GMT
Organization: Freshman, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

BRONCO IS UP!!!!

The god is dead; long live the god!

--Rick
"Bronco Netrek Server. You will never find a more wretched hive of
scum and villainy." -- Admiral Kenobi (aka Terence Chang)
From: jb8n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joseph E. Beck)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: SINL finals
Date: 16 Aug 92 01:46:11 GMT
	<16iuhgINN12m@agate.berkeley.edu>
	<RWD.92Aug15100742@ERNST.MACH.CS.CMU.EDU>
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


> Every team starts with rating
>of 1000.  Planet score is incorporated.  A score difference of 100
>points would indicate a likely 1 planet diff or 10-9-1.  Pairings
>would be made pairwise from the top each cycle. 
> No tiebreakers, no nothing.  The team with
>the lower ranking would get the home field in all regular season
>games.  If everyone plays 15 or 20 games during the year, we should
>have a sound result at the end of the year. 

I agree that if the number of games is increased to this range tie
breakers will not be important.  But better teams will not necessarily
have higher power ratings (assuming I understand your system), since
they have to play similarly ranked teams every game.  At the end of
the season there should be a lot of closely packed teams, since
they're playing evenly matched games all season.

	joe
	Purple haze
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 21:03:10 -0400 
From: "Timothy C. Worsley" <tw1r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: possible INL ideas

Me:
ZZ> *In case of an INL tie, the away team wins (This means that an 
ZZ>away team DOWN 9-11 would win after 2 hours.).  Having played 
ZZ>against lag, I feel that an away team which can hold on to a tie 
ZZ>for 2 hours is obviously the better team.

Ray:
>I don't know about treating teams *that* differently based on 
>home/away/at large.  But whatever the council decides, the hackers 
>hacks....

	Of course, I don't know either.  There are some games when a
tie-breaker wouldn't seem like enough of an advantage (ie. 12 AM vs CP)
and others where it doesn't seem necessary.  It does seem like any
advantage that at-large teams get should be given at a GAME level rather
than at the end of the season.
	I'm not on the INL council, so these ideas are far, far away from
becoming law.

ZZnew guy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: botelle@pixmap.seas.upenn.edu (Justin Botelle)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: 12AM vs AA
Date: 15 Aug 92 15:59:07 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1992Aug15.151050.26154@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu) thalerj@cps.msu.edu (Jay C Thaler) writes:
)

)countless advances by 5 cloaked scouts all carrying 2 armies.  We
)killed their base once.. and just ignored it after that, feeling 

Make that at least twice.  The second time, I got the credit for the kill.
And it wasn't just the scouts...

SpaceAce! and West were spectaular.  They were on my perennial ogg list (at
least I never went hungry 152/133 w/l with 56 ogged armies incl SB)


)
)              Ayeser (Oc) with 13 planets and 33 armies.
)

Hector
From: jjudy@argon.berkeley.edu (Jack W. Judy)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Automatic Top 20 Lists on the MOTDs of all Servers
Date: 17 Aug 1992 07:31:14 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: argon.berkeley.edu

I was wondering if some server god or some other 
person could write a script that can grep/sed/awk/etc...
the player database for that server and automatically
generate a "Top 20" list for that server that could be 
updated quite frequently/automatically. Similar to those
on sickdog an bigdog.  In stead of asking each server
god to update the motd in this way a nice script that
can do the same thing would be cool I think.

Is this possible?  If so what do people think?

-Jack (aka LURI)
From: jb8n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joseph E. Beck)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: From the councilboy: Toss out home/away concept?
Date: 21 Aug 92 13:30:20 GMT
Organization: Sophomore, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA


>Again, let me know what you think.

One problem with having neutral servers is that the server god has to
be available during the game.  If there is a ghostbust and it locks up
the slot there could be problems.

Also, having 2 servers available for every game (as you suggest) may
be difficult. 
 
>  c)  Makes it possible to determine who gets to pick race first
>                in a completely "random" fashion.  Seems much more reasonable
>                than the current way.  The server can even do the
>                "flip" (Just another message to parse), at game time.
This seems unfair.  If you're going to make it random who gets to pick
first why should you show them the galaxy ahead of time?  It just
seems to be an extra bonus now.  Make them chose blind instead.  Since
chosing race first is not longer an advantage of the away team, there
shouldn't be much of a bonus in it.

It sounds good in theory, but getting a setup everyone can agree on
will be tricky...


	joe
	Purple haze
From: johan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Johan van Zanten)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: From the statboy: SINL standings as of 8/13/92, evening...
Date: 19 Aug 92 15:35:27 GMT
Organization: UT Austin Computation Center, Unix Services

In article <QeWymq_00awPA5inxo@andrew.cmu.edu> jb8n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Joseph E. Beck) writes:
>
>>Since Hell's Bagels and Lagg U are the only teams with 3 games played, this
>>leads me to believe that they may be shirking.  Finish your games!! :-)
>
>Shirking!  We're not afraid to play anyone.  We challenged Arrogant
>Assholes to a game and *they* were the ones who couldn't muster enough
>players to play us (they didn't want to break their perfect record :-)
>and instead brought in ringers like FreeKill, Streaker, Phantom, etc.
>
>We did play Lagg U and won 12-8, I guess the official reports weren't
>send in.
>
>	joe
>	Purple haze

 Sorry i've been a lazy-bum Captain, as the season entered a rather
nauseating close.  SINL games went as follows:

12AM - lost.
LaggU - won.
Commaners - lost.
Rankscum - lost (genocide)

 I just sent the stats for the LaggU and Commanders game in... sorry for
the delay. We finished our last game vs Rankscum last Wed, the 12th.

 -johan
Eggplant, Captain of Hell's Bagels.
-- 
 	          Johan van Zanten ( johan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu )
         "Trust me, i know what i'm doing." -- Inspector SledgeHammer.
Organization: Freshman, Math/Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
From: josh@cqs.washington.edu (Josh Hayes)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: trouble in the net
Summary: traceroute results
Keywords: calvin, lag
Date: 19 Aug 92 00:44:07 GMT
Organization: University of Washington

The lag to calvin (usc) was horrible as usual today, so I popped
out, ran traceroute, and here's what I got:

traceroute to calvin.usc.edu (128.125.62.143), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
 1  128.95.144.100 (128.95.144.100)  3 ms  2 ms  2 ms
 2  128.95.94.1 (128.95.94.1)  3 ms  3 ms  3 ms
 3  enss143.nwnet.net (192.35.180.2)  2 ms  3 ms  2 ms
 4  t3-1.cnss89.t3.nsf.net (140.222.89.2)  4 ms  4 ms  3 ms
 5  t3-3.cnss88.t3.nsf.net (140.222.88.4)  4 ms  4 ms  3 ms
 6  t3-0.cnss8.t3.nsf.net (140.222.8.1)  14 ms  14 ms  14 ms
 7  t3-0.cnss16.t3.nsf.net (140.222.16.1)  22 ms  22 ms  22 ms
 8  t3-0.cnss17.t3.nsf.net (140.222.17.1)  22 ms  24 ms  23 ms
 9  t3-0.enss135.t3.nsf.net (140.222.135.1)  25 ms  25 ms  27 ms
10  132.249.32.13 (132.249.32.13)  29 ms  31 ms  30 ms
11  134.24.99.2 (134.24.99.2)  35 ms  504 ms  188 ms
				      ^^^     ^^^
					yowee!

12  cit-sdsc.cerf.net (134.24.102.102)  51 ms  44 ms  53 ms
13  cit-cerfnet-gw.ln.net (130.152.104.2)  51 ms  46 ms  83 ms
14  usc-cit-gw.ln.net (130.152.128.1)  51 ms  47 ms  42 ms
15  rtr8.usc.edu (128.125.253.8)  47 ms  53 ms  45 ms
16  calvin.usc.edu (128.125.62.143)  47 ms  48 ms  42 ms

One of those nameless nodes.....the server died about five minutes
later. Boy, I'd hate to think I had anything to do with it.... :)

Ok. So I'm bored....

doctor

--
Josh Hayes, Quantitative Sciences HR-20 U of Washington
josh@mowgli.cqs.washington.edu             206 685-2793
Exclaimer: Hey!           Plan: Birth School Work Death
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: tedebear@leland.Stanford.EDU (Theodore Chen)
Subject: Re: the endless quest for the perfect keymap
Keywords: keymap
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 92 05:48:23 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.043236.29274@dsd.es.com> rjones@itchy.dsd.es.com (Ray Jones - Perp) writes:
>In article <171d9pINNdor@agate.berkeley.edu> dawson@garnet.berkeley.edu () writes:
>>[back and forth mail messages]
>>
>>Just 'shift-K'.
>Hmmm.. the local client to E&S sends a "Kill <player>" team message when
>you hit K, but I didn't think it would be useful to know for anyone but E&S
>people, so I took it out of the keymap I posted...  
>
>So why'd you bring it up?

i think he might have been talking about "K" as in KILL and put in
KILLFILE.  (rn)
-teddy
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
From: wansari@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Waheed A Ansari)
Subject: Re: MetaServerII v0.1
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 15:34:45 GMT

In article <b0Qm036168ds00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden) writes:
>In article <1992Aug21.202053@cunix4.Prime.COM> jasonp@cunix4.Prime.COM (Jason R. Pascucci) writes:

>>How about a more 'formatted' port? Something which gives,
>>basically, all the data of 1 and 4, with some nice
[...]
>>#: <number of players active?>
>>W: <number of players waiting?>
[...]
>You can only have "#" or "W" *unless* port-1 is supported, in which case
>you can get both.  Note that I haven't actually written the code to support
>port 2591 yet (beyond a grep for "No one is playing"), so if you want 2591
>to do more than just give a player list a la Sturgeon NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME
>to talk about it (hint, hint).

We can have just about any kind of info available quite readily on <port-1>,
so long as a tool (such as "players.c") already exists to print out the
information.  In fact "players" can be modified to show any info that is
available to the server maintainer.  So we may have an "L" flag to indicate
an LPS in progress, or alternatively a "T" flag for t-mode.  Similarly,
the server may be able to indicate the kind of game setup currently in use,
such as "H" for hockey, "S" for soccer, "3" for 3-race war, "C" for chaos,
or "W" for galactic war (perhaps this should be "E" for Empire dynamics).
There may also be "N" and "B" flags for [non]borg hours, and "O" or "X"
flags for "Server is open" or "Sorry, we're closed, play elsewhere."
Heck, you could even have the current galactic picture transmitted as a
crude ASCII graphic, such as showgalaxy produces; this particular option,
IMHO, would not be very productive.

The great thing about having such an info port on each server would be that
server code need not me modified in any way; most of the required tools
are already available.  Ofcourse, every server maitainer might not want
to go to the trouble of setting up a standard info port.  The arrangement
itself is unlikely to consume much server or network resources, so long
as there are no more than a handful of MetaServerII's in operation.

- Waheed