* * Archive: REAL07.NEW * * Created on: Tue Mar 28 15:30:11 2000 * * 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: * * 1R20-1 FTP, A Boring Article On How To Use * 1R21-1 Philosophy * 1R22-1 Unix, Part 2 * 1R23-1 Unix, Part 3 * 2R137-1 Weird Units Of Measure * 2R138-1 Stafford, England, UK, Earth * 2R139-1 Train Journeys, Ten Ways To Liven Up * 2R140-1 Barkman, Henrik O A * 2R141-1 Ice Cream-Induced Killing Frenzy * 2R142-1 Hostage Situations, Solution To * 2R143-1 Metric Prefixes * Ideabank-2 Ideabank, Instructions For The * 2R145-1 Circular * 2R146-1 Reference * 2R147-1 Relocation * 2R148-1 Shoemaker-Levy 9 * 2R149-1 Rocky Horror Picture Show At The Prince Charles Cinema * 2R150-1 Ocho Rios, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, West Indies, Earth * 2R151-1 Celsius, Anders * 2R152-1 Kramer, Jeff * 2R153-1 Atlantic City Race Course, Hamilton Township, New Jersey, USA, Earth * 2R154-1 Strangers * 2R155-1 Andersson, Rickard * 6R1-1 Washing Hands After Bathroom * 6R2-1 Coffee * %t FTP, A Boring Article On How To Use %n 1R20 %s File Transfer Process, TCP/IP (boring) %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) %d 19940901 %i File Transfer Process %x Unix, Part 1 %e Alex's Beginners guide to using FTP Sometimes you want to make a copy of a file which is on a machine far away on the internet. It may be on another continent or across the room. The owner of that machine may be perfectly happy to let you have the copy but doesn't want to give just anybody access to his machine. The File Transfer Process lets system administrators devote a section of their hard disks for files which can be copied to other computers (it sometimes allows new files to be uploaded too). You don't get to fully use the machine as you would in a telnet session or rlogin. Instead you are limited to a set of commands with which you can copy files to your local machine but do no damage on the remote machine. You must open a connection to the remote machine. ftp can be the numeric form eg 132.24.99.2 or a valid machine name such as vela.acs.oakland.edu ftp vela.acs.oakland.edu You will then be asked for your id and password. If the machine is private then you need to be told this by the system administrator. If the remote machine intends to let anyone use it then it will probably have a user id called "anonymous" (hence the phrase "Anonymous FTP"). In place of the password the remote machine will ask for your email address. It will record this and might complain if it is different from your local machine's name. anonymous me@mymachine.mysite.ac.uk If this works then you will be presented with a welcome message telling you not to do anything naughty and you will be placed in an appropriate directory. This is usually /pub, meaning the directory containing the public files. To list the files in that directory use ls (Directories usually have a line starting with a d) To change directory you use cd. cd /pub cd galactic-guide cd theguide Now see if the file you want is there. ls You should see files including something like tg145.zip, or complete.zip. Whenever I use ftp, I switch on hash marking with hash One more thing must be done. We have to say that this is a binary file and not an ascii text file. If you forget this then you may fetch a useless file! bin Now to actually get the file. get tg145.zip You need to wait a while (A few seconds for fast university connection, or a few minutes to hours for a slow modem connection). Then you will see a message saying how quickly it transfered the file. Then quit The file should be in your local directory that you started off in. %e *EOA* %t Philosophy %n 1R21 %s Thought And Thinkers %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) %d 19940906 %x Art Of Being, The %e Since the dawn of time, people have been wondering about their universe. This is because they are lost and don't know how to get where they are going. Some of these people stopped wondering about, sat down and scratched their beards[1] and thought. These people are called philosophers. The first thing to be deduced from this is that all philosophers are male. Certain people argue that the logic of this argument is flawed, but since most of them are beardless females no one listens to them. No philosophers anyway. Philosophers often like to argue that the universe doesn't exist but is merely an illusion. This is rather a problem for them because university bursars don't like their existance doubted and often hold back imaginary salary from professors for doing imaginary teaching in imaginary lecture halls. Another famous philosophical puzzle is the mind/body problem. This basically questions the connection between the mind and the body. Are we just machines? Or do we have some soul which affects the material body? For further discussion of this topic see articles on alcohol and other drugs. Footnotes: [1] Scratching one's beard is a common pastime for philosophers as it removes toast crumbs left over from breakfast. %e *EOA* %t Unix, Part 2 %n 1R22 %s Logging Into Your Computer %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) * This article is Copyright Alex McLintock 1994 %d 19940722 %i Message Of The Day %i Terminals %x Unix, Part 1 %e Assuming that your terminal (the thing you sit in front of) is switched on, you will probably be presented with some sort of login sequence. It will ask you for your user id (or "login") and so you enter it. You will then be asked for a password. You can enter that. When you type in your password, marks will appear on the screen but your password won't; this is so you know that the computer is receiving the key-presses, but prevents people from reading your password over your shoulder. You will probably be presented with the "message of the day". This is meant to be a useful piece of information written by the system administrator. "The system will be out of action after 1600 hours so be sure to finish this week's programming project before then!" "First year students: Friday's boolean logic lecture is cancelled" "Any games found on this system will be immediately wiped" Unfortunately the job of changing the message of the day is a fairly unattractive one and motd's get left for much longer than a day. Weeks can go by during which you are never sure if only last weeks lecture was cancelled - or this week's too. This will probably be your first experience of the cookie program. This ancient program displays a pithy saying, memorable quote, or bad joke at random. (It is sometimes known as fortune, however no one has ever made money out of it.) After this, things diverge. You may have a fancy graphics terminal which pops up various things like: windows (these are rectangles on the screen, but although made of glass, you can't see through them) Clocks (digital, or analog. It is not uncommon to have more than one clock on a screen. One interesting clock is the sunclock which displays the current regions of day and night on a world map) text terminals (something to let you do real work) cpu load meters (something to tell you how little work you can really do) mail boxes (something to tell you when you have an excuse to stop working) and of course, Xeyes (which follow your mouse pointer around the screen to give you something to play with when you are pretending to work) Or you may have a simple text-based terminal which gives you a prompt and perhaps a flashing cursor if you are lucky. Don't worry about being left behind if you only get a simple vt100 screen which only does one colour - green. We are just going to do some simple commands for a while. The people with fancy graphics can just point their mouse at one of the windows which look like a "console" or "xterm". You will hopefully get a prompt. This can be setup to be almost any piece of text but here are a few defaults that people like to set up for new users: The basic default is a $ (dollar sign). This might be replaced by a > (greater-than sign). Other's like to print the name of the machine you are actually using - or your own user id. Other possibilities include functions which change depending on the environment: my favourite is to put the current time in the prompt, but the most common prompt in the world is the one which displays the name of the current directory. %e *EOA* %t Unix, Part 3 %n 1R23 %s Files And File Systems %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) * This article is Copyright Alex McLintock 1994 %d 19940722 %x McLintock, Alexander Lachlan %x Unix, Part 2 %x Unix, Part 1 %i Shell, Unix %i Files, Unix %e One of the most useful concepts about Unix is its file system. Almost everything can be thought of as a file. Usually files are just things like programs or documents. Directories are files which describe a collection of files (and other directories). There are other important files associated with physical devices, such as hard disks, however you don't need to worry about them. Directories can be placed within directories, resulting in a tree-like branched structure. There is one directory which is logically not in any other directory. This is called the "root" directory. Just to confuse people the root directory is usually drawn at the top of the tree. Of course, some people think that since it is called the root it must be at the bottom of the directory structure. These people are just being awkward and should be ignored. The root directory is signified by the character "/". So /tmp is the file or directory called tmp inside the root directory. (tmp is pronounce "temp" - short for temporary). If you got a prompt, you are certainly running some kind of shell. "Shell" is a fancy name for the program which accepts commands that you type in, and then executes them on the unix system. There are many shells, including the bourne shell (sh), C shell (csh), korn shell (ksh) and T C shell (tcsh). It doesn't really matter which one you are using at the moment. You can try out the others later. For now you only need to type in letters and press delete or backspace to rub out characters typed in by mistake. (see later for the great Backspace/Delete Wars). Needless to say, you need to hit the Return key after each command. But don't hit it too hard. Now, finally, we can try out some commands. %e *EOA* %t Weird Units Of Measure %n 2R137 %s Make Physics More Enjoyable %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940725 %i Units Of Measure, Weird %i Measurement, Weird %x Mars %e Bored with Physics? Enter the world of the Weird Units. -------------------------------------------------------- Are you fed up with physics? Do you need some excitement or variation? Try changing your standard units to more enjoyable ones. Then you can revel yourself in knowing that almost no one else understands what the gibberish you write down means (but a small group of geeks, just like the Klingon speakers, them sick wire-cords). Then you can cover up outcomes that you don't particularly like. Try for instance some of these: Time ---- Professor Julius Sumner Miller was one time asked how long he wanted to speak to a group. He would reply, "about a microcentury." A microcentury is about 52.5 min, close to a "standard" lecture period of 50 minutes. Easy to remember is also the nanocentury: one nanocentury is about pi seconds (3.156 sec. to be approximately exact). The micro-Fortnight is approximately a second (1.2 is better). Speed ----- An Aangstroem per week is 165 atto-metres a second. A unit of speed is the 7.26013114 * (SQRT(G*h/c)/mp), where G is Universal Gravitation constant, h is Planck's const, c is the speed of light, and mp is the mass of a proton. This unit is equal to 1 m/s. The speed of light (c) is 1.80 tera furlongs per fortnight (or 1.80 furlongs per pico-fortnight). The speed of light in the Roel units, with the unit of time 25 years, the unit of length 1.71m, and the unit of mass 68kg, is 138.31 peta Roel/Roel. Distance -------- The pico-parsec is about 30.8 kilometres. Volume ------ One teaspoon is 1.6 barn mega-parsecs. The Hubble-barn is about 13 liters, depending on your current favorite value for Hubble's constant (H). This is the volume of a straw that has the cross-sectional area of a barn (a nuclear physics cross-sectional area equal to 100 square femtometres, roughly the size of a largish nucleus) and a length equal to the radius of the universe (given by H^{-1}c). If you use the old value of H, 55 km/s/Mpc, you get 17 liters. The extreme value of H near 100 reduces this by half. The current value is 40 < H < 100 so a median value would give about 13 liters. The fact that a gallon milk jug has the same volume as a straw with the area of a medium sized nucleus such as Silicon that reaches to the end of the universe is one way to visualize just how small and how big those two numbers really are. Work ---- An appropriate unit of work is the "barn-yard-atmosphere" (equal to 9.3 * 10^-24 Joules) F-System -------- In this system we already have a unit of time, the fortnight (ft), a unit of length, the furlong (fl). Now, to get a unit of force and mass we take the following path: we use two electrical units, the farad (f) and the Faraday (F). In this system the unit of current is the Faraday/fortnight (F/ft), and the unit of potential difference is the Farady/farad (F/f). Thus the unit of power is (F^2/(f ft)) and the unit of energy is the (F^2/f). Finally, the unit of mass is, of course, (F^2 ft^2)/(f fl^2), or square Faradays square fortnights per square furlong farad. This unit is about 2.3 atto kg. Other Thoughts -------------- You could measure the gas mileage of a car in inverse acres. To calculate the inverse gas mileage, you drive as far as you can with one gallon, then you make a very long skinny hose whose length is the distance you drove and whose volume is exactly one gallon. You then measure the area of the cross-section of the interior of this hose in acres. Now take the reciprocal. Finally ------- If you ever encounter a teacher who says, "use any units, just carry them through the calculations," then you know what to do: use the above. (Example units of ampere-turn/(furlong * fortnight * fortnight). *You* calculate what this was.) Another possibility in this situation is saying, "the answer is 12.7 Meulens, where the Meulen is defined via this problem." %e *EOA* %t Stafford, England, UK, Earth %n 2R138 %s The Highlights And Lowlights Of Stafford (Mostly Lowlights) %a Tony Blews (hat@mono.org) %d 19940727 %i Boring Places Not To Visit %x Earth %x London, England, UK, Earth %e Stafford is the county town of Staffordshire in England, and probably the most boring place on the planet. If you ever find yourself in Stafford, here are the best ways to leave: By Train -------- Stafford is on the main rail route between the south east and north west of England. Stafford Station is notable for not having a platform two, whilst being blessed with platforms one and three through to six. That just goes to show how interesting the place is. By Bus ------ Busses regularly leave Stafford for the great metropolis of Wolverhampton and Stoke on Trent. From there you can probably catch a coach to Manchester, or even London if you have gone completely insane. By Road ------- If you are blessed with a motor vehicle of some kind, then the M6 motorway offers a great route away from Stafford. It leads north to such great places as Preston, and south to the lunatic asylums of London and Birmingham. Hitchhiking ----------- If you are travelling by the One True Method, then the best places to hitch are the on ramps of the M6 motorway, at both the north and south ends of town. If you stay in Stafford for too long, then there is a fair chance you will become unable to leave. In this eventuality your best bet is to seek out a public house, such as one of the following: The Sun Inn: Good food, a good selection of beers, and a friendly atmosphere. It's the sort of place to take your relatives to when they visit. The Forrester and Firkin: A real ale pub. They brew their own beer on site. If you don't like students, then this is a place to avoid, otherwise it's not too bad. No food though. Dougals: A rock tavern. The food is good, but only served at lunch times. Each week night has its own theme, such as Thursdays being 70's rock night. Not the sort of place to go if you like rap music. The Bird in Hand: Another student pub, with more excellent beers. The Grapes: Avoid like the Black Death. Especially if you look in any way "weird." The Props: This is more of a wine bar, but without the wine. It is open until 1am most nights (most English pubs close at 11). No food, limited number of beers, and the DJ plays "pop" music all the time. %e *EOA* %t Train Journeys, Ten Ways To Liven Up %n 2R139 %s Amusing Things To Do On Long Railway Journeys %a Tony Blews (hat@mono.org) %d 19940727 %i Railway Journeys %e Here are ten fun ways to liven up your average train journey: 1) While waiting for your train at the station, waste time by spotting trains. This involves painting filled circles on the sides of other trains. Please ensure that the train is stationary, otherwise you will be guilty of Train Striping. 2) When on the train, pretend you're on a roller coaster by waving your arms in the air whenever the train goes around a bend. 3) Lean out of the carriage window whilst the train is moving at high speed, in an attempt to have a limb amputated. 4) Pretend to be rabid, by filling your mouth with Sherbet and "foaming at the mouth." 5) Listen to some music on a personal stereo. The volume should be at a sufficient level so that everyone else can hear it but not quite make out what the tune is. 6) Attempt to consume a hot drink purchased from the Buffet Car. On English trains, this can be as dangerous as bungee jumping using dental floss as rope, due to the severe vibrations typically experienced. 7) Play Strip Dominoes, whilst trying not to get thrown off the train. 8) Pretend to be members of a rock band by repeatedly singed the same song over and over again, then smashing up the carriage, claiming Satan told you to do it. 9) When the ticket inspector asks for your ticket, tell him that your face is your ticket, and see if he punches it. 10) Annoy the other passengers by typing in Galactic Guide articles on a laptop computer with a noisy keyboard. %e *EOA* %t Barkman, Henrik O A %n 2R140 %s Is HOAB From Somewhere Else? %a Tomas Edstrom (ted@kullmar.se) %d 19940726 %i Lord Of The Red Dot, The %i Ice Cream Murderer, The %x Alien Identification %x Ice Cream-Induced Killing Frenzy %x Field Researchers, How To Recognize %e Many people debate whether HOAB is really an alien, or if he's been switched as a child. There also seems to be some uncertainty where he really comes from. Some say that his origin would be an unknown planet in this solar system, while others imply that if it were so, he would be more like us, so therefore he must be from another system or even galaxy... Whichever is correct, he has made very good in his attempts to conform to this society. It isn't perfect, but hey! Are you at home - really at home - here? Whatever your answer, it could be taken as a proof that you are an alien. Well, to continue... The charm of HOAB's small lapses in adjusting has made him a cult figure in the Swedish part of FidoNet, a following not unlike that which Mr. Spock himself - pointy ears and all - would have generated. (As a small note here, it is a fact that HOAB carries a small amulet of the aforementioned Mr. Spock.) Some of his reputation comes from singular occurrences, i.e. The Ice Cream Murder, while others are part of longer campaigns, while some are just Those Things That Just Happen (an article that should come soon...). To clarify, we should perhaps look upon the first Thing. To HOAB, ice cream is an important source of nourishment, maybe The Source, but unlike many of us other ice cream fanatics, he has the view that ice cream is a living thing and must first be killed. (Whether this is a sign of compassion, or an act in self defence, has not been possible to ascertain.) One of the methods which seems suited to use in attending to the ice creams demise is bludgeoning it to death and beyond recognition, with wooden tools, which incidentally also are beyond recognition afterwards. (There may be a ritualistic element here, but it hasn't been possible to ascertain mainly because any mention of ice cream sends HOAB into a killing frenzy.) The only possible way of stopping the mayhem is to manacle him. In the second category we can take a look at the Small Red Dots which congregate around HOAB with irregular periodicity. There seems to be an element of attraction incorporated in HOAB for these unknown entities, which, BTW, are rather harmless, but can be annoying and frustrating for small felines, hedgehogs, and the likes. Also, the insistence on silver-coloured duct tape as a method of packaging, delivering, and/or marking objects. A periodically returning phenomenon is the OOBE that sometimes can be observed in HOAB. What this means, nobody knows, but there has been commented that it could be a means of communicating, perhaps with some other aliens, or just checking to make sure that there are no other aliens around. Those Things That Just Happen are not easily explained but can perhaps be illustrated by a small sample of quotes from the forthcoming book titled _HOABisms_: Laboratory assistant sees a HP-48: "A calculator for people who count backwards." Even though I know myself too well to fall for it, I often try to fool myself. "I should have understood that you have a bottle opener in that tool box that you carry..." Toolbox? Bah. A small Victorinox and a few screwdrivers. In regard of last years non existent attendance, I'm thinking of not having a birthday this year. It would be stupid to "lay the table for Bernt." I get significantly better reception of Radio City if I connect the antenna to a can of Jolt. I just wondered why my new pajamas felt so uncomfortable. I later found a plastic paper clip in the neck... :-) I also received a thick envelope, with the usual wrong address, containing a "mineral oil product with additives. Contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons," i.e., a squeeze tube gun grease 101. This by the reason that I mentioned to the originator that gun grease 101 smells good.... (I'll shoot anyone who says "Tackleberry!" :-) ) Celsius' thermometer froze at 100=F8 north of Lycksele, as he had drunk the methanol. I have now seen a person flattened to a thin sheet by a door. It was not a cartoon. "Fahrenheit. Strictly for scientists." HOAB is also one of the Field Researchers for Project Galactic Guide. %e *EOA* %t Ice Cream-Induced Killing Frenzy %n 2R141 %s A Word Of Warning %a Henrik O A Barkman (barkman@stacken.kth.se) %d 19940729 %x Barkman, Henrik O A %x Ice Cream %e Most people who know about the existence of ice cream consider it quite harmless, or at worst somewhat fattening. It is not harmless. Some time ago, a friend of mine was making a very tasty ice cream, coffee, and cocoa mixture known as Fonzi's Special Ice Cream. After he mixed the ingredients in their secret proportions I was asked to stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. I did as instructed, but soon found that the mixture's viscosity was too high for ordinary stirring, so I began to use more and more violence in mixing the stuff. After a while Fonzi returned and thought the ice cream homogenous enough for eating. However, I just couldn't stop stabbing and beating that poor ice cream with my spoon. An ex-security guard (two meters tall) who was present at the moment failed in disarming me. I held on to my spoon and kept on massacring the dessert. Finally I was forced to drop the spoon by another Field Researcher who "happened" to be at the party. Several of the guests later complained about finding wooden splinters from the spoon in their ice cream. However, I needed an excuse for my frantic behaviour, so I claimed that I thought Fonzi had hidden one of his "Macintrashes" under the ice cream. Since that moment, the combination of ice cream, wooden spoons, and Macintoshes is considered deadly by people who know me. Even just mentioning the word "ice cream" can be enough to make me try to kill anything or anyone in my vicinity. I checked the preparation of that ice cream, and I can guarantee that it contained nothing hallucinogenic nor any other controlled substances. However, I forgot to check the spoon. %e *EOA* %t Hostage Situations, Solution To %n 2R142 %s Side Effects Of Major Sporting Events Put To Use %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) %d 19940729 %i Sports Events, Major, Side Effects Of %e In the Volkskrant (Dutch newspaper) of 19940702 there appeared an article describing the following situation. The employees of the Nigerian Dredging and Marine Company in Warri, southeast Nigeria, were very dissatisfied about their wages. This situation, arisen in April, in July led to the employees taking the managers hostage in an oil drenched caravan until the management would fulfil their demands. This was their way of supporting the negotiations that had started a few days ago. In the past there had already been some conflicts between the Nigerian employees and the mostly foreign management. An hour before the world cup football (soccer for the Americans) match of Nigeria against Greece, the negotiators agreed to a rise of 2,300 naira in their wages, thus throwing away the possibility of an even higher amount, all in order to be able to watch the football match. The hostages were released just in time for the lot of them to see Nigeria beat Greece with the score 2-0. As you may or may not have noticed, this story holds the key to how to act in future situations of hostage taking, either during terrorist or criminal acts. Whenever hostages are taken, effort must be put into finding out what nationality the criminals are and what kind of sport or other activity appeals to them most. Then such a thing should quickly be organized. As you have seen in the article, the situation is then resolved without bloodshed. Maybe even smaller events would suffice. Imagine a football match of local football clubs being organized around a hijacked plane. The pleasant side- effect of this method is the pleasure the performers of these events have, possibly combined with financial gain, and maybe even increasing employment for people who join the hostage-solving amusement industry. An unpleasant side-effect of this method is that possibly people start to commit all kinds of criminal acts involving the taking of hostages, just to provoke some kind of performance. Imagine the hoards of horny men robbing banks as an excuse for taking hostages, to enjoy the activities of the Special Stripper Branch (SSB) of the local police. %e *EOA* %t Metric Prefixes %n 2R143 %a Anonymous (Author unavailable via Internet) %s Dubious Metrics * * Saved from alt.humor.best-of-usenet by * Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * %d 19940729 %x Weird Units Of Measure %x Metric System %e Dubious Metrics --------------- A millihelen is the amount of beauty required to launch one ship. A microhelen is the amount of beauty required to motivate one sailor. A megahelen is the amount of beauty required to make the sailor think in any other terms than a one-night stand. But this is all rather bogus, since we are applying metric prefixes to Troy units. Other Dubious Metrics --------------------- 10^12 dactyls = 1 teradactyl 10^15 philes = 1 petaphile 10^18 stentials = 1 exastential 10^21 piccolos = 1 gigolo 10^18 minations = 1 examination 10^15 coats = 1 petacoat 10^12 bulls = 1 terabull 10^12 microphones = 1 megaphone 10^12 pins = 1 terrapin billions and billions = 1 Sagan 10^9 lows = 1 gigalow 10^9 antics = 1 gigantic 10^9 questions = 1 gigawhat 10^9 micrometers = 1 kilometer = 200 pentameters 10^6 bicycles = 2 megacycles 10^6 airs = 1 millionair 2^10^3 millinaries = 4 seminaries = 1 binary 2x10^3 mockingbirds = 2 kilo mockingbird 1000 Kowalskis = 1 Kilokowalski ("Killer" Kowalski was a well-known professional wrestler from about 20 years ago.) 10 cards = 1 decacard 10 decor = 1 hector 10 dence = 1 decadence 10 halls with boughs of holly = decahalls with etc. 10 millipedes = 1 centipede 10 monologues = 5 dialogues = 1 decalogue 10 rations = 1 decoration 5 holocausts = 1 Pentecost 3 1/3 tridents = 1 decadent 2 bulls = 1 Pair a bull 2 homosexuals = 1 bisexual 1 centipede/second = 1 velocipede 1/2 Soviet press agency = 1 demitasse 10^-1 mate = 1 decimate 10^-2 mentals = 1 centimental 10^-3 ink machines = 1 millink machine 10^-3 on = 1 million 10^-5 dollars = 1 Millicent 10^-6 fish = 1 microfiche 10^-6 scopes = 1 microscope 10^-9 goats = 1 nanogoat 10^-9 Nanettes = 1 nanoNanette 10^-12 boos = 1 picoboo 10^-12 boulevards = 1 pico-boulevard 10^-12 dillies = 1 picodilly 10^-15 fatales = 1 femtofatale 10^-15 bismol = 1 fepto bismol 10^-18 boys = 1 atto boy nano-nano = a prefix designating 10^-18 %e *EOA* %t Ideabank, Instructions For The %n 2R144 %s How To Use The PGG Ideabank * From the Ideabank %a Roel van der Meulen (vdmeulen@strw.Leidenuniv.nl) %c Ryan Tucker (rtucker@netins.net) %d 19940729 %x Article Writing Guide For Field Researchers And Guide Editors %e If you ever find an idea for a Project Galactic Guide article inside your brain, here's some solutions on what to do with it. First and foremost, you should write an article about it. This is the whole purpose of The Guide. Fill the net to the edge with PGG articles. But the case could be that for some reason or other you find it difficult to write an article on your idea. It could be that you have too many ideas to work out by yourself, or you could have an idea but no inspiration, or little further ideas, to make a whole article out of it. In this case you might want someone else to profit from this wonderful idea, or just don't want it to get lost because it's so brilliant. Then you can submit it to the Ideabank(tm). The Ideabank(tm) is a bunch of files stored at The PGG Mothership (ftp://vela.acs.oakland.edu/pub/galactic-guide/ideas). The bunch of files contain a large amount of article ideas and concepts, for Field Researchers to use. The Ideabank is maintained by our very own Article Idea Manager (AIM), who is currently Mark Seaborn, and can be reached via ideabank@megadodo.com (and failing that, mseaborn@bigfoot.com). The procedure is to send an idea you have to him and/or to alt.galactic-guide (so everyone is aware of what ideas there are and can comment on them). Make sure you've put your idea in the same format as in the PGG articles. You can read more about this in the Article Writing Guide For Field Researchers And Guide Editors. Include as much token-types (%t, %s, %i, %x) as you want. This means that you can submit any combination of titles, summaries, subtitles, cross-references, and/or article bits, except the zero solution (nothing isn't an idea.) If you feel the need to, you can also include a credit token, %c, in which you can put your name, the name of the inventor of the idea, and your email address. Next send the idea, with in the subject line: "IDEA: ", to the AIM and/or the newsgroup (as I said). If you should ever want to add various types of background information or other ideas about a submitted idea to the idea, just mail your message to the AIM and/or the discussion group. Contributions are greatly appreciated and add to the creative activities within The Project. The Ideabank is useless without users. If you, a Field Researcher, are void of ideas, or see an idea that appeals to you, why not take an idea out of the Ideabank and make it into an article? The procedure here is to contact the AIM that you're going to write it, and he will put a new token in the idea, %b ,, to indicate that you're busy on it, and started being so at a certain date. This token doesn't mean that other Field Researchers can't write anything on that topic, but that he/she should be aware that someone else may have the same idea about it. It is then wise to contact that person, to make sure you have different viewpoints, or to combine your efforts! It is greatly appreciated if you put the credit token into your article. You can use anything that is mentioned in the idea in the article, but this is absolutely not obligatory. You have complete freedom to disregard possible already written paragraphs if you think that would be better. After an article has officially been put into the archives, the idea that started it, and which contents have completely been processed into the article, must be deleted. The author of that article should send an E-mail to the PGGAIM to tell him the title of the Idea that has to be removed from the archive. It's a bit too much work for him to try to figure out which articles came from the idea-archive. Articles written after that, based upon the same idea, are then considered to be follow-ups on that article and are treated the same way. Finally I want to give a warning. Remember that submitting ideas is fine, as long as it doesn't interfere, or even replace, your writing of articles. The more articles the better. We wouldn't want to be held responsible for idea-submit addicts, who lose their jobs or don't graduate because they're totally addicted to submitting as much ideas as possible. (Who? Me?) %e *EOA* %t Circular %n 2R145 %s The Beauty Of Circular Reference %a Arnaud Roques (roques@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr) %d 19940809 %x Reference %e Please see the article "Reference" for more information about what sometimes happens with dictionaries. %e *EOA* %t Reference %n 2R146 %s The Beauty Of Circular Reference %a Arnaud Roques (roques@aar.alcatel-alsthom.fr) %d 19940809 %x Circular %e Please see the article "Circular" for more information about what sometimes happens with dictionaries. %e *EOA* %t Relocation %n 2R147 %s Travel Light, And It's Not A Problem %a Paul Jason Clegg (cleggp@megadodo.com) %d 19940719 %x Travel Necessities %i Moving To A New Residence %e Every once in a while, or more, if you change jobs a lot, a person will move to a new place of residence, such as a new house, apartment, dorm room, or bus station. This, to put it bluntly, is a major pain in the ass. It's not that bad, if you're not sentimental, and if you're very sensible about what you keep. However, if you've lived in the same house for over twenty years, and you decide to move, you find out exactly how much crap you've managed to accumulate. Moving should not be a bad experience for any hitchhiker, since, by definition, hitchhikers are used to travelling light, and relocating often. However, hitchhikers who've been spoiled by travelling light should be warned not to get involved in helping move anyone else. Husbands will inevitably complain about all the knickknacks their wives insist on keeping, and yet they'll never throw away the spare tire from the car they sold fourteen years ago. Wives will inevitably complain about all the tools their husbands insist on keeping, and yet will not throw out the musty ball of yarn that has since changed color to a sickly green, simply because they insist they'll start knitting again, after seventeen years. Fathers insist on keeping broken things that they will promise to fix after they've moved in, and mothers will never give away any of the closets full of clothes they'll never wear again. And of course, they'll insist on bringing the furniture, which is just too heavy for a hitchhiker to really be bothered with. Also, be prepared to break things. Usually, by some luck, the things broken will be things you really didn't need or want anyway, and this will present an excuse to toss it, but don't count on it. Also, don't try to intentionally break something, under the premise of an accident, because anything intentionally broken will always seem intentionally broken, no matter how you try to hide it. This I've learned from experience. The best time to move is probably the fall or spring, where you can work up a sweat, but then cool off just by doing nothing. Never try to move in the summer, where you sweat just thinking about moving. After a day of moving in 100 degree (Fahrenheit) weather, with a humidity of 75 percent, you will have no fluid left in your body, and you'll probably be very uncomfortable. Unless, of course, you're in the military, and stationed somewhere near the equator, like Texas, in which case this kind of weather is a welcome relief. %e *EOA* %t Shoemaker-Levy 9 %n 2R148 %s It Smacked Into Jupiter %a Paul Jason Clegg (cleggp@megadodo.com) %d 19940719 %i Comets, Shoemaker-Levy 9 %x Jupiter, Sol V %e The periodic comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke up into about 21 pieces, and ended up plowing into Jupiter's atmosphere about three weeks into July of 1994. The largest of the 21 fragments, fragment G, was two miles in diameter, and hit Jupiter at 130,000 miles per hour, on July 19th. The force of the impact was estimated to be approximately equivalent to 6 teratons (that's 6,000,000 megatons) of TNT. If you had a home on Shoemaker-Levy 9, you should start filing with your insurance company now. If you were in the process of buying property on Shoemaker-Levy 9, back out of the deal now. It's just not there anymore. %e *EOA* %t Rocky Horror Picture Show At The Prince Charles Cinema %n 2R149 %s Charming Underclothes: London's Amazing Live Cast %a Alexander Lachlan McLintock (alexmc@biccdc.co.uk) %d 19940127 %i Cinema And Theatre %i Leicester Square, London, England, UK, Earth %i Cinema Review: Rocky Horror Picture Show %e If you are in the vicinity of Leicester Square, London, UK, Earth, at around 11:30 on a Friday evening, then chances are that you have been chucked out of a pub due to closing time, or you have seen a West End musical. You may want to try the Haag'n Das ice cream, or one of a multitude of fast food outlets, or go into Chinatown for chinese food. However, any sighted person will realize that the main entertainment in Leicester Square is cinemas. There are more cinemas than can be easily counted (i.e., more than eight fingers and two thumbs). One of the smaller cinemas just off the Northern side of Leicester Square is the Prince Charles. At this time of night, a group of people will be putting on makeup, straightening their tights and basques, and adjusting their wigs, and fake genitals. These people are the Charming Underclothes. These foolish people perform in front of the film _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_. Foolish - because they don't get paid. They do it for the thrill of it. At a cost of six pounds to watch, this is fairly typical of central London cinemas (usually seven pounds), however the usual cost of a Prince Charles film ticket is just 2 pounds. (Fortunately for some the student price of 2.99 is available.) The usual faire of the Prince Charles is old Chinese martial arts films, and American films either one or forty years old. _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ is nearly twenty years old, so it isn't exactly a current Hollywood smash hit. The Cast -------- These people are mostly Londoners for whom time has passed by untouched. Try telling them that they are idolizing a film which was made whilst they were still in kindergarten and they will probably tell you to sod off. Costumes -------- Lots of Basques, fish net tights, Y-Fronts (1 pair), white bra and nickers, lab coats (white and green), rubber gloves (pink), dark glasses, big feathers, some chiffon, gold lamee swimming trunks, fluffy scarf things, various things with lots of sequins in, leather jackets (several). And that's just the audience! MakeUp ------ This is one of the most distinctive aspects of the costume. Don't ask me to describe hairstyles or patches of black and white on people's faces. I can't. Wait for the multimedia version of this article. Cast Props ---------- A Ray gun (capable of emitting a beam of pure anti-matter), a newspaper, a car, a motorbike, an aquarium, a trifid, some celluloid jam, and some rattles. Night Buses ----------- Whenever you go somewhere in London you don't really want to drive - unless you know for certain that you can park when you get there. Most people go by Tube. Unfortunately the Tube closes down around 12 which is just when things are heating up, so you have to find some other way back home. You can hail a taxi (these are mostly black, or look like they have been covered by enlarged copies of the Financial Times which is pink). Or more better: get a night bus. These are strange beasts which follow none of the route plans of their diurnal counterparts. You can usually catch Night Buses from Trafalgar Square where they all seem to congregate. (Safety in numbers or something). After a wait of between two minutes and two hours you get on your night bus. Invariably someone realizes that they have been waiting at the wrong bus stop for the last twenty minutes and you are cheered up by the sight of misfortune greater than you own. Once you actually get on your night bus and have paid the flat fee, the night bus finally takes you from Trafalgar Square to where you want to go. Unfortunately it visits every bus stop between Trafalgar Square and where you want to go, and a few three miles off course as well. Once you get off the bus you may have other problems to deal with. It has been known for cast to kept away from their front doors by ira bomb alerts (police cordon off the streets), but worst of all is trying to pass the all night Domino's Pizza take-away without buying any pizza. PropBags and Audience Participation ----------------------------------- A major part of the atmosphere of Rocky Horror is audience participation. It is the only film I know where you can shout out "ASSHOLE" at the screen and not be shushed into silence. I should know. I've tried it a few times. But most audience participation is more subtle than that. Some of the first things that you need from your prop bag (should you buy one instead of bringing one yourself) are rice and confetti. This is to be thrown at other members of the audience in the opening wedding scene. Later on there is a thunderstorm and I can seriously recommend bringing a waterproof newspaper to protect yourself with. I once brought "Computing" (a UK weekly) and got picked on by the stage crew. (Tip: _Never_ think you have the biggest water pistol. The stage crew _always_ have one bigger.) If you are lucky you may find a condom or two in your bag. This is for blowing up with air and bouncing on people's heads. (Well, that's all I have seen the audience do with them.) Most good audience participation takes the form of a discussion between the audience and the screen. If you know when Frank says "Excellent!" then you can shout out "What do you think of Bill and Ted's Adventure?" just before. When the criminologist says the phrase "black and pendulous" it usually follows the audience saying "DESCRIBE YOUR BALLS." Audience participation jokes do get a bit better than shouting expletives. Rehearsals ---------- Never enough. Always too early on a Sunday morning. Most people aren't even awake on a Sunday morning. Columbia's Bits --------------- Well I did have _lots_ to say about Columbia's breasts, but I better not in case I start to drool. For a film about free sex and pleasure to excess there is very little nudity and bad language in the film. Sexy underwear is almost always better than nudity, and the film contains only the one "Fuck." The Plot -------- Sod the plot. The plot is almost non-existent. Don't see this film for the plot. The Characters -------------- Nah, it'll spoil the plot. The Show -------- _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ was based on the Rocky Horror Show - a play which was twenty-one years old this year. %e *EOA* %t Ocho Rios, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica, West Indies, Earth %n 2R150 %s Fun In The Sun (and Rain) %a Nicole Aucoin (cs911155@ariel.cs.yorku.ca) %d 19940622 %x Earth %x Tourists %e Jamaica is an island located in the Caribbean Sea, east of the America's and south of Cuba, part of a group of islands call the West Indies. This name came about when Christopher Columbus stumbled across the lush shores of one of the islands while trying to find China (he wanted to take advantage of his unpopular belief (that the Earth is round) by sailing west to get to the east, and so thought that he had found India). Jamaica itself is separated into districts known as parishes. The inhabitants are mostly of African descent, with some Europeans and Americans as well. The language is a dialect of English, and the favourite music style is reggae. Ocho Rios is located on the north coast of the island. It covers about 4 kilometers along the shore, extending a kilometer inland. The primary industry is tourism - there is a cruise ship dock on the west shore of Ocho Rios Bay, and numerous hotels and resorts (including Sandals Jamaica) are located in and around the city. The houses are a mix, as seen all over the island, of white adobe homes and multi-coloured corrugated metal shacks. The weather is tropical - warm all year round, with a rainy season from May to July or so. Don't avoid it because it's a bit damp, though - less tourists make the bars and hotels and beaches less crowded, but beware of sun burn, since as soon as the weather clears you may want to catch some rays after partying to paleness. Summer-time is generally warmer than 30 degrees Celsius, and winter rarely sees snow. Take care if driving - roads are narrow, bus drivers are enthusiastic at their work, and accidents abound. One thing to note for those younger travellers - you can't rent a car unless you are 25 Earth years old (and have proof, worse luck). And remember to drive on the left hand side of the road. The name Ocho Rios is often thought to come from Spanish settlers and to mean eight rivers, but this is not the true origin. It is named after the waterfalls that are present all over the area, and is corrupted from the Spanish for waterfall. The European settlers killed off the native Arawaks, so you can only learn about them through museums and such. If you do any walking about, lots of people will try to sell you souvenirs of your trip, lots of people, every one you meet, tons of them, all over the place, very insistently... well, you get the idea - their main business is tourism, after all. The only person not related to me that just wanted to talk was a Rastafarian who walked with us for a while - he had the longest dread-locks that I have ever seen! You too can do funky things with your hair, since one of the souvenirs on offer is hair braiding. I'm not sure if the national sport is cricket, but it sure does a good imitation of it. There are only a couple of television stations local to the island, so you will be sure not to miss any updates if you watch for any time at all. Fun things to do in and around Ocho Rios include (of course) swimming. The Caribbean is beautiful, warm, and clean. Or if you like the safety and wavelessness of a pool, most places will also have one. Fern Gully is an amazing couple of kilometers of twisty road embedded deep within a plethora of ferns and other flora. Go drive through it, but not if you are prone to car sickness, since you would spoil everyone else's enjoyment of the experience. The Dunn River empties into the sea just west of the city. There are guided tours to climb the falls - they offer special shoes to rent to climb, but if you have a pair of sport sandals they will do. Catamarans and glass bottom boats offer rides from the docks on the beach, and river rafting on the White River is also available. There are also the Green Grotto Caves just outside the city - a nice place to cool off. The currency is the Jamaican dollar (100 cents make up a dollar). In May 1994 the Jamaican dollar was roughly $33 to one dollar US, and $22 to one dollar Canadian. Most places will prefer to take US money, even though it is not officially allowed, but you will surely enjoy holding hundreds of dollars at a time! You are asked not to take any Jamaican money out of the country. Hotels are reasonable for a tourist area - $60US a night - and apartments and condos are available for rent on a weekly basis. Taxis are a fixed rate per mile, or you can engage one for the day. The more adventuresome can try the mini-busses - flag one down and ask the price to where you wish to go, then hop on for a wild ride. To get there you can fly in to Kingston on the south east coast, or Montego Bay on the north west, and then take a bus or rent a car. Hotels usually arrange for bus service to the airports - Sangster International in Mo Bay and Norman Manely in Kingston. The tourist offices have tons of flyers and maps to help you get around and find places to eat. For choosing a place to dine, you can sometimes (especially around supper time) find someone willing to give you a recommendation, but they would like something for it also. What to bring: sunblock, swim suits, t-shirts and shorts, hat and sunglasses, a camera with lots of film, money (should be travellers cheques if you're relying on cash and not credit - they do take Visa, Mastercard, and AMEX), towels (lots of them). But if you forget something, someone will be more than glad to sell it to you (especially t-shirts!). Best time to go: spring or fall so that you don't get the worst of the sun or rain. Oh, yes, that's northern hemisphere seasons by the way. Best time to leave: in time to catch your plane, boat, space ship, ride... Things you should try: snorkeling, scuba diving, climbing Dunn's River Falls. Things you should avoid: walking on the side of the road, ganga (marijuana) - since the police are very unhappy about its use. Things you mustn't lose: All those fun papers that they made you fill out at the airport/on the plane/at your hotel, travellers cheques, the film from your camera (don't know what could happen to those pictures if they didn't remain in your tender care!). All in all, a fun place to visit, get a tan, eat some jerk goat, hear some reggae, and maybe stay a few years. %e *EOA* %t Celsius, Anders %n 2R151 %s The Man With The Thermometer %a Henrik O A Barkman (barkman@stacken.kth.se) %d 19940825 %x Earth %x Barkman, Henrik O A %x Sweden: The True Story %x Sweden, Earth %x Metric System %e Anders Celsius (1701-1744) was a Swedish astronomy professor and physicist, perhaps most famous for his temperature scale. He was also a writer of poetry and popular science. One of the major questions in that time was what shape the Earth had. Newton et al had proposed that the Earth was not completely spheric, but rather flattened at the poles. Cartographic measuring in France suggested that it was the other way around: the Earth was elongated at the poles. In 1735, one expedition sailed to Ecuador in South America, and another expedition, led by Pierre Loius Moreau de Maupertuis, to Torne\chra in northern Sweden. Celsius was the only professional astronomer on that expedition. Their measurements seemed to indicate that the Earth actually was flattened at the poles. Celsius was not only an astronomer, but also a physicist. He and his assistant Olof Hiortner discovered that aurora borealis influence compass needles. However, the thing that made him famous is his temperature scale, which he defined as the boiling point of water as a certain atmospheric pressure was 0 degrees, and the melting point of ice was 100 degrees. The scale was turned around after his death, either by his pupil M\chrarten Str\ch"omer, or by the instrument maker Daniel Ekstr\ch"om. The upturned scale was accepted as standard in Sweden and soon thereafter in most other countries except Great Britain. The name "centigrades" for the Celsius temperature scale became obsolete when the SI system was declared international standard in 1954-1960. The correct name is "degrees Celsius." Anders Celsius died in 1744, just 42 years old, by phthisis. He had by then started many research projects, but finished few of them. Among his papers were found the draft to a science fiction novel, situated partly on Sirius. %e *EOA* %t Kramer, Jeff %n 2R152 %s Do Not Read This Summary Again %a Jeff Kramer (lthumper@bga.com) %d 19940824 %e I was born on September 16, 1977 in the military hospital in Leavenworth, Kansas, USA, Earth. (Dang those plural zones!) I've lived in Korea, Japan, Spain, and of course the US. I've been on four of the seven continents, and loved every minute of it. (Except maybe the car sickness.) I got my first computer at the age of 12, a IBM XT. I have had several computers since, and finaly ended up with a Macintosh PowerBook 100. My pride and joy. (Even in the face of bitter DOS biggots!) I like computers, fixing them, breaking them, and anything in between. I have a passion for video and Silicon Graphics workstations. I am currently enrolled (encarsarated?) in Hays High School, where I plow through 3 college classes, and ridicule the faculty for being so closed minded. I maintain a megar, but growing W^3 (World Wide Web) site. I get Internet access through Real/Time Communications, a hoopy commercial Internet access provider, and my trusty USR Sportster 14.4. I'm also writing commercial web pages. (For what I call an income, hopefully.) I'm a programmer on the GhostMOO, where I lay virtual bricks in my spare time. I like to travel, and I might take a mission trip to Africa summer of 1995, church building, or something. My musical interests mostly lie in anything but country/western. I have spurts of maddness, but usualy I provide the sanity for my friends. If you get me in one of my ridiculous moods, it's very interesting. Those moods usualy have something to do with terribly iritating british accents and an over abundant supply of stupidity. I'm working on a theory... any day now. Taz-Mania and Animaniacs provide wonderful entertainment; sometimes I think that Earth would be a better place if we were all cartoons. %e *EOA* %t Atlantic City Race Course, Hamilton Township, New Jersey, USA, Earth %n 2R153 %s Pretty Horses And Sad People %a Paul Jason Clegg (cleggp@megadodo.com) %d 19940814 %x Pizza %e The Atlantic City Race Course is for horses. Small people ride on their backs and beat them with little whips to make them go faster. The horse that crosses the finish line first is the one that wins. These races aren't very fascinating by themselves, though. A race rarely lasts two minutes, and it takes them about twenty minutes or more to set up for the next race. In a night of racing, they usually get about ten race groups off. The admission charge for this sad spectacle of horse whipping is $2.50. But because no one in their right minds would actually pay money to simply watch horses run around an oval track, they've added a slight twist to it: You can bet money on the horses, and if the horse you bet on wins, you get money back, and very probably more money than you bet in the first place. You must be 18 years of age in order to bet at ACRC, but you can get in to watch the races no matter what age you are. If you're 21 years of age, you can also buy alcoholic beverages at the track, though at unbelievably inflated prices. This hitchhiker took some of his winnings and bought a hot pretzel for $1.60. While the pretzel was actually pretty large and very tasty, though a bit overcooked, it probably wasn't really worth the $1.60 this hitchhiker actually paid for it. But the mustard was good. ACRC sits right next to the Hamilton Mall, and is very accessible from Route 40, and only slightly accessible from the Atlantic City Expressway. Other things to note is that a program will cost you about $1.50, and are printed a week or two in advance, so the notes they provide on the horses racing are usually slightly out of date. This isn't really important, though, since you can never tell from the numbers they give you whether or not a horse will actually win. Parking is a paltry $1.00, if you want to park in the cheap, dirt parking lot. There is valet parking available, but if a hitchhiker can't stand to walk the hundred yards from the lot to the entrance, they shouldn't be hitchhiking anyway. %e *EOA* %t Strangers %n 2R154 %a Nicole Aucoin (cs911155@ariel.cs.yorku.ca) %s Are They Friend Or Foe? %d 19940719 %e "Don't talk to strangers!" - moms and dads around the galaxy "A stranger is just a friend that you haven't met yet." - anonymous (to me at least, since I don't know who said it) To the lone hitchhiker making their way across the galaxy, the above two lines typify the extremes of attitude that are likely to be encountered upon entering a new environment. The first makes it bloody difficult to get a ride, since it's a bit hard to get someone to stop and talk to you, much less pick you up, if they subscribe to this maxim. On the other hand, those who like to apply the second will tend to slow you down on your mad dash across space, stopping *you* and chatting about things that interest *them* (read: mostly boring.) Ah the values of moderation! To find beings who will respond when queried politely, or who, when in possession of information that will be useful to you, will volunteer those facts -- that is the treasure of times when you needs must interact briefly with people. The hitchhiker must always bear in mind that they are the strangers to everyone else, just as everyone else is still a stranger to you. Don't ridicule customs (especially since customs tend to have large groups of beings willing to defend their right to those customs...) that you encounter. Who knows, hopping around on your fifth foot on the second Wednesday of every year may keep certain planets well balanced (and think what would happen on the second (or third, depending on the year) Thursday, if you happen to have not gotten a ride by then, when all those other feet are available to run you down to, er, explain the reasons why you shouldn't have laughed yesterday.) Hopefully any forbearance that you show to others will result in more sympathetic attitudes towards you when you declare that you must do something that they consider silly, such as wearing a breathing mask or some such frippery. To keep your travels carefree and harmonious, talk to some strangers (especially the really strange ones, as they tend to be most interesting), leave some alone, and make lots of friends so you can get rides wherever you wish to go... then again, friends tend to expect to be paid back for transportation expenses, so maybe sticking with strangers is a better idea... %e *EOA* %t Andersson, Rickard %n 2R155 %s A Field Researcher With More Than One Towel %d 19940803 %a Rickard Andersson (rickard@softlab.se) %i Authors, Project Galactic Guide %i Rickard Andersson %i rickard@softlab.se %e A short description of Rickard Andersson follows: I have lived in Sweden since my birth 1968-10-05 and am still figuring out how to handle this Life thing. (A PGG article on the topic will be written when I get it all under control :-) The towns that I have been staying in are in chronological order Norrkoeping, Umea, Gothenburg, Karlskrona, Umea and today Linkoeping. I'm making a living by working for "SoftLab", a computer consultant company in the software industry. In my free time I'm fooling around with my Macintosh, making shareware programs and other (un)important stuff. One of the programs I have made, is the PGG-Viewer for Macintosh computers. This is my contribution to the PGG people all around the universe. My research for PGG articles is done by living a normal life and occasionally I scribble down a PGG article. After I get the article confirmation, I relax and continue to live. If you want to get in touch with my towel, I will forward all messages from my e-mail address "rickard@softlab.se". %e *EOA* %t Washing Hands After Bathroom %n 6R1 %s Reasons Why You Should Wash Your Hands %a John B. Kim (kim@cs.umass.edu) * * Found in alt.humor.best-of-usenet by Roel van der Meulen * (vdmeulen@strw.leidenuniv.nl) * * dont ask me how to spell fawcett :-) - ed #6 %d 19940811 %x Defecation %e I recently posted an article (in sci.med, etc) asking for reasons why one should wash his hands after using the bathroom, since I see that the majority of men don't. I do, really! Some interesting things (if not obvious to some) were learned: Worsh (if you're from the midwest) your hands!!! Because your anus has lots of really groovy germs that spread out to and party in your entire genital area. Plus your urine isn't sterile after it leaves your bladder, and even some virii are found in it. And even if it was sterile, would you like to have it on your salad? Peeing on your salad is no different than touching your salad with hands that were peed on. If you're anal (hee!) you should grab a towel without touching the fawcett, dry your hands, THEN turn off the fawcett with the towel so as to minimize the chance of catching the germs from the faucet, and then use the same towel to open the door to get out. But then maybe a little germ isn't all that bad since it helps you develop some immunity. Now, given all of this, I'm totally grossed out by the number of men I see in public bathrooms who don't wash their hands, some even after defecating. I would guesstimate the percentage of men who don't wash their hands to be around 75%. Furthermore, some who do wash their hands often simply run their hands under running water for a split second, no soap (they're usually the ones who pull out like three sheets of paper towel too, when one is sufficient). I'm surprised that foot-pedal operated faucets or automatic fawcetts are not more common, not to mention no-touch doors/entries. Don't be offended if I don't shake your hand next time.... %e *EOA* %t Coffee %n 6R2 %s Coffee; A Legal Drug %d 19940906 %a Rickard Andersson (rickard@softlab.se) %i Drugs: Caffeine %i Habit Forming Drugs: Caffeine %i Stimulants: Caffeine %i Irish Coffee %x Tea %x Space Safe Coke Can %e Coffee; taste the word. For many human beings it means a change to get a break and regain some strength. To drink coffee has become a habit in the life of many people. This is because coffee is a drug. Yep, it contains caffeine. (This exists in other liquids as well, including Coke and Pepsi). The caffeine makes some people wanna drink coffee as early as possible in the mornings. (One or two would probably have it intravenously during the night as well). To be able to stay up working, the caffeine can be taken as pills, instead of drinking a lot of coffee. The art of making a good cup of coffee can't be overestimated. And the number of different ways to make coffee is equal to the different ways that people drink it. The easiest way to drink it must be to just put it in a cup and start drinking. This is known as having ones coffee black. To reduce the amount of coffee in the cup, you can for example add sugar, milk, cream or ice-cream to it. What to add and in which amounts, is a classic discussion you can use the coffee break to solve. And if you don't fancy drinking the coffee, there are a lot of receipes of how to put coffee in your food and deserts. One way to make the coffee really interesting is to use it as an ingredient in Irish Coffee. The other ingredients are brown sugar, whipped cream and last but not least, the right amount of whiskey. Follow these short and descriptive instructions: 1. Put the brown sugar and whiskey in a cup. 2. Fill up with coffee. 3. Put a dab of whipped cream on the top. 4. Yummy! If you are really addicted to coffee (caffeine), you have lots of possibilities to include it in all your daily food. And, the final solution is to put caffeine pills in your hot coffee. But, be warned! This doesn't count as a healty way of living. To those of you that don't like coffee, I have one advice, drink tea. (It does contain caffeine too, you know :-) %e *EOA* * * End of file: REAL07.NEW * Share and Enjoy! *