X-NEWS: spcvxb news.admin: 15225 Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.5; site spcvxb.spc.edu Path: spcvxb.spc.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sdl!plts!tal Newsgroups: alt.culture.usenet,news.admin,comp.org.eff.talk,misc.legal.computing,rec.humor Subject: Usenet Feeds Available By Fax! Message-ID: From: tal@plts.uucp (Tom Limoncelli) Date: 1 Aug 92 03:08:48 GMT Sender: tal@plts.uucp (Tom Limoncelli) Followup-To: news.admin Organization: Tom's Box of Ahedonia Summary: Another sarcastic statement about the state of Usenet, Tom's Friday night specialty. Lines: 74 Xref: spcvxb alt.culture.usenet:250 news.admin:15225 comp.org.eff.talk:9085 misc.legal.computing:1707 rec.humor:52454 PLTS Announces "netnews by fax" ------------------------------- "It's not vaporware anymore!", said Tom Limoncelli, President of PLTS. And with that PLTS announced their plans this week to provide the first feed of Usenet news by fax. Usenet is a network of more than 5 computers that exchange over 200 messages a day on topics ranging from which is the best text editor (vi or cat), to how to delete files with funny charactors in them, to jokes about Brad Templeton walking into a bar and not being stringed. The service, at a cost of just $50 per page, will fax you all the messages that come across the Usenet bboard system. There will be an extra for certain "adult" newsgroups like comp.mail.sendmail. "We don't believe in censorship", said Enrique Flaire, public relations director of PLTS, "so we will not provide any filtering. You take every message or nothing!" Some Usenet regulars have complained that this was not how Usenet was meant to be. "This was not how Usenet was meant to be!", said Mathew Mantis, grand poohbah of the "news.admin" bboard. "When I created Usenet, oh so many years ago, it was so that people could come together and argue about just about nothing, and so far we've been arguing about nothing ever since! Faxes are one-way. Nobody can have a one-sided argument!" Critics have challenged this statement and called it "hypocritical". They offer the fact that Mathew is the king of one-sided arguments himself as proof. PLTS Spokesperson commented, "Mathew needs to get a life, but as long as he sticks to news.admin and doesn't post any of the newsgroups we read it's ok for him to say anything he wants." The "NewsFax" software can only be used in the United States, since it uses special magical beans that if foreigners were to get ahold of, could grow gigantic beanstalks capable of growing up into the clouds to the castle of the giant with the Golden Goose who's eggs are so valuable it would destroy the American economy at least according to the NSA and ETARS (Engish Teachers Against Run-on Sentences). The "sources" newsgroups will be faxed as are all the other newsgroups. Sources are posted as examples for good programming, nobody would actually use that stuff. PLTS has placed certain restrictions on the NewsFax customers. For example, they may not use OCR software to turn the messages into ASCII files. Users also may not re-fax the pages to anyone else. "Since each fax generation is more blury than the previous, we don't want our reputation to be ruined by people seeing third and fourth generation faxes." Environmentalists have begged the company to only set up feeds to people with computerized fax machines that display the incomming faxes on a computer screen, rather than printing out every single message. Rich Dollaraltz, product manager, responded, "Hey, those customers are payINNg for the paper, what's you beef? INN fact, we have a new service where you pay for a feed and give us the fax number of an environmentalist that you really hate... and we send the newsfeed to them! Best of all we donate 10% of the money to either of the followINNg charities: 'Wetlands? Who Needs 'Em?', 'Kill The Spotted Owl, That's HOO HOO', 'I Hate Trees', or the company's personal favorite, 'Anti-Abortionist Republican Carnivores For A Plant-Free, Over-Populated Planet'." Customers also may not cancel their subscription. "It would be too much paperwork, and we don't want those environmentalists to have Yet Another Complaint about us." The service can be ordered by calling "1-800-FAX-NETS" and asking for department 23003bf9. Tom -- Tom Limoncelli Makers of NewsFax, the ONLY Usenet-by-fax service! -- tal@plts.uucp