<<< SPCVXA::$1$DUA2:[NOTES$LIBRARY]X-NUTWORKS.NOTE;2 >>> -< X-NUTWORKS >- ================================================================================ Note 4.0 Issue 3 No replies SPCVXA::TERRY "Terry Kennedy" 691 lines 20-JUL-1989 08:09 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** *** *** *** NutWorks *** *** ---------- *** *** The Inter-Net Virtual Magazine which Prides *** *** Itself on its Pride in Itself *** *** *** *** ================ *** *** *** *** *** *** March, 1985. Issue003, (Volume I, Number 3). *** *** NutWorks is published monthly. Brent CJ Britton (BRENT@MAINE) *** *** virtual Editor and Publisher. *** *** *** ********************************************************************** ********************************************************************** *--------------------------------------------------------------------* * Note: BRENT@MAINE is on vacation as of this day, Friday, March 8, * * 1985. He will be traveling (incognito) throughout Florida, * * land of sun, citrus, and hot oily bodies. Please refer all * * comminication concerning NutWorks to Marvin (xxxxx@xxxxxx) * * for approximately the next two weeks. Thank you very much. * * I'll think of you when I'm tanning... hee hee. * *--------------------------------------------------------------------* == "To Whose Moral Majority Do YOU Belong ??" == Fundamentalists are aggravating computer evolution. Mankind, as a race, is forever adopting new attitudes, new "ways of doing things." If a function is performed in the same manner for any reasonable amount of time, the means through which it has been per- performed will surely be altered in some way as to make the entire situation seem different and new. This is exemplified by entities such as constantly changing styles of dresswear, the physical appearance of automobiles, and the frequent passage of "fads." For the most part, though, there are a finite number of ways in which things can feasibly be changed. That is, once something has been altered a certain number of times, there are simply no more possibilities left for change. As a result, patterns of change begin to form cycles. We do function X in manner A; soon, A becomes boring so we advance to manner B; realizing that B is equally mundane, we see manner A as being the best way after all and once again advance(/revert(?)) to doing function X the way we did before. The cycle continues, in time, ad absurdum. Ever since binary_1 was added with binary_1 to result quite properly in binary_2 by the roomfull of machinery named ENIAC, computers have by far been the most consistent creatures of change. Moreover, the attitudes held by those responsible for directing and managing the use of computer facilities have done the same. And these attitudes are the very type which eternally change in unending cycles. One fine day, someone wearing Coke-bottle eye-glasses and a long white lab coat--in the pocket of which he kept several thousand ink pens-- said, "Holy catfish!" and went on to explain at length how he had figured that if THIS computer were rigged up with THAT computer, the two could be "linked" so that folks using either computer could interact with one another. And so began the glorious days of computer communication... The days when operations managers boasted of their ability to send and receive files to and from half way across the country... The days when System Programmers worked diligently on producing CHAT machines... And on the eighth day, Man invented computer network links, and man saw the network that it was good... The fact that the "Computer System Alpha-Numeric Logon Identification Code" is much more realisticly called an "account number" stems from the inevitable change that began to take place in proportion with the availability of computer services to the public. Those people whose minds are geared to do so started to ponder questions of payment. Operations Managers, Computing Center Directors, they are all good people. For the most part, they are very intelligent and truly concerned about the needs of their system and those who make use of it. And they all have superiors to whom they must answer and from whom they obtain funding. The fascination with communication via computer networks has long since dwindled in the minds of those who pay for it. The trend among them lately is to closely monitor, if not restrict computer usage which they feel to be nonproductive or unnecessary. In many cases, this includes any and all participation in electronic conferencing (chatting), making use of system printers for anything other than true blue output (in the programming sense of the word), and the use of file sending/receiving capabilities for anything other than mail and batch processing. This magazine, of course, is in violation of that. These people have legitimate complaints. Someone out there is paying for vast amounts of CPU time, and that someone should have every right to be sure that his money is not being wasted. It is also completely up to that someone to decide just what qualifies as "waste". Perhaps the problems with restrictions would be alleviated if users paid for their own machines. Students and employees could be issued machines for classwork and work-work respectively. These machines could be monitored and restricted from any unnecessary usage. Each person could have the option of purchasing ANOTHER machine to be used for anything else. Users who wanted to do things other than that which was deemed "necessary" would be free to do so on their very own accounts. Many centers offer a limited number of logon id's to anyone who requests one, for a modest price. Many people on the Net are already paying to be there. It's difficult to speculate whether these restrictive attitudes will fall into the cycle of recurrence. In a few years, as computer time becomes less expensive, perhaps the restrictive grip will loosen. Or perhaps things will worsen until the web of the network is severed completely at the cutting hands of those who no longer support it. ==================== COMPUTER COMMUNICATION: DEVELOPMENT OR DISEASE? BY MARVIN RAAB xxxxx@xxxxxx FEB 20 1985 Having majored in communication arts with computer and journalism background (not to mention being a ''ferret''), I'd like to discuss the latest craze to sweep not only the United States, but a number of other countries as well. This craze, although it has yet to be linked to cancer, affects it's victims with symptoms such as lack of sleep, greater telephone usage, greater typing speed and accuracy, and an emotional attachment to a person or group of persons which the victim has never met. You guessed it: BITNET/EARNET CHATTING. Victims of this relatively new affliction are known as BITNAUTS. No one knows the exact number of BITNAUTS since many of them do not wish to declare themselves as such, but estimates range from 500-1500. The typical BITNAUT is a male college student between the ages of 17 and 25. His grades are average and he is extremely computer literate. These statistics were derived solely from observation and they do not describe EVERY bitnaut. There are Bitnauts of every age, sex, race, educational background, and career goals. Let's examine the facets to Chatting. For this article, ''chatting'' refers to one-on-one discussions as well as electronic conferencing. The Basics: Almost everyone at most of the 200 nodes has access to BITNET. Most nodes have over 500 users of which 200 are logged on at any one time. Doing some quick math, we find that 40,000 people are logged on at any one time. Of course, time zones come into play here add, while CUNYVM may have 250 people logged on at 8pm EST, WEIZMANN may have only 10 at that hour. In any case, there are literally thousands of people logged on at any one time; each one of them able to communicate with any other; relatively free of charge. After the original novelty of talking to someone who is sitting many miles away diminishes, semi-serious conversation occurs. Schoolwork and leisure activities are the common topics. If the Bitnauts continue at this rate for more than a few days, they will usually become closer friends and discuss items which close friends usually discuss (personal problems, serious political beliefs, etc.) Electronic conferencing is slightly different. The Bitnauts are familiar to eachother. An individual's unique nickname along with his chatting technique contribute to bonds between chatters. These chatters will usually extend their newly found friendship to the level of one-on-one in the following weeks. Electronic conferencing also serves the need for ''company''. How many chatters actually think they hear the voices of the others while reading the screen? The more lines of conversation, the louder the little voice in your head reads. In addition, no one can see you. If you are the ugliest person in your city, no one will know. This provides an excellent opportunity to the otherwise shy individual. For the obnoxious individual, electronic conferencing is also ideal. He can talk (type) while others are also typing and no one needs to wait till someone else finishes his sentence. The extroverted individual is also given the chance of a lifetime since he has a captive audience. Females are able to openly flirt with strangers where they are normally prohibited from doing so in contemporary society. Males are provided access to girls like never before. One would never go up to a stranger in the street and ask what the weather is like in a particular city. If he did, he would be given ridiculous stares and be greatly embarrassed. BITNET, with its characteristic of almost total anonymity, allows us to cross the bound- ary of embarrassment. (When was the last time you were embarrassed on BITNET?) The CPQ NAMES command greatly resembles a conventional telephone directory. The major difference between that book and the command lies in the intrinsic recognition of ID's or BITNET addresses. An id of CS11124@ANYWHERE announces to the BITNAUT that the user is a student taking computer science, probably the first class in the field. This is quite different from seeing J. Doe 15-15 Cherry Street. Another analogy to telephone calls is the instinctive response to an unknown caller, "Sorry, wrong number" and the receiver hangs up the phone. Using BITNET however, receiving a message from an unknown ID will yield opposite results. The fear of a "crank call" is eliminated and a conversation often results unless of course the receiver is preoccupied). A major flaw in BITNET relationships is the obvious lack of physical contact. Eye contact is very essential to the development of friendships. BITNAUTS have succeeded in remedying this to the greatest possible extent. The smile ( :-) ), the kiss (**kiss**), the simulated laughter (tee hee, hee hee) and many others serve to paint an accurate picture of nonverbal communication in the minds of the receivers. However, the lack of close proxemics never leaves the conscious thoughts. In any system of human interaction, soap opera situations develop, and BITNET is not immune. There are countless situations of this type occuring between BITNAUTS at any time and they have become the threads to the fabric of the BITNET society. As the number of BITNAUTS increases, so will the number of characters in these soaps as well as the number of these soaps. Another observation relates to actual meetings of Bitnauts. Sometimes it clicks and sometimes it doesn't. There is absolutely no possible way to predict which relationship will retain and further develop it's on-line roots, and which will wither away. BITNAUTS from North America are unlikely to meet their counterparts in other countries, although a few travellers will have this pleasure. However, one must consider the plight of BITNAUTS from the west coast. The majority of nodes are within 1000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean and almost all are within 2-8 hours driving time from neighboring nodes. This has resulted in many meetings, not to mention the convention(s). How do the BITNAUTS from the State of California feel about this? The results (positive as well as negative) of BITNET relations has yet to be seen. There are undoubtedly dangers involved (imagine an emotionally unstable BITNAUT) but to restrict users at nodes from BITNET use is not the answer. BITNET has become an important addition to the lives of college students of this world, just as television entered the lives of society almost 50 years ago. And just as that medium has had it's share of problems and positive products, so will computer networks. What better way to start than with the college students of the world? ===================== ** A Joke ** (Try not to fall out of your chair over this one... go on, try.) There was, in Italy, a certain vampire, looking for a place to live. He finally settled upon a bridge between two cities, since the heavy foot traffic would make it very easy for him to find victims when he was hungry. Several weeks passed....the vampire was taking young women from the bridge, drinking their blood, and throwing them over the side of the bridge. Strangely, though, there had been no outcry over the missing girls or any kind of search for them. The vampire began to wonder, what happened to the bodies after he threw them over the bridge? So, the next time he took a woman from the bridge and tossed her over the side, he looked over to see what happened to her. Very shortly, a large troll came out from under the bridge, slung the girl over his shoulder, and walked away, singing "Drained Wops Keep Falling on my Head"..... ===================== Virtually Unanswerable Questions compiled & executed by Marissa (xxxxxxxx@xxxxxx) Why are some Bitnetters so hung up on knowing their virtual friends' last names?? Why are some Bitnetters so determined to keep even their FIRST names secret?? (Mr. X, I mean you!!) Why do people from halfway across the continent include their phone numbers on their Bitnet mail?? Am I supposed to call them??? Does Bitnet mail cost 22 cents now? Speaking of cents, why doesn't my keyboard have a cents sign??? When a link is disconnected, why does your own node always blame it on the other guy?? Why is there a LOGMSG if all it ever says is: TYPE NEWS FOR SYSTEM INFORMATION ??? Is software tangible or intangible?? Why does VMBACKUP take longer than recreating all your files from scratch?? Why doesn't the virtually impossible machine at CUNYVM save a copy of the file I was editing when it crashed??? (WYLBUR does!!!) Does anyone use CP? Does anyone care?? If CUNYVM does accounting twice daily, why does my account balance remain the same for a week??? Why the hell am I asking you all this??? ===================== Problem: The question arose while poring over the following cash register receipt from Burger King, "Why is the word 'WHOPPER' misspelled?": ,-------------------------, | | | BR KING 1909 | | 16 F E B 13:18 | | | | | | 1 WHOPER 1.40 | | *** ONL Y | | K O | | 1 CHICKEN 1.79 | | 1 EAT IN .00 | | 1 FRIES .52 | | 1 PEPS L .70 | | 1 DIET L .70 | | TX .31 | | 32 TOTAL 5 5.42 | | | | | | | | CASH 6.00 | | RET URN .58 | | | '-------------------------' Hypotheses: 1. Fields are a maximum of 6 characters long. rejected; 'CHICKEN' extends into column 7. 2. Whoever programmed the system can't spell properly. rejected; Burger King management would damn well make sure that the names of their products were spelled correctly. Also, other anomalies exist, i.e., the blanks in the words "ONLY" and "RETURN," and the left margin is ragged. 3. Burger King cash registers can only print certain characters in certain columns, forcing the odd spelling and odd format. This hypothesis seems to have the most merit. The original receipt shows that the printing mechanism prints characters from fully-formed images, not in a dot-matrix form. Thus we can visualize the print mechanism as consisting of a rotating wheel for each column. Since to fit all 36 alphamers on each wheel would probably give them too great a diameter to be practical, only a selected subset of the letters are put on each wheel, and the spelling and positioning of the item names has to be adjusted to fit this scheme. It would appear that Burger King even chooses the names for new products with the design of their cash registers in mind. For example, their fish sandwich is called the "Whaler", which is easily printed using the W, H, E, and R from 'WHOPER', the A from 'EAT IN' and the 'L' from 'ONL Y'. However, it could just have easily been called 'FISH' by taking the F in 'FRIES', the I in 'DIET', and the S and H from 'CASH', so it appears that even this hypothesis is a little weak. Any other hypotheses and further research by readers would be welcomed. +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ +++++++ Received: by MAINE id 1110; Fri, 01 Mar 85 05:59:35 EST Subject: The reason why WHOPPER is spelled WHOPER. To: Brent C.J. Britton From: Barry D. Gates Date: Fri, 1 Mar 1985 04:53 EST It has come to my attention that a great furor has been aroused in the field of computer academia over the spelling of the word WHOPPER on receipts from Burger King. First of all, it should be pointed out that I do not, as a normal matter of habit, frequent such substandard eateries as this when a choice does exist, but at one occasion I did happen to stop into one of fast food establishments with several of my academic colleagues during this past summer and we happened to notice these strange encryptic printouts. After staring at these strange writings for a few minutes we noticed the similarity between our cash receipts and xediting a file that had been sent from a Vax (small mainframe computer, usually dedicated to tasks such as graphics which deserve to be done on such machines) using the SEND/FILE/BINARY command. The Vax, as most of you should know, communicates with an extended version of the ASCII character set, whereas the IBM uses the EBCDIC character set. This translation from one set to another allows some characters to be translated the into gibberish, others into different characters, and still others to remain unchanged. It is from this observation that I was able to determine the reason for the strange and somewhat cryptic spellings on Burger King receipts. As you all know, the EBCDIC character set is the successor to an older character set called BCD. This BCD character set was used by IBM in its computers back in the late 1950s/early 1960s in the IBM 1400-series computers. From a back issue of the Scientific American (December 1962 to be exact), I discovered a company by the name of Inter-Code Business Machine Company who had built an extension to the BCD character set for use in their computer, the SS-20. The company was declared bankrupt after selling less than 12 computers, and they were left with over 12,000 more of these machines in stock. The name of their character set was called BCDCB. One of the best aspects of their computer was that it was all capable of being housed in a box no larger than a terminal. At the same time that ICBM was going bankrupt, Burger King had just come into the fast food market and was in need of tax shelters. In a deal to help pay ICBM's creditors, they agreed to purchase the remaining stock of SS-20s from ICBM for the cost of $20 (a dollar could buy a lot more back in the old days). As time went on, Burger King never really did anything with their $20 investment, and the SS-20s remained stockpiled in one of Burger King's wharehouses. ----- Then came the age of Computerized Cash Registers! ----- Burger King was in bad economic straights back in 1973 when they were losing massive numbers of customers to an Irish-American hamburger chain (which shall also remain nameless). They also wished to get some new electronic cash registers for their counters. An old janitor at Burger King happened to stumble on the old SS-20s one day, and one of the head programmers at Burger King came up with a great idea. Why not take an old SS-20, put an aluminum box around it and put a keypad on top and use the device as a cash register (you will remember that ICBM was ahead of its time in making computers small). The idea worked; it worked fabulously in fact. However, several years later they decided to add a receipt printer to the whole combo. Here is where our trouble is. As I had mentioned before, BCD and BCDCB were not quite the same. Burger King, however, did not realize this until after they had bought the 12,000 BCD receipt printers they thought they needed. They also did not realize this fact until after they had mounted all 12,000 printers onto their cash registers. The SS-20s had a rather odd character-out routine, which would switch to graphics mode whenever to identical characters were sent in succession. The letter 'R' also could cause problems, because that was how you returned from graphics mode back into text mode (the process of converting back to text mode is rather slow on these machines however, and usually takes about as much time as it takes to send another 5 characters). So, as you can see the word WHOPPER is actually what the SS-20 is printing, but the second 'P' would put the SS-20s normal display device (the GLCM) into graphics mode. Since a receipt printer does not have a graphics mode, it just ignores the strange code it gets entirely. The second problem I just mentioned also explains why the string 'FRENCH FRIES' appears as 'FFRIES' on a Burger King receipt tape. I have, over this past break, worked out the translation code from BCDCB into either BCD, EBCDIC or ASCII. If anyone should happen to want this program, I will be glad to send the source code along. I also have developed the code to make a Visual 550 act as a GLCM. Together, these are the start of a really excellent graphics package. If you wish to know how to make your Vs550 act as a GLCM, please give me a call and I will drive to your installation and personally give your Visual it's 'test flight'. Oh, well. I have to run now. I hope this clears up any problems that might have developed. Later, Barry... ===================== Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch -- Part I As the Lone Ranger rode down the gully he felt a shiver of impending doom run down his spine to the very roots of his ingrown toenails. As he turned the corner on a narrow bend in the horse track, he yelled in fear as great black swarms of bats smoking Rum and Tapioka Cigars descended in a rush. ************** Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Goldilocks roused sleepily from bed and shuffled downstairs, pulling on a thin robe as she went. Much to her surprise she discovered a band of rowdy, foul orcs making short work of what remained in the larder. She screamed daintily and ran toward the living room, the loose folds of her robe flapping about her rather well-developed physique, pursued by 12 Orcs who had decided they had found something better to eat than powdered cake mix and instant coffee. ************** Meanwhile, in an old slum tenement house deep in the thriving urban center of New York, Illinois, Marvin Teeble decided he had had enough of crime and rape and began waging his private war by shorting the blind newspaper man 15 cents. ************** Meanwhile, back in the gully, TLR was slowly recovering from various venomous bites and several cigar-burns, shook his muddled head and rose shakily to his feet. It had been a rough fight, but the Goodie-Goodies always win. It was then he noticed Butch Cavendish and twenty top marksmen, all aiming assorted deadly weaponry in his general direction. "Looks like it's going to be one of those days," he thought wearily. ************** Meanwhile, back at the ranch, three large and ill-disposed bears walked in on the scene in the living room. Yelling with rage, fury, and lust, they waded into the midst of the orcs slashing indiscriminately at vital areas. The ensuing confusion allowed Goldilocks, tired but satisfied, to make good her escape out the back door unnoticed, covered with blood and various parts of orcs who wouldn't be needing them anymore anyway. To Be Continued ... ===================== Hackers Take Note! Below is an IBM product announcement that I have cooked up that is becoming quite popular within IBM. TITLE VIRTUAL MACHINE / EXTENDED MIGRATION AID SYSTEM (VM/XMAS) ABSTRACT The IBM Extended Migration Aid System (VM/XMAS), along with the newly announced System Advanced Network Tailoring Architecture (SANTA), is the new base for all Extended Architecture developments and is to become the only supported VM system. OVERVIEW VM/XMAS, on a triadic processor, allows a production MVS/XA to be run, while keeping idle 70% of the total processor. System analysis screens will display 100% busy so that you can claim that you need a larger CPU. This is accomplished via the new 370 instruction, Start Increased Execution (SIE) which will cause all instructions to take approximately 60% longer (individual benchmarks may vary according to the tailored load of your system). VM/XMAS HILIGHTS o Automatic PSAR submission via RSF. PSAR submission will occur whenever the system recognizes that is has supplied an INCORROUT reply to a user. o Support for full-duplex ASCII terminals. Users must learn to type in reverse ASCII in order to use this new function. 3270 will currently still be supported but may be removed at any given time in the future. o Randomization after failure mode. Dumps are considered too boring, so this added function allows the system maintainer to determine how much randomization occurs between the time VM/XMAS fails and between the time it produces a dump. IBM Internal Use documentation suggests that a randomization factor higher than 10% maybe hazardous to the system programmers health. o Hierarchical dump file system. Work is currently under way for a dump file retrieval facility. System planners are suggested to allocate a bank of 3380's for the hierarchical dump file system. o Ability to upgrade to a Cray XMP. Program testing is under way to see whether this will indeed work as stated. o Variable resource accounting. This means that it is variable whether VM/XMAS will do resource accounting. CUSTINFO PUBLICATIONS One copy of each of the documents listed below will be supplied automatically with the basic machine-readable material. o VM/XMAS Licensed Program Specification o VM/XMAS Installation Guide o VM/XMAS Messages and Codes o VM/XMAS Program Summary o VM/XMAS General Information Manual o VM/XMAS CP Reference o VM/XMAS Customization Guide o VM/XMAS SANTA Reference o VM/XMAS SANTA Messages and Clauses o VM/XMAS Operating Systems in a Virtual Machine Guide o VM/XMAS Technical Reference All documentation will be available according to general availability schedule. The Program Summary is available now. SCHEDULE Planned general availability is 5Q86. EDUCATION VM/XMAS planning and installation education will be available starting on April 1st, 1985. TECHINFO TECHNICAL INFORMATION PROGRAM INTERFACES: VM/XMAS is designed to support the following operating systems as virtual machines: MVS/SP Version 1 (JES2 or JES3) in a V=R preferred area in UP mode MVS/XA in a V=R preferred area in AP mode VM/SP in a V=R preferred area in MT mode VM/SP High Performance Option in a V=R preferred area in UP mode OS/VS1 in a V=R preferred area (but only on Wednesdays) DOS/VSE in a V=R preferred area MVS/SP Version 1 (JES2 or JES3) in a V=V area in UP mode MVS/XA in a V=V area in UP or virtual MP mode VM/XMAS in a R=V area in AP mode VM/SP in a V=V area in UP mode VM/SP High Performance Option in a V=V area in UP mode OS/VS1 in a V=V area in MP mode DOS/VSE in a V=V area in UP mode (read over Planning and Installation Guide for limitations of this particular configuration during 2Q86). VM/XA Migration Aid in a V=V area in UP or virtual MP mode VM/XA Migration Aid CMS in a V=V area (planned availability is 4Q88). DEVICE SUPPORT: VM/XMAS provides for three levels of device support: Fully-supported devices are those devices that are known to be used and may be used by but not exclusively used by, with prior consent by a responsible adult. Dedicated-only devices are devices that are recognized, but not only used by VM/XMAS but used sometimes by guest operating systems. Extended devices are those devices that are used by the system but not always by the system, to provide an extended facility base to advanced SANTA user. Read over VM/XMAS Planning and Installation Guide for the clause that states that SANTA users must be experienced Eunuchs (*) users. (*) - Eunuchs is a Trademark of Ball Lavatories HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: o Enough DASD, terminals, tapes, and other I/O devices to push IBM stock above the $500/share mark. o A minimum processor real memory size of 512 megabytes. Statement of intent: IBM intends to create a 512 megabyte real storage processor sometime in the near future. o One Series/1 per locally attached 3270 type terminal. The minimum Series/1 configuration is: - IBM Series/1 4956 or 4955 Processor with at least 128Kb of memory - IBM Timex Clock (#7840) - IBM Programmer Console (#5655 for 4956; #5650 for 4955) - IBM 4993 System/370 Channel Attachment (#1200) - IBM Teletype Adapter (#7850) - IBM 4964 Rockette Unit Attachment (#3581) - IBM 4964 Model 1 Rockette Unit - IBM 3101 Terminal in reverse ASCII character mode (console) - IBM 4993 System/370 Channel Interface Check Card - IBM 4997 Rack Enclosure and Screw assembly (#9197) - IBM Feature-Programmable Multiline 4-line Communications Adapter (#2096) - IBM Feature-Programmable 8-line Communications Control (#2095). SECURITY AND INTEGRITY: With every purchased version of VM/XMAS, a bonded security agent is supplied to watch that no violations occur. In addition, an integrity diploma is issued for every version of VM/XMAS stating it's virtue and integrity to IBM. INSTALLATION AND SERVICE: Due to a misunderstanding at PID, VM/XMAS will be distributed on magnets that are taped together. Corrective service, in the form of randomized object modules will possibly be made available. Refresh frequency will be every 90 minutes and customers will be notified when a new refresh magnet is available. ORDERING INFORMATION VM/XMAS can be ordered from any of the following places: o Macy's o Two-Guys o Caldors o Duane Reade (free case of Anacin-3 supplied) CHARGES, TERMS, AND CONDITIONS CHARGES ONE-TIME CHARGE: $35,000 plus one first born child from each installation YEARLY LICENSE CHARGE: $65,000 plus baksheesh QUANTITY DISCOUNTS: Quantity Discount 5 - 9 9% 10 - 14 3% 15 - 19 23% 20 or more 15% TERMS AND CONDITIONS WARRANTED: For one year unless opened or tampered with by customer. LICENSED PROGRAM MATERIALS AVAILABILITY: This licensed program will be available without source licensed program materials. It will be available with object code only. MONTHLY LICENSED PROGRAM SUPPORT CHARGE: no support. ===================== IMPURE MATHEMATICS Wherein it is related how that paragon of womanly virtue, young Polly Nomial (our heroine), is accosted by the notorious villian, Curly Pi, and factored (oh, Horror!). Once Upon a time (1/t), pretty Polly Nomial was strolling across a field of vectors when she came to the boundary of a singularly matrix.. Now Polly was convergent and her mother had made it an absolute condition that she never enter such an array without her brackets on. Polly, however, who had changed her variables that morning and was feeling particularly badly behaved, ignored this condition on the basis that is was insufficient, and make her way in among the complex elements. Rows and columns closed in on here from all sides. Tangents approached her surface. She became tensor and tensor. Quite suddenly, two branches of a hyperbola touched her at a single point. She oscillated violently, lost all sense of directrix, and went completely divergent. As she reached a turning point, she tripped over a square root that was protruding from the erf and plunged headlong down a steed gradient. When she rounded off once more, she found herself inverted, apparently aline, in a non-euclidian space. She was being watched, however. That smooth operator, Curly Pi, was lurking innerproduct. As his eyes devoured her curvilinear coordinates, a singular expression crossed his face, He wondered, was she still convergent? He decided to integrate improperly at once, Hearing a common fraction behind her, Polly rotated an saw Curly Pi approaching with his power series extrapolated.. She could see at once by his degenerate conic an dissipative terms that he was bent on no good, 'Arcsinh', she gasped. 'Ho, Ho,' he said. 'What a symmetric little asymptote you have. I can see your angels have a lit of secs.' 'Oh sir,' she protested. 'Keep away form me. I haven't got my brackets on.' 'Calm yourself, my dear.' said our suave operator. 'Your fears are purely imaginary.' 'I...I' she thought. 'Perhaps he's not normal but homologous.' 'What order are your?' the brute demanded. 'Seventeen.' replied Polly. Curly leared, 'I suppose you've never been operated on.' 'Of course not,' Polly replied quite properly. 'I'm absolutely convergent.' 'Come, come,' said Curly. 'Let's go to a decimal place I know and I'll take you to the limit.' 'Never!' gasped Polly. 'Abscissa.' he swore, using the vilest oath he know. His patience was gone. Cohsing her over the coefficient with a log until she was powerless, Curly removed her discontinuities. He stared at her significant places, and began smoothing out her points of inflection. Poor Polly. The algorithmic method was now her only hope. She felt his hand tending to her asymptotic limit, Her convergence would soon be gone forever! There was no mercy, for Curly was a heavysided operator. Curly's radius squared itself. Polly's loci quivered. He integrated by parts, he integrated by partial fractions. After he cofactored, he performed runge-kutta on here. The complex beast even went all the way around and did a contour integration. Curly went on operation until he had satisfied her hypothesis. Then he exponentiated and became completed orthogonal. When Polly got home that night, her mother noticed that she was no longer piecewise continuous, and had been truncated in several places, But is was too late to differentiate how. A the months went by, Polly's denominator increased monotonically, Finally she went to L'hospital and generated a small but pathological function which left surds all over the place an drove Polly to deviation. The moral of our sad story is this: 'If you want to keep your expressions convergent, never allow them a single degree of freedom.' ===================== "To err is human -- to moo, bovine." =====================