The F I D O N E W S Volume 22, Number 08 21 Feb 2005 +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | |The newsletter of the | | | | | FidoNet community. | | Crash netmail articles to: | | | | | Editor @ 2:2/2 (+46-31-944907) | | | ____________| | | | | / __ | Routed netmail articles to: | | | / / \ | Bjorn Felten @ 2:203/0 | | | WOOF! ( /|oo \ | | | \_______\(_| /_) | Email attach to: | | _ @/_ \ _ | bfelten @ telia dot com | | | | \ \\ | | | | (*) | \ ))| | | |__U__| / \// | Editor: Bj”rn Felten | | ______ _//|| _\ / | | | / Fido \ (_/(_|(____/ | Newspapers should have no friends. | | (________) (jm) | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Copyright 2004 by Fidonews Editor for Fidonews Globally. Table of Contents 1. FOOD FOR THOUGHT ......................................... 1 2. CLEAN HUMOUR & JOKES ..................................... 2 Uncle Bunion Tours The Brewery ........................... 2 3. FIDONET BY INTERNET ...................................... 5 Fidonet Related Websites ................................. 5 4. ROBERT COUTURE'S FIDONET SOFTWARE LISTING ................ 8 FIDONet Software References .............................. 8 5. SPECIAL INTEREST ......................................... 13 Nodelist Stats ........................................... 13 6. FIDONEWS INFORMATION ..................................... 15 How to Submit an Article ................................. 15 Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability .................. 17 FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 1 21 Feb 2005 ================================================================= FOOD FOR THOUGHT ================================================================= It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. -- George Orwell (in the book 1984) ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 2 21 Feb 2005 ================================================================= CLEAN HUMOUR & JOKES ================================================================= Uncle Bunion Tours The Brewery Jack Yates, 1:3613/1275 It hasn't been the same down here since Uncle Bunion got his cravat entangled in the stirring paddle that mixes the mash at the old American Brewery, makers of Tam O'Shanter Ale back in the heyday of the horse-drawn ice wagon and the pushcart full of produce. Howl for help is what he did and the alarum was struck at the corner fire-box, which brought two engine companies and a hook-and-ladder truck screaming down the street to the scene. They assessed the situation and timed the revolutions of the mixer paddle and the hook- and-ladder guys opined that they could catch Uncle Bunion by hooking his sleeve-garters with a pike-pole as he passed by, while the engine companies fought over which of them was going to get the privilege of pumping out the vat of beer. Word soon spread of the dilemma at the brewery, and the scene became crowded with Batallion Chiefs, off-duty policemen and members of the press with their credentials and Speed Graphics, not to mention four old gentlemen who had been playing checkers in the park down the street and had the foresight to stop at the corner grocery and buy a pint of ice cream each, then empty the round wax-coated carton in the gutter so that they would have a proper vessel to help assure that no spilled beer would be wasted. As we look in on the affray, we see a half-dozen firemen, their ladders propped against the side of the vat trying to catch Uncle Bunion as he passes by at the approximate speed of 24 revolutions per minute, while more firemen are laying hose across the street to a waiting water-wagon used by the city to keep the dust down on the dirt streets, hoping to salvage as much of the liquid as was possible, and calculating what measure of it they will have to give over to the foreman of the Department of Public Works in exchange for the "borrowing" of the wagon, while the brewery's founder and chairman is standing on the staircase outside his door exhorting Uncle Bunion to keep his chin above the surface and to not swallow the bubbles for fear of inviting flatulance, in which case the contents of the vat would not be salvageable, not even for sale in the poorer parts of town and would have to be viewed as a loss. So we now have a dozen firemen in the building and as many and more outside shouting orders and encouragement, the street crews from that quadrant of town had gathered, ostensibly to watch over their water wagon, The precinct captain and his constabulary keeping order in the street, and four old geezers that had abandoned their checkerboard, as well as various and sundry citizens who had taken time from their normal activities to come and offer advice and aid. FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 3 21 Feb 2005 And then the organ-grinder appeared. The organ-grinder saw the gathering and viewed it as a great opportunity so he unlsung his instrument, set it on its peg and began to crank, whence it bellowed forth with renditions of "O Sole Mio", followed by a procession of tarantellas and Gipsy dance music. Meanwhile, his trained monkey worked the crowd with a practiced approach, a tug at the frock or coat, a wistful look upon its countanance while he raised his little tin cup in supplication for coins. The Precinct captain, worried that the crowd had grown beyond the capacity of the street started shouting for the attendees to move across the way onto the opposite sidewalk, but as the organ-grinder had begun to sing in accompaniment to his instrument, the voice of that minion of the law was drowned out and went unheard. Wishing to be recognized as the authority in charge and understanding the reason that he was not, he grabbed the organ-grinder by his weskit and, indicating the nearby stable-barn, rather rudely propelled him thither by the toe of his boot. This, however, caused the organ-grinder to lose his grasp on the monkey's leash, and the monkey, realizing that he had no allies in the immediate area, slipped under a broken slat in the brewery gate and into the vat room where he espied a veritable river of the golden mead being drawn from the vessel that contained Uncle Bunion. Now, everyone knows that an organ-grinder's monkey carries a tin cup, we expect it, we could not conceive of an organ-grinder's monkey without a tin cup; however, as this primate had acquired a taste for the nectar of the hops, he had no need or purpose for coinage, so he removed the government's hard specie from the cup and flung it in the air in the way of freeing the cup for other, more important tasks. The monkey set about scooping up cups of beer and quaffing them on the spot, but, whilst he had been engaged in begging the gathered assemblage to part with their coins, one of the old checker-playing geezers, being nearly sightless, had mistakenly placed his steel, nickel-sized slug to which had been soldered a length of piano wire so that it could be withdrawn from a pay telephone after making a call, into the beggar's cup. This interesting piece had flown through the air and fallen into the cog-works that drove the shaft that turned the paddles that were caught in Uncle Bunion's cravat. As the shaft turned 'round, one of the cogs kept striking the piece of piano wire, which made a twanging sound, which aroused the monkey's curiosity. He went to the open gear-works to see the source of this amusing sound, and was mesmerised by the slowly-rotating bits therein, his head began to rotate in unison with the biggest of gears, his eyes became foggy and he might have lost his balance and fallen into the works except that his stomach was much disturbed by the motion of the gears and he regurgitated, expelling all that he had eaten and drunk that day. The force of this stream of vomit fell sqarely on the metal slug and piano wire which became dislodged and plunged further into the cog- works where it lodged and brought the machine to a halt. FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 4 21 Feb 2005 Seizing the opportunity, the firemen reached in unison and grabbed Uncle Bunion by his sleeve-garters and pulled him from the vat, half of which contents had been pumped away for future forensic investigation by the Constabulary, the firemen and the Head of the Department of Public Works. Uncle Bunion was soaked in every manner of use of the word, The founder and chairman of the board was pleased to learn that the balance of the contents of the vat were unsullied and the reporters gathered 'round to make glass-plate photographs of the primate who saved the day, the first known instance of a machine being stopped by a monkey's retch in the works. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 5 21 Feb 2005 ================================================================= FIDONET BY INTERNET ================================================================= Fidonet Related Websites Thom LaCosta 1:261/1352 02/17/2005 One approach to tracking and viewing Fidonet related websites is to visit webrings that specialize in Fidonet. A webring is a method where sites having a common theme advertise other websites with simailar themes. The advantage to the webring concept is that in theory, the sites have an interest in maintaining an accuate listing and can modify their own listings on a site by site basis. It appears that there are two fidonet webrings....the long-running system at http://b.webring.com/hub?ring=fidonet and another at http://www.fidonet.us/fidoring/ The ring at webring.com is larger, but forces the viewer to look at google ads panels. The smaller ring at fidonet.us does not depend on adverstising revenue from ads. Sysops with Fidonet related websites should consider joining one or both rings. Ring News 02/17/2005 Fidonet webring welcomes BGD Consulting and Graphics BBS Sysop : Barry Davis Jr 01/15/2004 Welcome to Fidotel -- Free access to Fidonet via Telnet & the Web. Sysop: Shannon Talley 12/27/2004 Welcome to The Thunderbolt -- A Weather Wonder(Arkansas, US) Sysop: Daryl Stout 12/5/2004 It's a pleasure to welcome two new BBS systems to the fidonet.us webring: Pucela BBS (Valladolid, Spain) Sysop: Komunero The Realm of Darkness BBS Sysop: Ken Bowley The most current version of the list below can be viewed at http://www.fidonet.us/fidoring/sitelist.html WWW.FIDONET.US - WEBRING PARTICIPANTS BBBS Charlotte and N4RPS.net Home Page Web Page of N4RPS, Rob Sargeant, and Web portal for BBBS Charlotte, FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 6 21 Feb 2005 a Fidonet BBS located in Charlotte, North Carolina USA (1:379/2). http://www.n4rps.net - 6-November-2003 Fidonet - Net261 - Maryland Fidonet in Maryland - Net261 http://www.fidonet.us/net261/ - 2-March-2003 Rocasa BBS Rocasa BBS is a system accessible as both a traditional Bulletin Board System, via landline or telnet, as well as via the Web for message and file access. It is also the home of the BBBS FDN. http://bbs.rocasa.org - 16-June-2003 < E-Mail/News Gateway | | Program. Meltdown-BBS |UI |http://meltdown-bbs.sourceforge.net/ | | meltdown-bbs.project.petkan | | @spamgourmet.com | | Fido: 2:350/5 | | Meltdown-BBS is an FTN <-> | | Web/PHP/MySQL BBS forum system. MakeNL |U | http://hub2000.darktech.org/makenl | | fidonet.hub2000 [at] gmail [dot] com | | Fido: 1:229/2000 | | FidoNet Nodelist Processor FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 12 21 Feb 2005 +- - - - - - - - - - -+- - -+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ National BBS List |? | http://www.usbbs.org Hispanic FIDO/BBS's |? | http://www.conecta2.org/pucela_bbs/ (in Spanish only) | | (Extensive software & BBS Listings) +- - - - - - - - - - -+- - -+- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ File Archives: http://archives.thebbs.org http://www.filegate.net http://sysopscorner.thebbs.org http://www.juge.com http://www.dmine.com/bbscorner/ http://garbo.uwasa.fi http://www.simtel.net http://wuarchive.wustl.edu http://maximus.midnightshour.org http://hobbes.nmsu.edu Note: most also provide FTP access (use ftp:// instead of http:// above) *=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=*=.=*=-=* Please send corrections & additions to: Robert Couture, 1:229/2000 E-Mail: rpa4email (at) rogers (dot) com Telnet: runekeep.darktech.org (Leave Feedback as Guest or create an account) Emeritus: Ben Ritchey, Todd Cochrane, Frank Vest, Peter Popovich ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 13 21 Feb 2005 ================================================================= SPECIAL INTEREST ================================================================= Nodelist Stats Input nodelist nodelist.049 size 814.3kb date 2005-02-18 The nodelist has 6677 nodes in it and a total of 9328 non-comment entries including 6 zones 47 regions 380 hosts 477 hubs admin overhead 910 ( 13.63 %) and 1115 private nodes 308 nodes down 318 nodes on hold off line overhead 1741 ( 26.07 %) Speed summary: >9600 = 596 ( 8.93 %) 9600 = 5724 ( 85.73 %) (HST = 116 or 2.03 %) (CSP = 0 or 0.00 %) (PEP = 1 or 0.02 %) (MAX = 0 or 0.00 %) (HAY = 1 or 0.02 %) (V32 = 2970 or 51.89 %) (V32B = 247 or 4.32 %) (V34 = 3900 or 68.13 %) (V42 = 3274 or 57.20 %) (V42B = 247 or 4.32 %) 2400 = 55 ( 0.82 %) 1200 = 7 ( 0.10 %) 300 = 295 ( 4.42 %) ISDN = 530 ( 7.94 %) ---------------------------------------------------------- File Req Flag Applicable software Number of systems ---------------------------------------------------------- XA Frontdoor <1.99b 2196 Frontdoor 2.02+ Dutchie 2.90c Binkleyterm >2.1 D'Bridge <1.3 TIMS Xenia -------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 14 21 Feb 2005 XB Binkleyterm 2.0 8 Dutchie 2.90b -------------------------------------- XC Opus 1.1 7 -------------------------------------- XP Seadog 6 -------------------------------------- XR Opus 1.03 39 -------------------------------------- XW Fido >12M 280 Tabby KittenMail -------------------------------------- XX D'Bridge 1.30 2960 Frontdoor 1.99b Intermail 2.01 T-Mail -------------------------------------- None QMM 1181 -------------------------------------- CrashMail capable = 2068 ( 30.97 %) MailOnly nodes = 3739 ( 56.00 %) Listed-only nodes = 519 ( 7.77 %) Other = 351 ( 5.26 %) [Report produced by NETSTATS - A PD pgm available from 1:106/100] [ Revised by B Felten, 2:203/208] ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 15 21 Feb 2005 ================================================================= FIDONEWS INFORMATION ================================================================= How to Submit an Article If you wish to submit an article for inclusion in the Fidonews, here are some guidelines, if you send it as an attached file; the preferred method if you want reasonable control over how the published article will appear in the Fidonews: a) Plain ASCII text. If you could type it on your keyboard, it's probably quite OK. No line may be longer than 70 characters. b) Put a title to the article. Put the title in two times. The first time, on the first line, with an * before it. The second time, on the second line, without the * and centered. This will help in the format since the title with the * is removed and used in the index, the second line will become the headline. On the third line, put your name and FidoNet address, present or former. If former, you may want to add some other address where you can be reached for personal comments. c) Deadline for article submission is Sunday, 12:00 UTC. Help the Editor by following the above guides. Below are some subjects and the file extension for the article as set in the configuration file for the making of the Fidonews. Please help by putting the file extension of the correct subject on the file name if known.. Ideas for Subject areas: Subject File | Subject File ----------------------------------|---------------------------------- From the *C's *.css | Rebuttals to articles *.reb Fidonet Regional News *.reg | Fidonet Net News *.net Retractions *.rtx | General Fidonet Articles *.art Guest Editorial *.gue | Fidonet Current Events *.cur Fidonet Interviews *.inv | Fidonet Software Reviews *.rev Fidonet Web Page Reviews *.web | Fidonet Notices *.not Getting Fidonet Technical *.ftc | Question Of The Week *.que Humor in a Fido Vein *.hfv | Comix in ASCII *.cmx Fidonet's Int. Kitchen *.rec | Poet's Corner *.poe Clean Humor & Jokes *.jok | Other Stuff *.oth Fidonet Classified Ads *.ads | Corrections *.cor Best of Fidonet *.bof | Letters to the Editor *.let If you don't know or are not sure, send the article anyway. Put a .TXT on it and I'll try to figure out where it should be in the Fidonews. If you follow these simple guidelines, there should be little problem in getting your article published. If your submission is too far out of specs for the Fidonews, it will be returned to you and/or a message sent informing you of the problem. This DOES NOT mean that your article is not accepted. It means that there is something in it that I can not fix and I need your help on it. FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 16 21 Feb 2005 Send articles via e-mail or netmail, file attach or message to: Bj”rn Felten Fidonet 2:2/2 E-Mail bfelten @ telia dot com IMPORTANT! If you send the article via e-mail, make sure you put the word "fidonews" somewhere in the subject line! That way it will always pass the spam filter, ending up in the proper folder. Please include a message, telling me that you have sent an article. That way I will know to look for it. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 22-08 Page 17 21 Feb 2005 Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- FIDONEWS STAFF - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | | | Editor: Bj”rn Felten, 2:2/2 | | Crash mail attached: Editor@2:2/2 | | E-Mail attached: bfelten @ telia dot com | | Webmaster: Jim Barchuk, jb@fidonews.org | | Columnist: Frank Vest - Frank's Column | | | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- - EDITORS EMERITI - -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + | | | Tom Jennings, Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince | | Perriello, Tim Pozar, Sylvia Maxwell, Donald Tees, | | Christopher Baker, Zorch Frezberg, Henk Wolsink, | | Doug Meyers, Warren D. Bonner, Frank L. Vest | | | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + Fidonews is published weekly by and for the members of Fidonet. Fidonews is Copyright (C) 2004 by Bj”rn Felten, though authors retain rights to their contributed articles. Opinions expressed by the authors is strictly their own. Noncommercial duplication and distribution within Fidonet is encouraged. Authors are encouraged to send their articles in ASCII text to the Editor at one of the addresses above. The weekly edition of Fidonews is distributed through the file area FIDONEWS, and is published as echomail in the echo FIDONEWS. These sources are normally available through your Network Coordinator. The current and past issues are also available from the following sources: + -- -- -- -- -- -- - FIDONEWS AVAILABILITY - -- -- -- -- -- -- + | | | File request from 2:2/2: | | current issue FIDONEWS | | back issue, volume v, issue ii FNEWSvii.ZIP | | | | On the web: | | http://felten.dyndns.org/fidonews | | http://www.fidonet.ca/fidonews | | | | The Snooze *and* the FIDONEWS echo in your newsreader: | | news://felten.dyndns.org/FIDONEWS | | | + -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- + -----------------------------------------------------------------