* * Archive: SREAL02.NEW * * Created on: Tue Aug 3 15:24:41 1999 * * Number of articles: 25 * * Welcome! This is one of the files that goes to make up the archives of * Project Galactic Guide. To find out what the heck PGG is, go look at its * main Web site at , where you'll be able to find * an FAQ. * * * The articles in this file are: * * 2S22-1 Thermonuclear Devices For The Weekend Anarchist * 2S23-1 Star Trek * 2S24-1 Finding The North * 2S25-1 Insults * 2S26-1 Quantum Mechanics Of Sandwiches In Lunchboxes * 2S27-1 Homeopathy * 2S28-1 Supermarkets * 2S29-1 Norway, Earth * 2S30-1 Denmark, Earth * 2S31-1 Proof Techniques * 2S32-1 Bordesium * 2S33-1 Ethereal Travel * 2S34-1 Towels * 2S35-1 Unix Vi Editor, Case Study Of * 2S36-1 Salad Days * 2S37-1 Swimming With Clothes On * 2S38-1 Black Trenchcoats * 2S39-1 Jupiter, Sol 5 * 2S40-1 Winning The Lottery * 2S41-1 Professions: Waitering: How To Get Tips * 2S42-1 Professions: Waitering: Problems And Traumas * 2S43-1 Field Researchers, How To Recognize * 2S44-1 Modems * 2S45-1 Computers, Earth * 2S46-1 Nursing Homes * %t Thermonuclear Devices For The Weekend Anarchist %n 2S22 %s A Nuke You Can Build At Home %a Chuck McKenna (atndftwa@mckennanet.com) %d 19900318 %i Nuclear War %e Are you fed up with the local political machine? Are you tired of going to the same boring job every day? Is school getting you down? If you are suffering from any of these afflictions, this is for you! Making a thermonuclear device is quite simple. It can be done on a lazy summer weekend when there isn't much on television anyway. The only truly difficult part of building your bomb is obtaining the reaction mass. If you have access to weapons-grade plutonium you may skip the first step, which is: hijack a truck carrying nuclear fuel rods to the neighborhood nuclear power plant, hide the cargo of fuel rods in a safe place, and dispose of the truck. Next, you need to acquire a pound of plastic explosive. If you don't have any left over from your last armed insurgence, don't panic -- an acceptable substitute can be made right in your own kitchen. Melt 1-1/2 boxes of Ivory soap flakes in an iron saucepan. Stir in 2 lbs. of 0000 fine gunpowder. When this cools it will have the consistency of sticky Playdough. One word of caution: cook this mixture only on an electric stove. Using an open flame may cause it to detonate. Two other items you will need are an electrically detonated blasting cap and a dependable alarm watch. Having gathered all of the ingredients, you may now sit down to the business of building your bomb. Locating a machine shop where your clandestine work may be done is your next priority. Having done that you'll need to make a ten-inch diameter, hollow, steel sphere with a two-inch threaded hole. Now, cut a piece of two-inch pipe six inches long and thread both ends. The last part of the bomb casing is a threaded cap for the end of the pipe with a small hole drilled in it for the blasting cap. Making the reaction mass is very dangerous. You will undoubtedly get some form of radiation sickness. Start by grinding the fuel rods into a fine dust, being extraordinarily careful not to breathe any in. Inhalation of this dust WILL cause lung cancer. In a large plastic bowl, mix one pint of marine epoxy with half of the recommended amount of hardener. This will keep it pliable longer. Thoroughly mix the powdered uranium. Be sure to keep an even consistency. Scoop this reaction mass into the steel sphere keeping the threads clear and packing it down often. Air pockets will cause an inefficient chain reaction. If you have a centrifuge available it would be an effective tool for removing them. After allowing it to set for about 45 minutes, using a plastic knife, cut a conical wedge out of the reaction mass and allow both to set for 24 hours. While it's setting, you may wish to begin work on the detonator. Cap one end of the 6 inch pipe and weld the cap in place. Pack three inches of plastic explosive into the pipe. Insert the blasting cap into the plastic explosive via the hole in the cap and epoxy in place. Check the alarm setting on the watch to ensure that it is off. Remove the back of the watch and solder one wire to each of the alarm contacts. Then solder the other ends of the wires to the blasting cap leads. Using nonconductive tape, fasten the watch to the end of the pipe. After twenty-four hours have elapsed, slide the now hardened wedge of reaction mass into the open end of the pipe. Tighten the pipe into the threaded hole in the sphere and weld quickly in place. You are now the owner of your very own thermonuclear device. The rest is up to you. Find your target, plant the bomb, set the timer, leave the state, and watch the news from your hospital bed as you are treated for radiation poisoning. %e *EOA* %t Star Trek %n 2S23 %d 19930731 %s Earth Religion %a Sean Sutherland (maverick@pro-party.cts.com) %i Religion Based On Star Trek TV Program %x Classification Of Religions %e "Star Trek" is an Earth-based religion which is centered upon a story created by Gene Roddenbury. Followers of this religion are collectively called "Trekkies" or "Trekkers." This religion's classification number is 2D4S-3?2?. There have been several attempts to recruit new people to this religion. Here is a list: 1) Star Trek: The Original Series This was a failed attempt lasting only 3 years, after which the Nielson ratings, a primitive form of seeing how popular a TV show is, dropped to unacceptable levels. This lasted from 1968-70. The show, however, did, after some time, bring a large number of people into the religion. 2) Star Trek: The Animated Series This was an attempt made in the late '70s to recruit young people to this religion as a Saturday morning cartoon show. This, too, was discontinued. 3) Star Trek: The Movies These movies, currently there are six, were another attempt to revive the recruiting attempt by bringing back the original crew of the fictional ship "Enterprise" to the big screen. This, so far, has succeeded. 4) Star Trek: The Next Generation This is another series, started in 1987. This was an attempt to bring new members by creating a new "Enterprise" and a new crew. This was one of the most successful attempts. 5) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Due to the massive success at recruiting people with the previously mentioned method, another series was created. This was based on a space station, with more violence, which, on Earth at the time, was one of the most successful ways of getting money. There are several factions of Trekkers, usually called "fan clubs." Some of these are called "The Official Fan Club" and "Starfleet." These people often can be found congregating in places called "conventions" or "cons" in which they spend insane amounts of money on things which they can find elsewhere for less (or are totally worthless), and listen to the cast and crew of these shows and movies who would rather be somewhere else, or are being paid an insane amount of money. It is not uncommon for a Trekkie to travel hundreds of miles to get to one of these. The icons of this religion are many. The most famous is called "Enterprise," which is the fictional ship on which most of the above mentioned shows take place. This is characterized by a disk, connected by a pylon to a cylinder below and behind it, which is connected to two other cylinders by pylons that are at two upward 45 degree angles. Another icon is a delta symbol that has a upward curve for the bottom side. Beware! These people are highly volatile. They can go ballistic if you try and get them to believe that it is "just a TV show" and that they are wasting colossal amounts of time on it. %e *EOA* %t Finding The North %s Accurately Find The North Using A Digital Watch And A Stick %a Amichay Yifrach (amichai@optics.jct.ac.il) %n 2S24 %d 19930202 %i North, How To Find %i Survival, Recovering From Being Lost %i Directions, North %e What will you do if you don't know where you are and where do you want to go? (Maybe you do know where do you want to go, but you have got absolutely no idea what direction to go to find that desirable place.) A common idea is to find the North Star at the end of the small bear and never lose it. But, what if it's morning and no stars are around (though they are still hanging out there, of course - they are just somebody else's problem), or what if it's very cloudy and you don't know how to fly above the clouds (though another article in the Guide may teach you how)? Well, first of all... DON'T PANIC (if you do panic, read the large friendly letters on the front cover of the Hitchhiker's Guide and relax). You can always wait until it's dark and look for the North Star then. However, Murphy's Law says that it's going to be a cloudy night even though the whole week was crystal clear. The following method is based on the fact that every hitchhiker must have a digital watch (although any other watch will do, if it points to the right hour). The technique goes something like this: Draw a circle in the sand/ground/water (depends on where you've found yourself), stick a stick (that's what sticks are for) in the middle of it and look at the stick's shadow. Now, pretend the shadow is the hours hand of a big analog clock (as big as the circle you drew), and pretend that it's pointing to the current hour (displayed on your digital watch, although any other watch will probably suffice). Now comes the tricky part... Divide the circle into 12 equal sectors (just as if it was a real analog clock) and find 12 o'clock (PM or AM? It doesn't matter because it's an analog clock - right?) according to the hour the shadow is pointing to. Based on which sector the shadow is, determine where the 12 o'clock mark should be (remember that the shadow is supposed to be the current hour). Ready for the surprise? The line between the 12 o'clock line and the shadow of the stick points to the NORTH. (This line is the line that divides the angle between 12 o'clock and the current hour in half.) This method is very accurate and never fails (well, on Earth, anyway). The best way of verifying it is to keep walking to the direction your angle divider points until you get to a very cool place called the North Pole; you'll never miss it (it looks like a huge freezer with furry humanoids who live in smaller freezers called igloos). If you feel a strange feeling, don't panic - it's just your ears dropping off because you didn't believe this article in the Guide. How do I know it's the North Pole and not the South? Well, if you didn't fall down it must be north because the South Pole is up-side-down. I think you'd be best off to believe me and thus avoid all these troubles. -- GOOD LUCK -- By the way, you can always verify this method by reading the compass you must have if you are an experienced hitchhiker... %e *EOA* %t Insults %s Expressing Your Displeasure With Others, Alien Or Otherwise %a David K. Merriman (merriman@organic_sw.win.net) %n 2S25 %d 19930924 %i Communications With Aliens %x Earth %e Why Not To Use Gestures To Insult Another Being We've all had those awkward run-ins with (supposedly) Sentient Beings from Another Place. Sometimes, these run-ins are the results of literal run-ins. In any case, it sometimes happens that Interaction Between Individuals reduces to a simple matter of exchanging Unpleasant Opinions of each other. While gestures are quite useful when dealing with ones own species, or when one is reduced to incoherency by events, they are not always a Good Thing To Do - sometimes, what is considered an appropriately Rude Gesture is perceived as something entirely different in meaning by the party it is directed toward. For example, Humans (a.k.a. Terrans, the third sentient lifeform on planet Earth, solar system "Sol," Galaxy "Milky Way") frequently use an extended middle 'finger' (individual manipulating digit) as an indicator that another individual of the same species is held in Low Esteem. While the gesture is generally understood, this same gesture, performed on Drool, seventh planet of the solar system "Politicks" is interpreted as an invitation to the recipient to begin mating activities with the sender, without delay, using any permutation of appendages and orifices. It has generally been found that if the hitchhiker is to maintain some small semblance of chastity, they are better off using the Guide to research the physiognomy of the local beings, as well as local Rude Gestures. This is quite useful, until a 'hiker of one species must express an opinion of another species when the two do not have approximately-similar appendages. In such cases, the only valid alternative is the use of insults, which one may be reasonably certain will be correctly understood if the other party is also wearing a Babel Fish. Such insults should be adapted to local idiom to be effective. Some of the more useful (and general-purpose) insults might include: > "Your parental units were/weren't siblings." EARTH: "Your mother and father were brother and sister." DROOL: "Your mother and father never met." > "Your genetic structure is shaped like a rhomboid/ellipse/double-helix/ food item/inanimate object." EARTH: "Your DNA looks like a pretzel." DROOL: "Your RBI closely resembles a trapezoid." > "Entities such as yourself are why your society invented/prohibits birth control products." EARTH: "People like you are why they invented condoms." DROOL: "You are an example of why frequent mating is encouraged." > "You are hyper-/hypo- intelligent." EARTH: "You're on the cutting edge of stupidity." DROOL: "Admit it - you're an Intellectual!" > "One of your parental units frequently/seldom engages in mating rituals with multiple entities." EARTH: "Your mother swims after Troop Ships." DROOL: "Your father is a virgin!" > Accusations of prohibited mating acts. EARTH: "So, have you quit groping your cat, yet?" DROOL: "You use your fourth appendage to drink with!" There are, of course, many other such general-purpose insults and accusations; the 'hiker is again advised to familiarize him/her/itself with local conditions. Remember, while Rude Gestures are infinitely more satisfying, they can have Unpleasant Consequences; and chastity is correctable. %e *EOA* %t Quantum Mechanics Of Sandwiches In Lunchboxes %n 2S26 %s Sandwiches Are Actually Different At Different Locations %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19931209 %x Work %i Sandwiches In Lunchboxes, Quantum Mechanics Of %i Lunchboxes, Quantum Mechanics Of Sandwiches In %e An extremely important aspect of hitchhiking is lunch. There are different ways to provide for lunch. I will discuss one of them. Some hitchhikers prefer to prepare their lunch in advance. They make a few (2-120) sandwiches and put them in a specially designed lunchbox or lunchbag. This is also common practice among the people who have this idea stuck in their head that they have to frantically work at least eight hours a day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year, to EARN money in order to live and buy. Needless to say, an infertile thought. What everyone experiences when applying this lunching technique is that the prepared sandwiches actually taste different at different locations. On the move (or at work) they taste fresh and revitalizing. On the other hand, if around lunchtime one finds oneself at the preparation location (home?) and discovers the completely forgotten lunchbox, one will find that the sandwiches have changed into a mummifying sponge-like substance. (It is not advised in this situation to leave the sandwiches for the next day. Unless of course you are one of those beings who likes its greens (and has the stomach for it.)) Some people might say this is a psychological phenomenon. Rest assured: IT IS NOT. This is yet another example of the consequences of the macroscopic form of Quantum Mechanics. Once the sandwiches are prepared and put into the box, their state can be described by a rather complex wave function. This wave function indicates the probability of finding an edible lunch in your lunchbox and it collapses to a definite state whenever the lunchbox is opened. The thought experiment "Schroedinger's Cat" describes exactly what happens. In his thought experiment Schroedinger places a cat and a ham sandwich in a box. As soon as the box is sealed, the observer does not know in which state the contents are. The ham sandwich and the cat could still exist side by side, but the cat could also have eaten the sandwich. This situation can be represented by a complex wave function which is a superposition of the above mentioned states. At the instance one measures, that is, opens the box, the wave function collapses into a definite state which in this case is that the ham sandwich has invariably completely disappeared (unless of course the cat was dead to begin with). The same is true for your own experiment. Open your lunchbox at home and the wave function invariably collapses to a state of spongeness. Open it on your way (or at work, heaven forbid) and it will revitalize. I have to make one remark: finding the lunch edible at work does not mean that after you've just had a look what the state was and then closed the box, what you measured at that moment is definite. Not in the least: it can and will only get worse. Let's have a look at the microscopic Quantum Theory to see what also happens in the macroscopic theory. Let us regard a hydrogen atom with one electron. The electron is now in a high energy state and it can drop to a lower energy state by means of spontaneous emission of a photon. The wave function describing this situation evolves in time. Measuring the state causes the wave function to collapse. If it collapses to the same higher energy state, after you look away the wave function restarts evolving. Finally, the wave function will have evolved so much that when you measure, the electron will have reached the lower energy state, in case of bread being a state of spongeness. Although not the appropriate application of terms, the expression "degenerate state" leaps to mind. Of course, it depends completely on the initial degree of plasticity of the bread whether this process takes place. The well known saying says it all: "plastic in is plastic out." The advice to be given here is: keep on moving. This is also a very good tip should you want to avoid this paying activity that those working people insist upon. %e *EOA* %t Homeopathy %s Probably The Best Solution To Diseases (For The Hitchhiker, That Is) %n 2S27 %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940506 %i Do-It-Yourself Medicine %i DIY Medicine * %k Diseases * %k Cures * %k Illness %x Tea %e Illness of any kind has always been expensive, at least if you want to remain among the living. And that's mostly what we want, basically because there is nothing else to look forward to, except maybe "eternal rest," which can be a pretty neat idea if you suffer from a continuous overdose of wedlock and/or parents-in-law. One method of getting cured is homeopathy. At the regular homeopathic- method physicians you pay quite a lot for say two small grains of mucus or three drops of some obscure liquid. Homeopathy is rather expensive. Luckily the theoretical research of Professor Placebo has found a way to drastically cut the costs of this healing method down to an approximate amount of zero dollars, thus making homeopathy the cheapest healing method currently existing. And thus perfectly fit for hitchhikers. Homeopathy is the treatment based on the principle that diseases must be cured by small amounts of medicine which in larger amounts would cause the same symptoms as the disease itself. Different degrees of thinning have different results, quantitatively as well as qualitatively. The thinning has to be done with the utmost care and a lot of stirring. Up until now thinning has been used to a degree of D30 (ten to the thirtieth times). Homeopathy has in recent years become more and more popular due to the large amount of personal attention the doctor gives to the complaints of his patients [1]. Among homeopaths there is a theory that a medicine remains effective even if there has been so much thinning that it is hardly possible for a single molecule of the original medicine to be in the solution. This is because water is supposed to have a memory for what has been in it. It is this theory that is at the basis of Professor Placebo's theoretical research. Professor Placebo has, through the argument that every medicine made by man and every medicine not yet discovered has at one time or other been in contact with water, combined with the homeopathic theory of infinitely thinning, come to the theory that every drop of water on Earth is, in fact, a medicine. To be certain that at least every homeopathic medicine is dissolved into the great water reservoir of the Earth, Professor Placebo has taken all his specimens and has thrown them down the drain. The natural whirling of water in drains and the process of diffusion will supply the necessary mixing process. The personal attention of course is lacking, so you have to provide it yourself or get a fellow hitchhiker to help you. You can then tell your life's story and how you feel. You or your fellow hitchhiker should nod yes and no, and after you've finished your story pitifully say "Shush, shush" and "Here, have a glass of water." Tip: If you're out of tea, try making some homeopathic tea. There's still enough tea clinging to the teapot to make, homeopathically speaking, quite a heavy dose. Paul Farrar (farrar@128.160.21.215) wrote: I once tried to read a book on homeopathy, but I couldn't make much of it. It was about 3 cm thick and all the pages were blank, except that there was a letter "e" on a page about 1/3 of the way through. NOTE: According to the mentioned theory, Earth's water should also contain the memory of every pint of urine that as centuries passed has been excreted by man. Man, of course includes Jesus, Son of God. We see here that this other healing method from way back of drinking piss wasn't so crazy after all!! [1] Old woman with little yelping dogs comes in; "Oh doktor, I have a terrible headache and my whole right side feels a bit numb and I think I have hemorrhoids!" "Please take a seat Mrs. Twaddle and let's start at the beginning. Do you have any recollections of your earliest childhood?".... %e *EOA* %t Supermarkets %n 2S28 %s A Look At The Special Physical Laws That Operate In Supermarkets %a David McGregor Squire (dms@vis.mu.oz.au) %d 19931125 %i Shopping, Supermarkets * %k Squire's Check-Out Law * %k Murphic Fields %x Earth %e Supermarkets are a part of everyday life for the people of the developed nations of planet Earth. They have a similar form the world over: long aisles, harsh fluorescent lighting, day-glo specials stickers, prices that end in .99, lame trolleys (note that this is not the trendy US use of the word "lame." This is lame as in "having only one foot.") and awful music (in fact the term "supermarket music" now rivals "elevator music" as the most appropriate characterization of bland easy-listening covers (of what in some cases were once good songs) featuring trombones and sounding like a high-school big-band on Valium). The uniformity of Supermarkets the world over doubtlessly appeals to proponents of "morphic field" theories. According to these theories, the "morphic field" of a physical body is what causes it to have the shape that it does. (From the Ancient Greek root "morph-" meaning "form," though in this particular case it may have been the little-known second meaning - "utter crap" - that was used.) Such theories would claim that the uniformity of supermarkets arises from some sort of "morphic resonance" - the morphic fields of Supermarkets the world over somehow affecting each other and causing themselves to become uniform. This may be so. The author suspects that the fact that they are mostly owned by the same multinational conglomerates has something to do with it as well. What is certain, however, is this: the Earth, in addition to the well-known gravitational and magnetic ones, has a Murphic field. (Named, according to convention, after the law to which it is related, i.e. the Law of Gravity, the Law of Magnetism (well, Maxwell's equations), Murphy's Law, etc.). The Earth's Murphic field covers the entire planet, and, like the other fields, has local variations in intensity. Supermarkets occur at those points at which the Earth's Murphic field is strongest. At this point it is worth digressing a little to discuss Murphy's Law, which is traditionally stated as: "If something can go wrong, it will." This is clearly not a physical law in the usual sense, because it is not always true (as the occasional correct spelling of words in this article, for instance, demonstrates). Why, then, call it a law? I direct the reader to another well-known example: the speed limit. Here is an example of a law that is only occasionally obeyed. I suspect that a probabilistic interpretation is the most appropriate one for Murphy's Law. Just as the amplitude of the wave function of an electron in Quantum Mechanics indicates the probability of finding the electron at a given point, so the amplitude of the Murphic field indicates the probability of Murphy's Law holding at that point. In Supermarkets the amplitude of the Murphic field is 1. (Keen observers, and those who have studied Quantum Mechanics, may spot a problem here. How can the probability amplitude be one in more than one place? Perhaps we need to renormalize Supermarkets? I boldly conjecture an alternative explanation: all Supermarkets are in fact the SAME Supermarket! This, like all good scientific theories, makes a new prediction: all Supermarkets should thus look the same. But this is just what is observed! Thus, in a bold stroke, I solve two Supermarket paradoxes, though admittedly causing some as-yet-unsolved problems for the topology of the planet. Even keener observers will have spotted that I am talking absolute nonsense. Fun isn't it?) The consequence of the amplitude of the Murphic field being 1 is obvious. Everything will go wrong if it can. That's the Law. I have already described some of the things that go wrong in supermarkets: the lighting, the music, and the trolleys. Here is a brief list of some of the others: the meat (especially the steak), the no-brand "cheese," the bags that are not strong enough, and the fish. Especially the fish. For a long time I assumed that it must be true of the fish. I was recently foolish enough to confirm it by experiment. There are also grave problems with the tomatoes. The point in a Supermarket at which the Murphic field is strongest is the check-out (no correspondence will be entered into on just what sort of probability is greater than 1). The vigilance with which Murphy's Law is enforced at the check-out would have pleased Mussolini (had he been Irish - Murpholini?). All people who have frequented Supermarkets will be familiar with what I shall refer to as the "queue game." You know what I mean. You arrive with your selection of "goods" and try to work out which queue will get you to the cash register fastest. It is possible to lose this game, and, according to Murphy's Law, you will. (This is also true at banks with automatic teller machines). What is seldom realized, however, is that Supermarket queues are perhaps the only macroscopic version of the famous "Schrodinger's Cat" experiment. This is how it works. Before you join a queue, the shoppers and cash registers in all the queues exist in a superposition of states. When you make an observation of the system (by joining a queue), you cause the queue wave function to collapse. The system is now in a definite state. And the state in which it is now in is this: in your queue is someone whose milk carton is leaking and will need a replacement ("Service 9 on 10"), another guy who is only buying a chocolate bar but wants to pay using electronic funds transfer to debit his bank account directly, a person in front of you who is going to have his bag of flour break right on the scanner so that it stops working, and a mother with a child with chocolate on its hands that is soon going to be on your shirt. The roll of paper in the cash register is going to run out too. The fact that there was a superposition of states prior to your joining a queue can be seen from the fact that the above is true independent of the queue you join. As soon as you make the observation the wave function collapses. And it collapses on you. The Supermarket check-out is not only an example of the rare phenomenon of a macroscopically observable quantum effect (here interacting with a Murphic effect). This example, in fact, provides strong evidence for the Everett "Many-Worlds" interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Briefly stated, in this interpretation an observation causes a multifurcation of the universe. A universe exists for each possible outcome of the observation. This is perhaps the only interpretation that can explain the data observed in Supermarkets. Squire's Check-Out Law (a corollary of Murphy's Law, stated above) must hold for every person in every queue. The only way this can be true is if the act of joining a queue for each person creates a universe in which that person loses the queue game. In your universe, the other queues move faster. Everyone else thinks this too. (Perhaps there is some sort of relativistic explanation here? Maybe the speed of a supermarket queue in which you are in is an invariant, but looks faster from any other frame/queue. The "Many-Worlds" interpretation may not be necessary after all.) So we see that Supermarkets have their own special Physics. And their own "special" fish. %e *EOA* %t Norway, Earth %n 2S29 %s Place To Stay For A While, The %a Ragnar Aas (ragnar@kvark.fi.uib.no) %d 19940301 %x Earth * %k Fjords * %k Paranoia * %k Akevitt * %k Whaling %e Norway. The small country which nobody seems to know where it is, and everybody claims is a threat to the environment, wars, and anything that's fun. Well, if you should ever by accident land there, you will notice that it's quite cold. Unless you should get here in the summer when it's accidently warm and the sun is accidently shining from a clear blue sky. If you want to be reasonably sure that you get fine weather, land here on working days between 9.00 AM and 15.00 PM, local time. Then everybody is working, and nobody can enjoy the fine weather. Don't ask me why, but it works. Norway is renown for its fjords, mountains, friendly people, and unpopular political statements. If you ever get in touch with one of the natives, do not, repeat: DO NOT say you're a vegetarian. This is about the worst insult you can come up with. If you should accidently BE a vegetarian, hurry to insist on Norway's right to whaling, sealing, and fishing. Otherwise, you'll probably end up in a seriously threatening discussion on why you foreigners always come around and tell good people how they should live their lives, even though you haven't. Norwegians are known to be friendly, apart from the previously mentioned episodes, and you will probably enjoy your stay. BUT: DO NOT SAY THAT YOU COME FROM ANOTHER PLANET. If you do, they will lock you up and claim that you have lost some of your brain cells, which, of course, you haven't. The food in Norway is very tasty. That is, apart from the local specialties: rotten cheese, salmon and trout. It is not known how they came up with this food, but according to some, they discovered it by accident. Some party a few hundred years back had a lot of left-over food. To get rid of it, they buried it in the backyard. Some hundred years later, a hungry farmer dug it up again and ate it. If that doesn't turn your stomach up-side down, nothing will. Maybe except the burger they serve at the meal-stop between HDA226868 and the star system DD128 Beta. Local drinks: Akevitt. It's taken from the latin words Aqua Vitae, which means "water of life." After tasting it, you begin to have a slightly ugly feeling that the name is a joke. It tastes something in between urine and alcohol. You can't be too sure which of the two you taste the most, and whether its just a taste. If you drink too much of it, you will probably feel like shit anyway. Norwegians are a very paranoid people. If you should by accident land your ship in one of the fjords in an innocent attempt to fish and read the Guide, you will probably be mistaken for a Russian submarine and towed away, cross-examined, sent back to Russia where you didn't come from, and have your space-vessel confiscated. In Russia you will probably be mistaken for a Norwegian spy, arrested, and sent back to Norway, where you will be jailed for illegal immigration. After a few months in jail, you will be sent back to Russia, where you will be deported to Siberia where you will spend the rest of your life freezing to death and working in the coal mines. Therefore, the following is a list of places where you are recommended to land: 1) The middle of Oslo, the capitol of Norway. Everybody will think you're an artist named Michael Jackson with a new face made from plastic surgery, and will only run you down to get your autograph. Remember to write MICHAEL JACKSON, not your own name. That will cause a minor incident that will take too long to describe. 2) In the sea. Camouflage your space vessel as a speedboat and cruise in towards the shore. This will get you safe and sound into Norway, and besides you will probably get a lot of women on board. That is, if you haven't turned it into something that looks like a cross between a bathtub and a hippopotamus. The only thing you'll get then is the Royal Norwegian Navy on your tails, mistaking you for a Russian submarine. (See previously mentioned paranoia.) 3) Anywhere else. Get yourself a passport from another country and come here as a tourist. Be sure to look like the people from the country you get your passport from. Be sure not to have a passport from a country which is at war. This will lead to the mistake that you're seeking political asylum and you will be placed in a small place far-off into the woods where you will have to stay until they have decided whether or not you should be granted an asylum. This mistake can, of course, be avoided, if you explicitly claim that you're here as a tourist. Some general information: Location: Earth. Not to be confused with other places on the probability dimension. Coordinates 1+3.425i on the probability dimension is correct. Somewhere the Earth turned out to be a banana which was accidently eaten by a hungry monkey which had been transferred to this location by some kids playing with their dad's improbability machine Perrullion XB-4. The monkey died soon after. Norway had in this location been a poisonous bug which had eaten its way into the banana. How the banana got there is a totally different story. Currency: Kroner. 1 kroner will buy you a small chewing gum or a good laugh from the waiters in a restaurant. Average temperature: 10 degrees Centigrade, which works out to be around 50 degrees Fahrenheit or 283 Kelvin. Capitol: Oslo. (Excellent landing spot.) How to avoid getting mugged: You don't get mugged. The laws on guns and weapons are so strict that not even the police carry guns. How to avoid getting beaten up: Don't tell you're a member of Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, Blitz, any martial arts club, or here to get yourself a girl. The last one will probably lead to a severe reduction of your reproductive abilities. How to impress a girl: You can't. This trick may work some other places, but not in Norway. How to get here: By plane, boat, car, bus, bicycle, ski, foot or, if you should not be from the Earth, a space_vessel not larger than the mid-range Sebulo Spacetech Personal Starhopper XAP-1 or similar. What to bring: 1) Towel (goes without saying) 2) T-shirt saying "I love whaling" 3) T-shirt saying "I hate whaling" (In case you run into some members of Greenpeace.) 4) Lots and lots of money 5) Umbrella 6) Good sense of humour %e *EOA* %t Denmark, Earth %n 2S30 %s Home Of The Not Very Blond, Not Very Tall, Very Very Jealous Guys %a Peter Juul (Rockbear@diku.dk) %d 19940307 %i Danes %x Cows %x Earth %e It is a wide-spread misunderstanding that danish guys are tall, blond, blue-eyed dudes, eventually running around wearing silly hats that make them look like cows. The truth is, most of us are tall, fat, dark-haired, and very evil, jealous men running around without looking the slightest bit like cows (chimpanzees, pit bulls, hippos, and perhaps even sheep, but DEFINITELY not cows.) The message from the above should be clear: You are very welcome to come over here, and look at our fabulous attractions... as long as those attractions include the Tivoli (which isn't as large as Disneyland), the Little Mermaid (which is a silly little bronze figure sitting on a stone) and of course danish pastry (which in Denmark is called Wienerbrod, meaning "bread from Vienna," which is actually rather silly since people in Vienna have never heard of it), but definitely excluding the danish girls... at least the good-looking ones. And, by the way, they are not really as easy as some of you might have heard, and they are not all blond either. In Denmark we have made it a tradition not to pick up hitchhikers. Of course, there might be disloyal, anti-social, or even American drivers out there actually picking up hitchhikers once in a while, but the general attitude is "If you don't want to pay for a ticket, you can bloody well walk!" Actually, a lot of danes would rather have the tourists land in the airport, hand over all the money, and then leave ASAP. Unfortunately most tourists don't like that idea. And, speaking of airports, if you are some sort of official guest, you will probably be received by someone from the press, asking how you like Denmark so far. Do not say: "It looks a lot like an airport" or "Well, you have a lot of planes" or something along those lines. It is much better to say: "Werry werry nice. Werry goot." And you really SHOULD use that silly accent, since most danes prefer to think that anyone from another country speaks english mostly like some guy from India. And if someone starts beating you up, smile. It's our way of saying "Welcome!" So now you should know everything you need to know about Denmark and danes... Please send me all your money, and bloody well stay home. %e *EOA* %t Proof Techniques %n 2S31 %s Getting People To Believe You (As Good As, If Not Better Than, Proof) %a David McGregor Squire/Craig Dillon (squizz/cdillon@cs.curtin.edu.au) %d 19920702 %x Winning Arguments %e A collection of proof techniques that will prove invaluable to both mathematicians and members of the general public. PROOF TECHNIQUE #1 - "Proof By Induction" 1) Obtain a large power transformer. 2) Find someone who does not believe your theorem. 3) Get this person to hold the terminals on the HV side of the transformer. 4) Apply 25000 volts AC to the LV side of the transformer. 5) Repeat step (4) until they agree with the theorem. PROOF TECHNIQUE #2 - "Proof By Contradiction" 1) State your theorem. 2) Wait for someone to disagree. 3) Contradict them. PROOF TECHNIQUE #3 - Fire Proof 1) Summon all your inferiors for a departmental meeting. 2) Present your theorem. 3) Fire those who disagree. PROOF TECHNIQUE #4 - The Famous Water Proof 1) State your theorem. 2) Wait for someone to disagree. 3) Drown them. NB. This is closely related to the "bullet" proof, but is easier to make look like an accident. PROOF TECHNIQUE #5 - Idiot Proof 1) State your theorem. 2) Write exhaustive documentation with glossy colour pictures and arrows about which bit goes where. 3) Challenge anyone to not understand it. PROOF TECHNIQUE #6 - Child Proof 1) State your theorem. 2) Encapsulate it in epoxy and shape it into an ellipsoid. 3) Put it in a jar with all the other proofs (one with one of those Press-to-Open lids). 4) Give it to a professor and challenge him to open it. PROOF TECHNIQUE #7 - Rabbit Proof 1) Generate theorems at an altogether startling rate, much faster than anybody is able to refute them. Use up every body else's paper. Run away at the slightest sign of danger. 2) Leave any crap in small, easily identified piles, in prominent places where you no longer are, and it cannot in fact be proven that you ever were. PROOF TECHNIQUE #8 - Fool Proof 1) State your theorem. 2) Invite colleagues to comment. 3) If they don't agree, exclaim loudly, "You Fools!" %e *EOA* %t Bordesium %n 2S32 %s Bordesium Is One Of The Slowest Measurements Of Time %a Dave Shockey Jr. (dashocke@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) %i Time Scales %d 19940421 %e Bordesium is the favorite time scale for a large, but very slow, part of the Universe. Its origins are from a small blue-green planet which is the third planet from its sun. Of course its not Earth; the existence of Bordesium has only recently reached Earth. Its like the joke goes: "Who are the only creatures that believe they are alone in the universe? The Sniggle-Eaters." (You could insert Earthlings into the punch-line and it would be almost as funny.) For comparison, 1 Bordesium is equal to about 32,452.69422345 Earth years. Bordesium originated on the planet Hall, the third planet from their sun, Study (commonly known as Study Hall.) They are led by their King, the great Monitor of Study Hall and they worship their god, Dull. They pray to Dull using a type of prayer called a Stare. They can worship Dull with the Stare at any time and usually do. They do this to honor the great Blank Stare that Dull is always doing. The Hallions hold an extravagant festival, The Festival of the Blank Stare every 100 Bordesiums. This is supposedly the time when Dull will shift his attention to something else. It is a great time on the planet and fills everyone with great excitement -- almost enough excitement to actually attend the festival. I could go on about the festival for Bordesiums, but it's an event you really have to attend to get the full effect. A small sect of people on Earth have started using the Bordesium for a section of time. This sect of people are commonly known as "couch potatoes." They are using the Bordesium because they say it helps them get through the summer re-run period. Although using this scale of time might not work for everyone, I've found that it can be very useful when at work. For example, the other day I only had to work 0.00002 bordesiums. Hardly any time at all to Dull. %e *EOA* %t Ethereal Travel %n 2S33 %s Possibility Of Seeing More Than You Ever Dreamt Of %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940517 %i Out-Of-Body Experiences %i Free X-Rated Performances %x Life After Death %x Black Holes %x Walking Through Mountains %x Means Of Transportation For The Earth-Confined Hitchhiker %e One of the more unusual ways of travelling is the out-of-body experience. This can occur (involuntarily) during a rather critical moment of life, namely the edge of it. At a certain point in time the dying process gets so far that the patient in the real world comes into a critical situation and then sometimes feels himself detaching from the body and floating around in the air, observing himself from above. After that the travelling commences. It is a pity that so many people don't seem to realize the possibilities present here for seeing a lot of our planet. They only seem to be interested in the surrounding hospital. Before people realize they can, at that point, go on any holiday to any place they ever dreamt of (and walk through walls, walk through mountains, and observe kinky sex wherever you want) seemingly without having to pay a dime for it, they start to experience some things of which I absolutely fail to understand why they should be anything else than boring. The people who have been there speak of a long tunnel with a bright light at the end. I guess they have to convince themselves this is a pretty exiting, mystical, and peaceful experience in order to hide the disappointment about a lost chance to see the world from a unique perspective. Why they would want to recreate one of the most boring aspects of normal travel (by train or car), the endless travelling through tunnels, beats me completely. To me it is no surprise that at the point they reach the end of the tunnel and meet the bright light they get pulled back to their body, completely against their will, or so they say. This getting pulled back occurs at the moment the patient is on the very edge of dying. A moment longer and life will cease to exist. It thus seems there isn't much time to take advantage of your ultimately free situation, so if you should find yourself in this situation, pull yourself together, act fast, and see as much as possible. More so because you have to try and get your money's worth, because although it seems this travelling method doesn't cost you anything (you don't use any vehicle, not even yourself), it actually costs you a lot. After being brought back you'll have to pay the staggering medical fees. So far only people with this disappointing, peaceful, and life-changing (they say) out-of-body experiences have told their story. Nobody knows what lies beyond the bright light (a black hole maybe, the consequence being that travelling through a black hole puts you into the spirit of a dying person?). This may have something to do with the dying aspect of the whole thing. From the knowledge that there is nothing after death we know there should be nothing beyond the bright light, but it could just as well be that there is some asymptotical effect in our personal clock so people who dare can see much more. It could equally well be that people who have grasped the opportunity have mailed all their experiences to alt.sex.stories without telling how they got the stories, in this way unsolidaritily keeping this possibility of pleasure to themselves. If *you* should ever go beyond the bright light point, please share the experience with your fellow hitchhikers and create a follow-up to this article. Disclaimer: It was not my intention to disrespect or ridicule people who have had these out-of-body experiences, but we finally have to face up to the facts! %e *EOA* %t Towels %n 2S34 %s A Practical Guide To Towel Selection %a Dianne Glendenning (email to icdea1@giaeb.cc.monash.edu.au) %d 19940508 %i Selecting A Towel %e Now, every hoopy hitchhiker knows the value of their towel. However, for you newby and not-so-hoopy travellers just starting out, the acquisition of that perfect towel is a puzzle. How can you know which towel is right for you? Well the first criteria is available funds. A top-of-the-line towel can set the newby back mega-bucks. Features include: o protein-impregnated colour bands in fifteen flavours o woven in heat resistant, warmth conserving materials o decals of prestigious towel fashion house Klein Dior o tailored to personal design o extra fluffiness If your top-of-the-line towel does not include at least these features then you have been ripped-off most unhoopily. Most newbies, however, simply do not have these sort of funds (otherwise, why would they be hitchhiking?). In these cases, a simpler design is recommended. Many new hitchhikers consider the second-hand towel market. This does have the advantage of giving the hitchhiker the air of one well-travelled. But not knowing where your towel has been can be most unhoopy, so be sure to get a record of previous travel from the previous owner or the dealer. %e *EOA* %t Unix Vi Editor, Case Study Of %n 2S35 %s Case Study Why More And More People Are Using "Vi" %d 19940601 %a Dmitry A. Kazakov (dmitry@parsy.spb.su) * * Forwarded to PGG by Ian Dean (ian@jessica.cs.curtin.edu.au) * %i Text Editors, Vi %x C Language And Unix System Are Jokes %e This article is a part of a fundamental opus devoted to the investigation of Unix. Scientists of the future will read Unix's manual pages with the same feel of a light perplexity that comes to us when we turn the pages of _Witch Hammer_ (some people feel it right now). This work should help them in their heavy task. Let us consider a very obscure question - why people like "vi" and why it looks like "vi." Certainly, there must be lots of convincing reasons in deleting a character by pressing three keys ([ ESC ], [ x ], [ i] ) instead of a single [ del ]. We should immediately reject opinions like "people search for obstacles to overwhelm them" as unscientific ones. Considering this issue more thoroughly, we can find at least four approaches to it: 1) Astronomical point of view. As we know most of programmers work putting their legs on the system block. (If you have a tower just move it from your table to the floor, you'll feel the difference!). To achieve maximal comfort, legs should be arranged along the magnetic lines. Well, let us take a look on the keyboard laying over your mmmm... stomach. In this position, a line connecting the keys [ x ] and [ ESC ] points right to the North star. At the same time the [ x ] - [ i ] axis indicates the equinoctial point. 2) Magical approach. After active usage of the above-described [ ESC ], [ x ], [ i] key sequence, everybody comes to the conclusion that SOMETHING'S WRONG and enters another sequence: [ ESC ], [ : ], [ q ], [ ! ] since we know [ ESC ] abbreviates the word "escutcheon." If we consider keys [ x ], [ i ], [ : ], [ q ], and [ ! ] we can notice that they organize a magic pentagram. It is clear that multiple drawings of the pentagram protect us from the cruel daemons hiding in the CPU. 3) Medical reasons. Clinical researches show that using "vi" keeps the tonus of your fingers at the level of a violinist, which prevents a gout. However, you should be careful working at home. Be sure that the door to the children's room is tightly closed unless you want to hear from your son the sentences you usually address to "vi." 4) Psycho-analysis. Sexual instinct... ****** (for specialists only) In conclusion I would like to state that we are currently at the very beginnings of understanding deep laws ruling over the world. Some important questions remain unexplored. For example, why are we using [ ESC ], [ d ], [ d ], [ i ] to delete a line rather than the handy [ ESC ], [ f ] , [ d ], [ h ], [ s ], [ t ], [ h ], [ n ], [ v ], [ b ], [ i ] key sequence? Never mind, "vi" should overcome some day! %e *EOA* %t Salad Days %n 2S36 %s What's Green, And Going Down Your Neck? %a David Squire (squizz@cs.curtin.edu.au) %d 19940604 %i Lettuce %i Yuppie Salad %x Cuisine Unauthentique %x Mars, Hailing A Taxi On %e What has happened to salad these days? Is there anyone else who remembers the plain, old-fashioned, honest salad that graced plates across the nation before the "Greed is Good" decade that was the eighties? Salad without pretence, salad that said "Here I am. Lettuce. Tomato. Cucumber. Beetroot. Raw [1]. Cold. Eat me." Those were the days: days of crisp, pale green lettuce, succulent, full-sized tomatoes that had ripened in the sun [2], bright purple beetroot fresh from the tin, and cucumbers that unashamedly made you burp. Days of home-made salad-dressing (mayonnaise is of course a foreign word) or, perhaps, vinegar. Days when people weren't sure what French Dressing might be, and, given the record with their kisses and letters, weren't too keen to find out. Salad days indeed. Salad of that sort is now just a memory. Like so many other things, pre-eighties salad was pushed aside by a brash, confident new-comer: Yuppie Salad. Salad as Status Symbol. As is vital for a status symbol, the Yuppie Salad comes in a variety of grades. The primary indicator is the lettuce, or, more accurately, the dominant leafy green stuff (lettuce being too specific a botanical term). Just as no yuppie would drive a boring family car, neither would the yuppie countenance fatally unfashionable pale green lettuce. No. The yuppie eats "Sports Lettuce," in dark green with crinkled spoilers around the edges and, in more extreme cases, dashing purple racing stripes. The suspension tends to be a little less firm too. As a rule, the darker the green, the more crinkled the edges, the limper the leaves - the more expensive the salad. Crisp pale green lettuce is a family wagon with fake wood panels. Salad that appears to have been made from actual thistles is a Porsche. A red one. In fact, there is a simple law of Yuppie Salad: The more you pay for it, the more it looks like weeds. The analogy with the automotive tastes of the yuppie is not perfect. No one has yet bred phallic lettuce [3]. When, as historical precedent says it must, the current "limper is better" trend is reversed and genetic engineering delivers a lengthy lettucy surrogate for latent libido lurking loinwise, it will be the perfect complement to the miniature tomatoes. Indeed one can imagine such a salad being used to great psychological advantage in the Power Lunch situation: a couple of deft flicks with the fork to achieve the appropriate arrangement; eye contact with the intended victim; a quick, but clearly deliberate, glance at his trousers; a fleeting expression of smug contempt; and finally a conclusive and impossible to misinterpret crushing of the little red globes. I should think that the message would be transmitted with unequivocal force and fidelity. His stocks might well not be the only thing to slump alarmingly. Of course, there are Yuppie Salad indicators other than high-fashion lettuce and tiny tomatoes. The pretentious presence of petals lurking yellow and orange amongst the greenery (and possibly purplery) is a sure sign that neither nutritional value nor flavour was the chef's main motivation in determining the composition of the dish. What are they there for? There is rarely enough floral debris to actually determine the flavour, and, when there is, it is rather bitter, and disappointingly like you had imagined flowers might taste. This was the reason you had not been whipping out into the garden with the secateurs at dinner time in the first place. The number of varieties of greenstuff in the Yuppie Salad is often large, and usually directly correlated with the price. This, combined with the presence of stray petals and things that are disturbingly thistle-like [4], leads to a plausible (and very eighties) theory of the origin of Yuppie Salad. Imagine the Gordon Gecko of market gardeners. "Traditional lettuce cultivation," he muses to himself whilst reading the financial pages, "requires rows of individual plants which must be carefully planted, watered, weeded and harvested. All of this is necessary to produce uniform, crisp, pale green lettuce. Time-consuming. Labour-intensive. Costly. If only people weren't so fastidious about salad greenery." Whilst on the phone to his salad-broker, he ruminates [5] on this problem. He finalizes the deal to have his clients buy tomatoes from him by number rather than weight, and then the solution hits him. "Market it! Make them want a mish-mash of varieties! Petals a special, a thistle the pinnacle! If car manufacturers can make people think that it's the height of style to drive around in an unreliable, gas-guzzling, giant penis, this will be a breeze." It was. The rest is history. Gardener Gecko sacked his lettuce tenders, tossed [6] all the salad greenstuff seeds he had into a paddock, and let it go wild. Now he simply mows it when he has orders to meet. How has the simple salad-eater responded? With the usual insecurity. Petals and thistles? Gosh, this must be a *really* posh place. Grass-flavoured? Must be an acquired taste. It must be, mustn't it? [1] Except of course the beetroot, but barely anyone even knows what a raw beetroot looks like, let alone how it tastes. Perhaps the term "raw," for the purposes of traditional salad, could be defined as "As found in its natural state, i.e. the Supermarket." [2] As opposed to merely "turned red" in a warehouse with sulphur dioxide (or is it hydrogen sulphide?). [3] This may explain the popularity of asparagus with the upwardly-mobile. [4] And which, unfortunately, (as was the case with the petals) taste as you had imagined thistles would. [5] Bovine pun entirely intentional. [6] Again, pun tenuous, but intended. (c) Copyright David Squire, 1994. Permission is given for this article to be distributed as part of the Project Galactic Guide archives. It may NOT be distributed in any other form, or published in any newspaper, book, or magazine anywhere without the express permission of the author. %e *EOA* %t Swimming With Clothes On %n 2S37 %s A Cheap And Safe Alternative To Expensive And Dangerous Neo-Sports %a Joerg Rhiemeier (rhiemeir@ips.cs.tu-bs.de) %d 19940428 %x Black Trenchcoats %x Recreational Impossibilities %e It is an irrefutable fact that people, searching for new, unknown, thrilling experiences, invent thousands of crazy things to do. Some of these, like learning to play the octaventral heebiephone or walking through mountains, are simply impossible; others, like Big Bang riding or mind-surfing, may be not impossible in principle, but special suppliance is needed which is not available on Earth. (Or do you know a mechanic who could fit a flare-riding vessel for Big Bang riding or a sports goods store selling mind-surfboards?) Hence, other kinds of sport are practiced here, such as bungee jumping, jumping over 24 trucks with a motor bike, or jumping over 24 motor bikes with a truck. Most of these sports have one thing in common: they are both expensive and dangerous. But there is a cheap and safe alternative to that: swimming with clothes on. Furthermore, swimming with clothes on (which means clothes not usually worn in water, such as blue jeans, shirts, jumpsuits, trenchcoats, or dinner-suits, not stuff like bikinis or neoprene diving suits) is not only cheap and safe, but it is also both very hoopy and astonishingly practical (you need to change your clothes only once, after swimming, instead of twice, before and after swimming). And it is not as hard to do as most unexperienced people are likely to expect. However, it is good advice to slip off the wet clothes before going home or doing anything else after finishing swimming, lest you catch cold. As with so many other things, a beginner should not try to face the ultimate challenge, but start with something easy: a long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans is really fine, but a light jumpsuit shouldn't be harder. Then you can go on step by step: add a pullover or a light jacket, then upgrade to a trenchcoat or something like that - that's simply marvelous! And after that, there are the real challenges waiting for you. Skiing jackets, heavy woolen and leather coats, and so on. Those of you who tend towards something more noble and splendid should try swimming in a dinner- or tail-suit. Have fun! %e *EOA* %t Black Trenchcoats %n 2S38 %s Something Almost (But Not Really) As Useful And Hoopy As Towels %a Joerg Rhiemeier (rhiemeir@ips.cs.tu-bs.de) %d 19940428 %i Trenchcoats, Black %i William Frederick Trench %i Trench, William Frederick %x Progressive Rock %x Swimming With Clothes On %e Trenchcoats are hoopy. Black trenchcoats are especially hoopy. Because they look smart. Trenchcoats - no matter whether they are black or not - are also astonishingly practical items. They provide excellent protection against almost any kind of weather, being impenetrable by both wind and water. It may also serve as a sheet when sleeping in the cold, or, more general, as a proper substitute for a towel in some situations. A trenchcoat, however, is not a towel and cannot substitute a towel properly in most situations, which again demonstrates how important it is to know where your towel is, even if you know where your trenchcoat is. There are other uses for a trenchcoat. You can wear it when swimming in cold water, for instance. You can hide a sword, a gun, or several other kinds of secret items beneath it. (A very common application often shown in movies.) A black trenchcoat, if worn in a proper, hoopy way, may be useful if you want, for some odd reason, to be mistaken for a progressive rock singer. However, it is not really clear why these beasts are called trenchcoats. One rumor states, that they are named like that because soldiers in the trenches of World War I wore them. This is, however, a quite unhoopy theory. A more hoopy theory states that the trenchcoat is named after its inventor, William Frederick Trench. William Frederick Trench was a very hoopy guy living in the early 20th century somewhere near Bournemouth, England. He liked swimming in the sea very much, but found that the sea water was too cold for the most time of the year. He did several experiments. He tried putting on two bathing suits, one over the other, but it did not work. He tried putting on one of the heavy woolen overcoats which were in use at those times, but it did not work either. The overcoat was too heavy. So he went to a local tailor to have a light, waterproof overcoat made. This overcoat served its purpose very well. However, Mr. Trench did not only wear it when swimming in the sea, but also on other occasions. Many people liked it so much that they themselves had such an overcoat made (though they did not intend to use it for swimming). Thus, the trenchcoat was born. But don't think that everyone who wears a trenchcoat is hoopy. Don't even think so if the trenchcoat is black. And don't think that everyone who wears a black trenchcoat is a progressive rock singer. %e *EOA* %t Jupiter, Sol 5 %n 2S39 %s What's There And What Are The Chances Of Amusing Yourself %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940707 %i Sol 5 %i Moons, Jupiter, Sol 5 %i Great Jovian Eighteenthousandninehundredandninefold Skating Marathon %i Red Spot, Jupiter, Sol 5 %i Brown Dwarf %x Recreational Impossibilities %x Moon, The %x Earth %e The largest planet of our solar system is Jupiter. It is heavier than two times all the other planets together! Jupiter has days of nine hours and 55 minutes, and revolves around the Sun in twelve years. As it emits warmth because it's still contracting and as the element abundancy is almost the same as in the interstellar medium, it is said that Jupiter is a failed star. It just misses that little bit of mass, so that contraction has never been able to cause Jupiter to ignite the nuclear reactions (and ignition will never, ever happen, so don't worry). The name for this type of object, between a planet and a star, is a Brown Dwarf. The whole Jovian system, moons and all, bears close resemblance to the solar system itself. The temperature of Jupiter's core is about 30,000 degrees Celsius, mainly because the planet is still contracting on a scale of several millimeters a year. Overall Jupiter looks yellow, but you can notice a lot of different coloured features on the surface. These are caused by different types of molecules plus a stormy atmosphere. The Jovian core is thought to be a bit rocky, but mostly Hydrogen in a metallic form. Then comes an atmosphere of 90% Hydrogen and 10% Helium. The surface, a layer with a relative thickness smaller than an apple peel, is made up of other elements that give Jupiter its colour. The additional white colours are caused by ammonium (NH3) in the highest parts of the atmosphere (ammonium stinks). The orange and brown colours come from a mixture of NH3 and H2S, the stuff that smells like rotten eggs. Further H2O (water) gives some more colour to Jupiter. These colours can be seen as large bands parallel to the equator. Between these bands you can see a lot of ovals; they are thousands of whirlwinds, with the red spot the largest of them all. These turbulences are caused by the outflow of warmth caused by contraction of the planet. The turbulences themselves cause the cloud bands to rotate around Jupiter. The small turbulences can last up to a few years, but the red spot has been present for centuries. As Jupiter almost completely consists of gas it is possible to go for balloon flights in its upper atmosphere, in pressurized cabins. Unfortunately the view is a bit foggy, however sometimes you can see the different colours and turbulations of the clouds, but that is rare. As the gravitational pull of Jupiter is enormous, huge balloons have to be used so you can just as soon forget your upward view. The attractiveness of flying in a balloon on Jupiter, or Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune, lies not in the possible view, but in the riding of storms. While the other planets are a bit cheaper to fly a balloon on, Jupiter has the most spectacular storms, with as best of the best, the red spot. It's very risky to fly a balloon on Jupiter, because the storms create a lot of lightning, which can severely damage your balloon. The balloons of our solar system have presently all gathered on Jupiter, awaiting the impacts of the parts that make up the Shoemacher-Levy asteroid, which are expected to create tremendous storms; the largest spectacle in the solar system in a long time. Tourism on Saturn, Uranus and Neptune have as a result of this fallen back somewhat. Jupiter has the largest magnetosphere in the solar system. Its intensity varies with Jupiter's rotation and with the position of the most inner of its largest moons, Io. There exists a large electrical current between Io and Jupiter, which supplies electricity to all households on Io, making Io the cheapest place to live in the solar system as far as electrical household appliances and waterbeds are concerned. The Red Spot ------------ Approaching Jupiter you will surely notice the famous red spot. In a short while it will act as a cosmic bullseye, when the Shoemacher-Levy interstellar dart hits Jupiter. Whoever threw it must know he's cheating, because it is expected that more bullseyes will appear in the exact places of impact. The red spot is the largest storm/whirlwind on Jupiter. The red colour can be attributed to phosphor pulled up from the deeper parts of the atmosphere. Multithon (The Rin(g/k)) ------------------------ Jupiter inhabits the largest ice rink in the solar system. Once a year the Great Jovian Eighteenthousandninehundredandninefold Skating Marathon is held on its ring. During the race a lot of people quit because they either fall of the ring, starve, dehydrate, or die of exhaustion (understatement for lack of oxygen). A difficulty with the match, theoretically, is that the one before hasn't finished when the next one begins. It is thus hard to create schedules to improve the record time, again, theoretically. In fact, the record time to cross the finish line hasn't been set yet, because the first match has yet to end. At this very moment an approximate 906,940 matches are taking place. Here I have to point out that the rules leave no space for the race to end when all the participants have snuffed it. Turning back to the quitting, for the not so bright it's very easy to fall off the rings, because the gravity of the ring itself is negligible compared to the gravity of Jupiter. Skating on the middle of the long side of the ring is comparable to running a marathon on the vertical side of the chinese wall. As the ring is one kilometer thick and 6,500 km wide it is also possible, within the same rules, to skate on the far side, but that will increase the distance to a nineteenthousandthreehundredandninetysix- fold marathon. Still it is a large gaining factor when you can choose for skating instead of mountaineering. In fact, every not so bright competitor who has ever started at the middle of the flat part of the ring, has fallen of. Well, except for one. The endurance record (of skating, or for that matter, being, at the middle of the ring) is held by pope Kevin Jagger, who immediately after the starting shot was given, kissed the ice and froze to the spot, after which the rest of the batch fell of the ring, making a nice spectacle for all the ballooners hovering in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. Eventually, after 2 days, 3 hours, 25 minutes and 13.01 seconds, pope Kevin Jagger died of dehydration, setting the record on 2d3h25m13.01s exactly. The yellow stripe he left, frozen parallel to the starting line, is forever looked upon with awe by all those not so bright competitors yet to start. This record is even longer than that of the far side multithon. That one is set at 1h15m57s, or 42.77 km by Mick Lentin, who got incredibly far on the one hour oxygen tank every participant gets at the starting line. Mick was one of the first skaters who attempted this nineteenthousand- threehundredandninetysixfold marathon. Even cheaters, who bring their own oxygen tank with them, never get further than that because they always pretty soon encounter the Mountain Of Participants over which it is impossible to climb (Mick Lentin is just on the other side of it). This mountain can even be seen from Io and Ganymede! Voices have sounded which opted to move up the starting line two hours or so, but The Rules don't allow for that. Why, do you ask, did Pope Kevin Jagger last so long on such little oxygen? The referees tell stories about getting air from the ice, not needing as much air as a mobile person, a local probability anomaly, but that is all a lie. He didn't last that long. It's all a hoax to get more tourists. Hitchhikers, be warned! Inner Moons ----------- The small inner moons of Jupiter, Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, and Thebe, are in an orbit with an inclination of 35 deg with respect to Jupiter's equator. All smaller moons have diameters of about 200km. They orbit around Jupiter in the same sense as Jupiter itself. These moons are probably remains from Jupiter's birth. The inner moons are also the source of dust for the ring. Tiny meteorites falling towards Jupiter bombard the moons and make a lot of dust fall off them. Galilean Satellites ------------------- The Galilean satellites, so called because they were the ones Galileo discovered with his primitive telescope, are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. These four moons hold records for the smoothest, the most cratered, the oldest, and the youngest surfaces on moons in our solar system (not in the same order). Thanks to the tidal forces, their orbits have reached resonance, so seen from Jupiter they are never aligned. Io -- Io is a bit larger than our moon and overall looks orange. Actually Io looks more like a cosmic pizza with all the different colours of sulphur: yellow, orange, brown, white. The surface is like a face with zits: lots of mountains and volcanoes (they are actually more like geysers) with yellow goo oozing out (no, erupting, to heights of 300km). The tidal forces of Jupiter, Europa and Ganymede bash up this poor planet and create friction, which warms up the sulphur just below the surface, so that it remains molten. The sulphur erupts out of the volcanoes like puss and renews Io's surface constantly. Due to this activity (Io is the place that best looks like the old ideas of Hell) hardly anyone wants to live on Io, so a lot of the created electricity is wasted. What is used is mostly directed to the air conditioning. Apart from the costs of living I see no reason to go to Io. Unless you are a sulphur miner of course (that's the *only* reason there are households on Io at all!) Io has no water but it does possess the largest active volcano in the solar system, called Pele. The volcanoes are the cause of the trail of gasses Io trails behind it, like a giant farter. Io is the most active body of our solar system. Europa ------ Europa is a bit smaller than our moon and covered with ice. The surface is very smooth, and has no craters due to the fact that the surface is renewed constantly with fresh water from the inner oceans. Europa is therefore as bright as a mountain lake. In years past the inner Europa has been heated so that fresh water could reach the surface (and freeze). There is a network of cracks because the ice cap has broken and dirty water has gotten into the cracks. No craters here. Its core is made of rock. Europa is the only place in the solar system that has as large a supply of liquid water as the Earth. It is also a dangerous place to go. Many an adventurer has taken up the challenge to play a game of hockey on its surface, but not any of them has ever returned. In fact, no one at all has ever returned from Europa. Either the place it too froody to leave, or hideous monsters live in the oceans. This Europa bears no resemblance whatsoever to the continent Europe on Earth. Ganymede -------- Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and made half of rock and half of water/ice. It has a varied surface covered with large dark heavily cratered parts just like Callisto, which are the remains of the original surface. These large surfaces have drifted apart, just like the continental drift we see on Earth. In between the "continents" you can find clefts that form mountains and valleys made of brighter material, cleaner frozen mud (like glaciers). Callisto -------- Callisto is the outer large moon with a very dark surface made of rock and ice (i.e. frozen mud) and full of craters. Since its birth it hasn't changed, so Callisto has the oldest unchanged surface of the solar system. You can consider it a fossil of the prehistoric solar system. Due to a heavy bombardment the icecrust has broken; the web of scars is called "Walhalla." There is no geological activity on Callisto; its internal structure is the same as Ganymede's. Mostly boring. The stuff that (am.) footballers and baseballers put beneath their eyes comes from this moon. Outer Moons ----------- The small outer moons of Jupiter, Leda, Himalia, Lysithea, Elare, Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae, and Sinope, have orbits with inclinations of -35 deg (with respect to the Jovian equator); the other way around from the inner small moons. They also orbit around Jupiter in the anti-sense of Jupiter's rotation. These moons are considered to be remains from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, that have been captured in Jupiter's orbit. The Trojans ----------- Two points (Lagrange libration points L4 and L5) are through gravitational effects (the interacting gravitational fields of the Sun and Jupiter) stable equilibrium points. The following picture is not on a correct scale. o L4 / \ / \ / \ o--------*----o--*---o L3 L1 Sun \ L2 / Jupiter \ / \ / o L5 Oscillating (or librating) around those points you find some 12 asteroids called the Trojans. Every two massive objects have these kind of objects; the Earth/Moon system also. Here you find meteoric particles. It is a good place to put a space station. Space Probes ------------ Jupiter has been visited by four earth space-probes: Pioneer 10 and 11 (1973 and 1974), and Voyager I and II (both 1979, but II was first). We earthlings have as a consequence of this planetary probe program a limited understanding of what lies there. To know more about the Jovian system, another space probe has been launched. The space probe Galileo will soon reach Jupiter and drop a probe into the atmosphere. The 'mother'-probe will then continue to circle the Galilean moons. How to Get There ---------------- I have absolutely no idea. When it's written, take a look at the article about Abduction by UFOs. %e *EOA* %t Winning The Lottery %n 2S40 %s A Possible, But Not Recommended, Way To Get Money %a Captured from the Usenet Oracle * * Usenet Oracle Operators available at oracle-people@cs.indiana.edu * * Submitted by Ryan Tucker (rtucker@INS.INFONET.NET) * %d 19940703 %i Getting Money %i Lottery Info %i Gambling %e This question was posted to the Usenet Oracle: What is the best way to win the lottery? Please tell me so I can buy more computers to bombard you with questions. And in response, thus spake the Oracle: The mathematical truth is, all combinations of numbers are equally likely. Despite this, nobody ever plays 1-2-3-4-5-6. Everyone says it's STUPID and will NEVER WIN! So, although you only have the same chance as everyone else, if you play 1-2-3-4-5-6 and win, you won't have to split the pot! On a second note, never play Quick-Pick numbers. Think about it: 1) People are lazy. 2) People designed computers. 3) Therefore, computers are lazy. 4) Computers pick Quick Pick numbers. 5) Lots of people come in and ask for Quick Pick. 6) Think about it: If you were the computer, would you come up with a different number for each person? Therefore, all Quick-Pick numbers are generally the same, except in states where this practice is outlawed by law, in which case only MOST of the Quick-Pick numbers are identical. You owe the Oracle 30% of your winnings. %e *EOA* %t Professions: Waitering: How To Get Tips %n 2S41 %s Twenty Things You Should Do And Not Do While Imitating A Waiter %a Rudy Wijnands (wijnands@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940716 %i Waitering, Professions * %k Pen * %k Pencil * %k Party * %k Lawsuits * %k Injuries * %k Mess %x Professions: Waitering: Problems And Traumas %e When you are hitchhiking you do not work, and because as guide researcher you do not get expenses, you have no money to spend. How the hell will you survive? One of the answers is to find a temporary job at the place you are visiting at the moment. After you have seen enough of this place you quit your job and leave. But what other jobs are available? One popular job is to became a waiter. It looks so easy and therefore many people try it. However they don't know that being a waiter pays lousy. As a waiter you must get all your money from tips. But getting tips is quite a challenge. I shall give you some hints about getting lots of tips by saying which things you better not do. 1) If you are working during a party, like a wedding, don't even think about (accidentally) throwing a lot of black coffee on the wedding dress. The bride, your boss, and all the other people right there will not be pleased and you can kiss your tips goodbye. 2) During a party, any party with a lot of dressed-up people, you have to serve red and white wine. If you want to get lots of tips don't drop a bottle of red wine (or white, it doesn't really matter) on the floor. The guests will think they are in a swimming pool and not in a nice restaurant. Also your boss is not to happy about it and he (or she) will make you clean up the mess. 3) Do not put a pen in your trouser pocket. Because of the heat in your pocket the ink will flow right out of the pen and every thing will be blue inside your pocket. This is not a big problem so long you do not put your hand in your pocket. Your hand will be as blue as it can be. Because you don't notice it right away you go ahead serving the people, making everything very blue. I don't think you will receive many tips after serving blue things. 4) The same is of course true for a green pen. 5) And a black pen. 6) A red pen will be even more dangerous. If they leaked ink on your hands and you touch something, everybody will think it's blood. If you touch your face they'll think you're bleeding, they will call a doctor or drive you to the hospital. But finally they realize you have faked it and you are likely to get fired without your tips. 7) I know you think: "Why not use a pencil?" Good question, but the answer is NO. After you have written down something in your notebook you are going to get it. It's likely the notebook will get wet during the process of filling all the glasses with liquid. After the notebook is wet the text is hardly readable and you have to go to the people and ask their order again. They will think you have a bad memory or are very stupid. In both cases they will not give you a tip. 8) A pen has got a similar problem. The ink will dissolve in the liquid and will be difficult to read. But I advise you to use a pen instead of a pencil because a pencil can be very dangerous to your, and somebody else's, health. When writing with a pencil the lead can break, because you push very hard to make the text visible. The point will fly through the air and it will (accidentally, of course) enter someone's eye or, even worse, your eye. In both cases you will not receive any tips today. In the first case you are blamed for the accident and in the second you will not be around to collect any tips. 9) Enough about writing equipment. There are lots of other thing you should not do while imitating a waiter. Such as not drinking, smoking, or eating while you serve people. It will appear very indecent and they will not give you any tip. Eating, drinking (no alcohol), and smoking can be done in the kitchen where nobody can see you. 10) You must dress yourself decently, or else the tips will be very low. 11) If you want to throw drinks and food you must search an old black and white movie. For every thing you throw or drop you get fewer and fewer tips. 12) Be always nice to people. Remember: the customer is always right. The more you kiss asses the more tips you'll receive. But don't go to far. Have your pride. If someone slashes you in the face, kill him. But if someone with high-heels stands (accidentally? That is always the question) on your toes keep on smiling and run to the kitchen to scream and curse about that person. 13) If you are a man you must shave before you go imitating a waiter, otherwise the people think you are a tramp and you will frighten them. They will not give you any tip. However, there might be a few people who will give you tips. They think you can't afford a razor and feel sorry for you. 14) Put your hair in place. Don't paint them in the colours of the rainbow. Don't shave it of, because you'll look like a skin-head. If however you are bald, don't implant hair. 15) Keep on smiling - it will look nice. Unless you serve at a funeral and in that case don't smile. 16) If you must light the candles on the tables or you must replace the old ones by new ones, put them on the table and then light them. Do not light them at the bar and walk with burning candles. You wouldn't be the first one who didn't only light the candles but also the restaurant and the people in it. Needless to say you will not receive any tips that day. 17) When you serve food be ware of the following things: a. Don't drop any meat on somebody. It is difficult to remove the dirt. b. Soup. When you serve soup use something to protect your hands against the heat. I've seen terrible burns on the waiters and on the customers. If you can't reach the table in time, drop the soup. It's better to drop it then to burn someone. (This is a rare moment. You may drop something.) c. Also for hot dishes with vegetables. d. When you flambe' ice cream, stand away and let nobody near it while it's burning. You wouldn't be the first to lose all your hair in an instant or get sued. 18) When you take the coat of someone and hang it up on the coat rack, don't drop the coat while the people are still around to see it. When they can't see, you can do with it what you want. 19) Brush your teeth before working. You will not get one tip when you have a bad breath. 20) Don't eat any food before you go to work which make you windy, like onions or beans. The customers don't appreciate such things. If you follow all that I wrote down you are likely to get tips. How much your tips are depends on who you are serving. Some people give lots of tips (like elderly people); others give no tip at all (the young dudes). So you must not only be decent, but also lucky to receive many tips. I recommend you think twice before you are stupid enough to accept a job as a waiter. You have to be nice to everybody without knowing if it will pay off. And the worst is yet to come: terrible things can happen while you imitate a waiter and there is nothing you can do about it. But this is for a next article. %e *EOA* %t Professions: Waitering: Problems And Traumas %n 2S42 %s Terrible Things That Can Happen While Waitering %a Rudy Wijnands (wijnands@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940716 %i Exploding Bottles %i Injuries, Minor And Deadly %i Health, Physical And Mental %x Professions: Waitering: How To Get Tips %e If you need money for hitchhiking and, despite the article on How to Get Tips, you decide to imitate a waiter then you had better read this first. Being a waiter is very dangerous for your health. There are lots of things that can happen to you which you rather wouldn't want to happen. Those things can be disastrous to your physical and mental health. Things which are Damaging to your Physical Health ------------------------------------------------- Things that could happen which are damaging to your physical health are too numerous to mention. So I will only give a few of them. There are two groups of injuries: minor injuries and deadly injuries. Minor Injuries -------------- Minor injuries occur every time you imitate a waiter. First of all you get blisters on your feet. You are not used to standing and walking for several hours, so your feet protest and get blisters. Those blisters can become very large and painful if you ignore them. Other blisters are mainly due to fire and hot liquids like hot soup. If you are not used to serving hot soup, it is guaranteed you will burn your hands. Or you may burn your fingers while lighting a candle. If you are lucky that's the only thing you burn. It is possible something goes wrong and you will not only light the candle but also yourself, causing serious injuries and even death. Or you will light the restaurant causing it to burn down completely. If you survive this fire you will be sued by the owner for setting his restaurant to fire. Burning can also occur when you walk down the stairs and trip. In a desperate attempt to not fall you grab the banisters. With great speed your hands slip along the banisters, burning your hands. But this can also happen when you are not waitering, but instead sitting at home. Burning your mouth and fingers can occur when you secretly steal a hot deep-fried snack like a "bitterbal." (No translation is available, but it would be something like a very small rissole.) Other minor injuries are mainly due to the fact you need a glasses or better ones. When cutting some vegetables you can amputate some parts of your fingers or amputate your finger as a whole. Then you know that playing with knives is a dangerous business. You can also drop the knife and accidentally amputate not a finger but a toe. Other parts that can be hurt are the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and your ears (thus the whole face). So be careful when handling a knife. Be also careful where you put down your feet. It's possible they don't survive the day. A customer can put his feet right on top of your feet. Usually this is not a big deal unless that person weights about 300 pounds and wears high-heels. When he (or she of course) has removed his feet you must walk to the kitchen, take off your shoes and socks, and count all of your toes. If you have still ten of them you are lucky. If you miss a toe you must run back to the place where you lost it. Search for your toe. When you find it run to the hospital and hope they can put in on again. The medical bill should be sent to the person who amputated your toe. But not only people can amputate your toes. Also heavy things like a billiard-table. Those things usually have wheels, and of course when it must be moved it will roll over your toes, flattening them. You're left looking like a clown with those great big flat feet. The last minor injury is also due to other persons. When playing as a waiter you might encounter stupid people. They will not pay their bill so a quarrel may occur. Sometimes you are up fighting each other and finally both of you must go to a hospital to be treated for your injuries. And that's all because that asshole would not pay for his beer. Deadly Injuries --------------- Deadly injuries have, do, and will occur. If you thought being a waiter was a relatively safe job you are wrong. Lots of deadly accidents occur in the catering industry. When you open a bottle of soda the screw-cap which closes the bottle can fly very fast trough the air because someone had shaken the bottle. If you are unlucky it will go trough your eye and penetrating your brain, leaving you for dead on the ground. Or sometimes when it's hot the bottle warms up and all the gasses in the bottle expand. When you have bad luck the bottle contains a weak spot in the glass and in will explode in your face when you pick it up. Needless to say you probable will not survive this incident. You can also be killed by screwing in a bulb. Because the restaurants are often old buildings the electric wires are in very bad shape. When screwing in a bulb you can short-circuit the wires and the bulb will explode right in your face. Or you will be electrocuted. More work for the undertakers. But not only you yourself can kill you; also others can do it for you. In the already mentioned fight about the beer, you can easily be hurt very badly and even be killed. Or the mob is blackmailing your boss but he refuses to pay. They may force him to pay by killing one of his waiters as an example, and of course it will be you. Things which are Damaging to your Mental Health ----------------------------------------------- Not only is imitating a waiter damaging to your physical health but also to your mental health. Serving people means always smiling, being nice, and letting your self be cursed by the costumers. But this is not the worst that can happen. If by accident you drop something on somebody and injure him you are likely to be sued. Lots of lawsuits will be waiting for you. You will be courtroom-bound in and out every day and if you lose only one of them you are broke for the rest of your life because you have to pay lots of money. This will not be good for your mental health. It can even become dangerous to your physical health when you decide to kill yourself. The only thing you can do about it is to insure yourself. But this cost you much more than you earn by being a waiter. You're better off resigning and search for another job. A job in which you don't meet anybody who will sue you and in which you can not be hurt. A job like writing articles for the Galactic Guide. %e *EOA* %t Field Researchers, How To Recognize %n 2S43 %s How To Recognize A PGG Field Researcher Or A Sympathizing Hitchhiker %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.Leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940716 %x Earth %x Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, Earth %x Travel Necessities %x Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada, Earth %x Clegg, Paul Jason %x Tea %x Mars, Composition Of %x Alley Rally '94 - A Bowling Oddysey %x Cameras, How To Make Money Using %x No Charge %x Watermelons %x Pizza %x Finding The North %x Quantum Mechanics Of Sandwiches In Lunchboxes %x Homeopathy %x Towels %x Black Trenchcoats %x Thirty-Seven Ways To Deep Sea Fish With Four Feet Of Dental Floss %x Jellyfish, 1001 Uses Of %x Space Safe Coke Can %x Conservation Of Cookies, General Principle Of %x Devilled Ham %e Hitchhiking around the globe, seeing all types of people, you may be so exhausted that you want to recognize ultra-cool froods without bothering to go into all the rituals of getting acquainted first. As it happens to be that all Project Galactic Guide Field Researchers and all sympathizing hitchhikers fall into that category, here's a few tips to spot them. Appearance/Clothing ------------------- When a Field Researcher (FR) walks around you will immediately recognize him [1]. For no reason at all, almost all of his clothes are black. This has nothing to do with Heavy Metal. The first thing you will notice is the handy black trenchcoat and the black baseball cap with the PGG logo on it, and a PGG business/press card attached. He also wears a black high quality PGG t-shirt underneath, and black (or blue) jeans. Also very important is a good, comfortable pair of waterproof hiking shoes for the times when there is no other transportation, or when you have to walk through lakes of piss at railway stations etc. You are also sure to notice a suspicious bulge at his side - it's a highly dangerous jellyfish in its holster. The black sunglasses that the FR wares round off his sinister outlook (just to put people off balance). Oh, yes, and of course there is also the black satchel. This satchel is strapped to the back (a backpack thus), giving maximum mobility in case a nasty situation should arise (the creation of which some hitchhikers are very good at). Tools ----- In the backpack are the tools of the FR. These are a towel, numerous plastic bags, lumber, four feet of dental floss, a watch (for finding the north, but then again, who cares to know, so just forget it), a camera, some string (rpg), a bathing suit (or not, if you prefer that), monopoly money in different currencies, a pillowcase, PGG business cards, a water bottle (water is medicine for everything), matches, bathroom stuff, decks of cards, Paul's action figurine for the lonely nights, mosquito repellant, and a mouth organ or a didgeredoo. The lucky or rich FR also carries a hammock with him, together with a large sheet of plastic (or a towel) and a mosquito net. This way you are able to sleep everywhere you want! A hammock is especially comfortable on ships. Remember to purchase an original one, not one of those western-world ones with sticks at the ends. Don't expect to find any cards or expense bills on the FR, because there still isn't a friendly millionaire or company financing this project. Yet. The vacancy is still open. Every FR pays for everything he does himself, just like every other hitchhiker. But the most important tools of the FR are in the inside pocket of his coat: his bic pen and notebook, or sometimes even a laptop, although I fail to see how they can get the money for something like that. In this notebook you will find the pages almost completely scribbled full of unreadable gibberish: The Notes about the places the FR has been, and The Thoughts he has had. A FR can go walking around naked; as long as he has this stuff with him, it doesn't matter. Besides his tools, the FR also has things with him related to eating. There is food: a lunchbox with sandwiches, a watermelon, a mars bar, cookies, teabags, a ham, aspirin. There are also inedible items which make eating a lot easier: a can opener, a spoon, a widget for opening soda cans in space, and a PGG mug. Other Things ------------ As the FRs are the most hoopy froods around, you won't notice their extreme egos before it's too late (dang, you like them already!). The most common meal of the FR is pizza. All similarities with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles end at this point: the PGGFR has Internet access. I mean, I still haven't seen any Leonardos or Donatellos around yet. As far as handicaps are concerned, hitchhikers can miss a lot of limbs, as long as he has at least one thumb. FRs have to have at least one hand to write with. FRs with laptops only need to have one finger. Final Words ----------- This is all theory. In reality you will never be able to recognize a Field Researcher, because although his brains are severely meddled up, he looks inconspicuously normal. (Also the t-shirt and related items haven't been produced yet.) Too bad. But it's for the better, because this way a FR will be able to do his research without being influenced by all the store, cafe, bar, hotel, and airport owners who'll do anything to promote their products. And face it, there are as yet not enough Field Researchers around to give a significant probability to encountering one by chance. P.S. Do you know those television series where once in a while the program makers get lazy and make a program which is a patchwork of some previous episodes or programs? Do you get the same feeling here? [1] I wrote this article assuming the FR is a man, because including all the alternatives (woman, mouse, etc.) would take up too much space. I have the impression most FRs are male, so I feel justified by that. I'm sorry if anyone disagrees with that. To make it up I promise to write another article with a woman or a mouse or other as the subject. %e *EOA* %t Modems %n 2S44 %s Those Little Critters With Four Tails And Many Lighted Eyes %a Ryan Tucker (rtucker@ins.infonet.net) %d 19940716 %i Computer Devices, Modems %x Computer Malfunctions %x Computerats %x Self-Destructing Computers %e Modems, or "Modulator/Demodulators," are little box-shaped critters with numerous buttons, lighted eyes, and tails. They suckle your computer and power lines, and communicate via your telephone wire. Their most common pastime is corrupting important data, and calling it "line noise." You can communicate with them via a fat cable coming out of a wide thingie with multiple holes if you plug a computer into the other end of the fat cable. The commands it understands include: AT -- Good morning. Your food is on it's way. ATDT -- Connect to remote computer and start garbling data. ATH -- Stop talking to remote computer, and prepare to garble more data. ATA -- Answer remote computer and garble data. ATI -- Return factor of garbling data. ATSASOIFAWETNAIGH -- Accept pre-garbled data It is advisable not to bother a modem if it is showing these signs: 1) Unusually wide midsection 2) Frequent late-night phone calls 3) Cravings for certain kinds of data, like SALT scripts 4) Crabbiness If you observe those symptoms, you have a pregnant modem. Refer it to your modem dealer. %e *EOA* %t Computers, Earth %n 2S45 %s A Consideration Of Similarities And Differences From The Galactic Norm %a Richard Nielsen (redrick@delphi.com) %d 19940710 %x Computer Malfunctions %x Computerats %x Ka-Dink Effect, The %x Self-Destructing Computers %x Earth * %k Fraud * %k Ireland, Kathy %i Earth Computers %e Earth Computers are of course, as are all Galactic computers encountered by our correspondents, a complete fraud. You need to know three things about the terran variety of the unarmed bandit: 1) The marketing divisions of hardware and software (make no distinction, it's all just stuff in a box) manufacturers describe their products as electronic tools for the storage, retrieval, and manipulation of information, capable of zillions of calculations per second. Actually, calculation and manipulation are correct terms. The true purpose of these entities is the reduction of patently absurd information into digestible "bytes" that otherwise could not be swallowed, even by the more gullible residents of this backward, cheap, and money-grubbing planet. Human practitioners of this technique are referred to as "statisticians" or, more commonly, "liars." The difference between information gleaned from a computer and any kind of reality can easily be demonstrated. Take a piece of paper. Write on it. Look at it. It is a real thing. It cannot be changed without your knowledge unless you loose track of it, get totally wasted, or just don't care. Put it on a shelf. Stay up all night looking at it. Take it down. You know it's the same thing even if you don't remember what you wrote. This is not true of the information on a computer screen. Where does it go when you turn it off? Even when you just go to the refrigerator for a beer, when you come back your text is replaced by one of those .gifs of Kathy Ireland necessary to save your delicate and expensive video screen from burn-in. The subtlety of the fraud being perpetrated can easily be demonstrated by consideration of your monthly computer- produced MasterCard or Visa statement. The total is impossible. There is no way you could have spent that much money. But when you look at the individual items, some begin to assume a vague familiarity. Others begin to seem at least plausible, considering certain cash purchases you may have made. And so, simply because it is "on the computer," you are made to believe in the impossible. You go on to pay or not to pay the backward, cheap and money-grubbing people at the bank depending on that other computerized fraud, your checking account. 2) There's a great old wheeze, decades old, that you can still pull at will on the furless monkeys here, who are still always willing to believe that they are the experimenters rather than the subjects of experiments. The gag is called the "Turing Test." You enter a small windowless room. One of the walls has a little slot in it through which you can push sheets of paper. On the other side of this partition will be a cretin in a white coat whose purpose in life is to determine whether or not you are a computer. Through the wall he'll yell, "Write something in Chinese!" You may, like most of the inhabitants, be familiar with at least one form of written Chinese, but regardless of that just scribble down any lame gibberish and pass it through the slot. "Aha!" hollers the white-coated wonder. "You're not Chinese. You're a computer!" From that point on, the ninny will believe you are a dependable electronic tool for the storage, retrieval, and manipulation of information, capable of zillions of calculations per second, rather than a hung-over liberal arts major with a vicious sense of humor whose brain seizes up when confronted by a goes into sign. 3) Computers are controlled by mice. %e *EOA* %t Nursing Homes %n 2S46 %s Habitations Of The Aged, And How To Survive A Trip To One %a Jeff Kramer (lthumper@bga.com) %d 19940710 %i Carpet, Brown Static %i Odors, Nursing Homes %e A strange phenomenon among the older inhabitants of Earth is the propensity to occupy something called "Nursing Homes." Nursing Homes are large collections of older people packed into a small area with lots of strange things. For the hitchhiker the most important things to remember about Nursing Homes are: 1) Never inhale; breathe through your towel. Medical science has yet to identify half of the odors you can find in a nursing home. Many of the strange odors come from liquids that could eat through a foot-thick lead wall in a matter of seconds. It is suggested that you also take along some industrial quality air freshener. 2) Look purposeful. If you don't want to be stopped as a nurse or doctor, don't ask for it. Smile a little as you pass people, don't stand in one spot for more time than you have to, and never look like you're lost. 3) Don't get roped into conversations with the locals. The last thing you want is to be stuck listening to someone old enough to have parented the entire Russian empire telling you about their great-grandkids. However, there is a small exception to this rule: there are some people in nursing homes that can be very helpful. You never know what someone might have done before they succumbed to old age. 4) Try not to touch anything metallic. The floors of many nursing homes are covered with a special form of carpet (most of which is brown). This carpet has the ability to build up static faster than a balloon rubbed against a blonde's head. Touching metal after walking even a few feet across this carpet could cause severe bodily harm. 5) Use the stairs as much as possible. Normally if you step into a elevator, item #3 (above) will probably result, and to get an elevator, you will probably have to do item #4, and you look much more #2 if you walk down a stairway. 6) If possible, carry a clipboard; this will add to your ability to do as you wish without being questioned. Act like you're inspecting the pipes, make up a name of a safety requirement, or whatever. If you pay attention to the above guidelines, you will have a much better probability of surviving a visit to a Nursing Home. I wouldn't suggest it, but hey, it's your life. %e *EOA* * * End of file: SREAL02.NEW * Share and Enjoy! *