Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 19:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Daewoo employees barricaded in factory
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> A Daewoo factory in Korea. All of the employees, and many family
-> members as wel are holed up inside the factory-- just shut it down,
-> with hundreds of cars in various states of assembly sitting idle.

Isn't Korea still a Communist country?  Looks like "power to the
proletariat" in action!

- Dave "Down with the running-dog management oppressors!" Williams


Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 20:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Earnhardt past away
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Don't forget also that the media pays the sanctioning body a whole
-> shitload of money to be there.  They bought the best seats in the

Yeah, I've noticed that.  Locally, neither statewide paper seems to
like automobiles much.  They will print the scores and team member names
for *every* junior high school feetball game in the state of Arkansas,
but they absolutely refuse to print anything about car shows,
autocrosses, or even rankings at the I-30 Speedway.  "Cars aren't news,"
I was told when I called to ask about it.

Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 20:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Earnhardt past away
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Maybe we should take out the media first, so the lawyers and
-> insurance agents don't know what's coming

Good point; I'll amend the plans at the next Secret Meeting.

Back in Wm. Shakespeare's day the media wasn't like it is today.


Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 20:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Stapp was RE: Earnhardt past away
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> That's the rub, isn't it?  Something *always* gives.  The car, the
-> object struck, the straps, the body...  Something always gives.

Take a look at the powerboat racers sometime.  At 100mph, water is just
like bumpy concrete.

The motorcycle racers are what kills me.  Unloading at 150mph and
hooching from cheek to cheek as your leathers get hot doesn't look that
bad, but the part where the next six guys in the pack run over you
before you stop looks like it might hurt...


Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 20:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: MAP sensors
To: diy_efi@diy-efi.org

-> 20KPa  == 200mbar.

I'm beginning to think things were a lot simpler when it was just plain
old "pounds per square inch" or "kilograms per square centimeter."


Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Guess Who Died Today?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

One of Bill Cosby's old skits was "Guess Who Died Today?", about how
his grandfather kept track of his friends, enemies, and acquaintances.
For some reason I thought of that skit when compiling the following.

I was looking for more information on writer/rocker Mick Farren when
I found a set of pages on www.fantasticfiction.com listing the deaths
of various writers, mostly SF, with a few mainstreamers.  I smurfed
through, pulled out the ones I didn't recognize, and listed the best
known (at least to me) works of some of the rest.

The following is of absolutely no useful purpose, but I found it
interesting anyway...

Authors who died in 1990
Robert Adams                   (Horseclans)
Roald Dahl                     (Willy Wonka)
Donald A Wollheim              (Sentinels From Space)

Authors who died in 1992
Isaac Asimov                   (The Caves of Steel)
Fritz Leiber                   (Swords of Lankhmar)
Alan E Nourse                  (Raiders From The Rings)
Jack Sharkey

Authors who died in 1993
Anthony Burgess                (A Clockwork Orange)
Leslie Charteris               (The Saint)
Lester del Rey                 (Pstalemate)
William Golding                (Lord of the Flies)
Keith Laumer                   (Retief, Dinochrome)

Authors who died in 1994
Robert Bloch                   (Psycho)
Raymond F Jones                (The Renegades of Time)
Frank Belknap Long             (This Strange Tomorrow)
Robert Shea                    (Illuminatus coauthor)
Karl Edward Wagner             (Bloodstone)

Authors who died in 1995

Kingsley Amis
John Brunner                   (The Shockwave Rider)
G C Edmondson            (The Ship That Sailed The Time Stream)
Nigel Findley                  (2XS)
Jack Finney                    (Invasion of the Body Snatchers)
Mike McQuay                    (When Trouble Beckons)
Margaret St.Clair              (The Dancers of Noyo)
Elleston Trevor
Roger Zelazny                  (The Chronicles of Amber)

Authors who died in 1996
Brian Daley                    (A Tapestry of Magics)
H L Gold                       (anthologist, editor)
Carl Sagan
Bob Shaw                       (The Two-Timers)

Authors who died in 1997
William S Burroughs            (The Naked Lunch)
Martin Caidin                  (Six Million Dollar Man)
Judith Merril
Sam Moskowitz                  (The Space Magicians)
William Rotsler                (Shiva Descending)
G Harry Stine                  (Handbook of Model Rocketry)
Paul Edwin Zimmer              (Hunters of the Red Moon)

Authors who died in 1998
Jerome Bixby
Jo Clayton                     (Irsud)

Authors who died in 1999
Marion Zimmer Bradley          (Darkover)
Robert Coulson                 (Gates of the Universe)
Naomi Mitchison                (Solution Three)
James White                    (Hospital Station)

Authors who died in 2000
Catherine Crook de Camp
L Sprague de Camp              (The Ancient Engineers)
Emil Petaja                    (Tramontane)
Keith Roberts                  (Pavane)
Curt Siodmak                   (Donovan's Brain)
John Sladek                    (Mechasm)
A E van Vogt                   (World of Null-A)


Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 06:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: MAP sensors
To: diy_efi@diy-efi.org

-> It will begin to be simper when it all metric so we can speak the
-> same language, no?

No.


Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 06:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: MAP sensors
To: diy_efi@diy-efi.org

-> Which metric though?  CGS or MKS?
->
-> I'm keen on Furlongs, Stones and Fortnights myself.

Radical modernist!  I'm on rods, cubits, and lunar phases myself...


Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 06:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Hotmail/Slowmail Mailandnews Coolmail
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> >Coolmail also has a dialup feature where the mailer will dictate the
-> messages to you over the phone in a computer voice.

Yeah.  I've been seeing all kinds of "voice over web" crap in the
industry magazines.  Seems like a bizarre waste of time to me.

The local credit union's drive-through ATM machine now has a full color
graphics display, reasonably high resolution.  Half the screen is
dedicated to scrolling advertising.  Criminy.  The first option on the
menu half is "PRESS HERE FOR VOICE MENUS."

Yeah-right.  If you couldn't read, you wouldn't be reading that on the
screen, and if you were blind, you have no business going through the
drive-through...

- Dave "beam me up, Scotty!" Williams


Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 08:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: fanglers-digest V1 #2473
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> a spare :-)?  If I had the storage room I'd get the block too (guess
-> you'd have to check that, hmm?).

I know a guy who has a fully-machined 406 cross-bolt FE in his living
room.  (not, it's *not* me!)  He has it by his armchair with a piece of
glass on top and he's using it as an end table.

Dang FE guys, always hoarding stuff you know.


Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2001 08:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Hotmail/Slowmail Mailandnews Coolmail
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> It seems more novel than useful.  I couldn't imagine having coolmail
-> dictate my fanglers mail.  I'd be on the phone all day...

Yeah, but it might be fun listening to one of the flamewars in the
usual drunken-Swede voice...


One annoying thing about that voice ATM was how loud it was.  I'm sure
it was audible across the parking lot before Ron slapped the "menu"
button.  I could just see one in a bad part of town, announcing to all
and sundry about that large withdrawal you just made.

I'm the kind of guy who turns and threatens people who crowd behind him
at walk-up ATMs.  No, I don't need someone's eyeballs stuck to my
shoulder while I'm entering my cheesy four-digit PIN...

- Dave "Paranoid?  Why do you ask?" Williams


Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 22:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: night club
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> [Dave, turn on/read your subject lines!!!]  [Subject: Re: night club]

Never!


-> and call it four different things - all of them wrong!!!  When Mush
-> Mouth (that's how 'e talks - on purpose!!!  also "Technology Boy",

That fad swept in here on the radio/TV guys - all of them,
simultaneously - sometime last year.  Within a few weeks you could go to
any station, from rap to rock, and they all sounded like extras from
Hee-Haw after a couple of Novocain injections.

I pointed it out to a couple of people, but they "couldn't hear" it.
Maybe my lifelong "hearing problem" comes from actually listening to
what people are saying instead of skimming the high spots and guessing
the rest...

- Dave "klaatu, barada, nicto" Williams



Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 19:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: re: Unimog to come to the US?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> We surely need to be prepared to insult their ideas that the metric
-> system is perfect and that global warming even exists!

You could mention the magnetic field from their electric motor is
exactly the same stuff as the "radiation" the crazoids who hate electric
power lines get all steamed up over.

"Did you know you're probably altering your own genetic structure each
time you make a high-speed pass?  Of course, since you're apparently the
product of too many first-cousin marriages, that's not necessarily a bad
thing..."


Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 20:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Cammer for sale
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> That would drop into my Galaxie without a whimper and still have tons
-> of room to sit in the bay and just caress it.

To do almost anything to the engine in a Pantera, from changing the
plugs to getting to the thermostat, requires opening the hatch, removing
the luggage compartment, climbing in, and straddling the transaxle up by
the bellhousing, much like riding the mechanical bull at one of those
cheesy country disco clubs of the '70s...


Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 19:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: LARGO: OT:ChanzaLargo:The Mirror
To: largo@chambana.com

-> "I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case
-> of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting."
-> -Ronald Reagan

Don't laugh too loud; Winston Churchill and some senior members of his
War Cabinet made a point of snoozing during mandatory but relatively
unimportant meetings.

When you're working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, you sleep when you
can!


Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 06:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: re: Unimog to come to the US?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> My usual mode for filling up with
-> gas is leaving the house in the morning, late for a meeting, and
-> realizing the damn thing's at the 30-mile-to-empty mark again, and I
-> hate that.

That's one of AB's bad habits which has caused a marital dysfunction or
two.  I finally broke her of putting in $2 worth of gas every day, but
she'll run the tank damned near dry before filling it up.  She'll run it
low, get late, then take *my* car, which she knows seldom drops below
half a tank... 


-> But it's when someone goes off promoting lower speed limits, or
-> taxing SUVs (or anything that burns gasoline) out of existence, that

The thing that fascinates me most about the typical person espousing
such opinions is that they're usually young-upwardly-mobile types who
work in town, live in the suburbs or gated communities, and rack up
20,000 or miles per year *each* commuting, traveling back and forth to
malls, and ferrying their children to ball games, karate practice, or
daycare.  The fact that their desired changes in the transportation
structure would completely destroy their lifestyle does not seem to
cause conflict within their limited critical faculties.


-> e) here in the People's Republic of California, it gets you into the
-> carpool lane (existence of which I feel is a crime against humanity,
-> but that's another story) without human ballast in the passenger
-> seat.

I've sometimes wondered if the sex toy industry invented the inflatable
doll before or after Maxwell Smart's "Inflate-A-Date" showed up on TV.

I bet hitchhiking is good alongside the carpool lane...  a new
moneymaking opportunity?  "Rent-A-Wino!"  For a modest fee you could
hire one of the unemployed homeless to meet up with you at a red light
near the freeway, then you could turn them loose to scavenge the
corporate dumpsters while you're at work...


Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 06:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More Earnhardt story
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Well, I sure hope that inanimate objects won't force me to do things
-> that I wish to avoid - oooh!

I have dodged many inanimate vehicles in my time.

"Cars don't run over motorcyclists - *drivers* run over motorcyclists?"


Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 17:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Shadow mask VS AG
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> desk.  I hate facing a wall, or in some other way being enclosed.  I
-> can't even imagine working in cubicles.

Cubicles suck.  I hate people coming up behind me and looking over my
shoulder.  It's considered antisocial to rearrange the cubicle's innards
so you're looking out...

- Dave "out of the Dilbert anti-productivity pod!" Williams



Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 05:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Shadow mask VS AG
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> ve have vays of seeing vat you are dooink anyvay ;-)
->
-> ve just do not tell "them" ze truut about vat you are dooink... if ve
-> like you ;-))

I'm not doing anything I shouldn't; I'm always scupulously correct
about anything that can be monitored.  I just hate being watched, which
is why I give the finger to the security cameras every time I walk by.


Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 06:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Unimog/EV1
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> story today that some dipshit is claiming that somehow the playing of
-> classical music is racist.

"Racist" is a marvellously flexible concept nowadays.  If certain
elements don't get their asses properly kissed as several generations of
"entitlement" programs have led them to believe is their due, they
scream of racism, which doesn't mean the same thing it meant in, say,
1963.


Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 19:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: HP = KW Conversion
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> HP = 0.7456999 KW
-> KW = 1.341022  HP

Wondrousness.  Accuracy to seven (!) decimal places.  But while a
kilowatt is a precise definition of power, a "horsepower" can vary over
a range of 30% or so.  What kind of HP do you want?  JIS?  DIN?  PS?
RAC?  CV?  SHP?  IHP?  SAE?  SAE Corrected?  Ford Marketing Department
Horsepower?

Measure with a micrometer, cut with a herring?


Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 06:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Unimog/EV1
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Mike  (American American Native)

I answered "Native American" to the census questionnaire.  So did
several friends.

They want to play word games, I'll play by different rules...


Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 15:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Success part two
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> removal may affect the cable car's ability to stop.

Just make sure you're going uphill when you disengage the claw... who
needs brakes anyway?

I *liked* the cable cars.  They were the only people mover / public
transit idea I ever saw that was worth a damn.  Plus they were fun to
ride on...


Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 06:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: www.lileks.com
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

I've been nursing a grudge against Dan's "Little Big Man" (*) comment a
few weeks ago, waiting for an opportune revenge.

James Lileks has added a new monument to bad taste at www.lileks.com.
It's about interior decoration in the '70s.  Bad interior decoration.
Gold flock wallpaper.  Black floors.  Strange ceiling thingamabobs

It looks much like Dan's house.

So there.  Nyaah nyaah nyaah...


* Little Big Man was the guy who murdered Crazy Horse by stabbing him in
  the back with a bayonet one day, for no particular reason.



Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 06:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Jury duty?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> They'll even have you show up for jury duty if you're a convicted
-> felon if it's been more than 7 years since your conviction and you're
-> not currently in jail.

Um.  Er.

For some reason this bothers me...


Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 17:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: inside of the car driven by Dale Earnhardt
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> All I've got to say is that I'm getting more and more suspicious of
-> Bohannon and his statements with each new bit of data.

I'm not.

The guy made an educated guess with the facts he had on hand.  He's
adjusted it as new facts became available.

Now I understand why so many officials adhere to a strict "no comment"
policy.  Damned if they do, damned if they don't.


Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 17:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Jury duty?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Uh oh, Dave thought he had a lifetime Get Out Of Jury Duty Free card,
-> but I guess that isn't the case! ;)

Hell, I'm one of the few who looks forward to the opportunity.  Where
else can you get that kind of entertainment for free?

The few times I've been in court, it's been more like "Night Court"
than "Perry Mason."


Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 18:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Pantera project car for sale
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Next time I see you I'm going to frisk your self to try and find that
-> dam pitchfork you keep sticking in my ass.

Kemper: "I'd really like to have a Pantera."

Dave: "Here's one for sale."

Kemper: "I think I'll buy a Diesel VW instead."

Dave: "Here's another Pantera for sale."

Kemper: "A Pantera would complicate my life right now."

Dave:  "Here's an even cheaper Pantera for sale."

Kemper: "I don't need a Pantera, I'm collecting certifications now."

Dave:  "Collect Panteras instead.  They won't go stale like that old
        CNE nobody even recognizes any more."

Kemper: "VW Diesels are really nice.  Sally's friends would think it
         was very nouveau."

Fanglers (chanting in unison): "Pantera.  Pantera.  Pantera..."

Kemper: "VW makes the TDi in soothing earth tones now."

Dave:  "Think Pantera in arterial red, with polished magnesium wheels
        and a lumpy Cleveland."


- Dave "friends don't let friends drive Diesel VWs" Williams


Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 18:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: inside of the car driven by Dale Earnhardt
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> you could croak at any minute.  That's not neo-Roman bread and
-> circuses, like Hunter S. Thompson charged.  It's appreciation for
-> people who dare Great Things.

Bah.  Playing follow-the-leader on a neatly paved track is crap.

Running flat-out over terrain you've never even seen before is several
cuts above NASCAR.  Thompson covered the Barstow-to-Vegas race more than
once.

- Dave "Vincent Black Shadow Racing Team" Williams


Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 18:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> My wife saw a bumper sticker the other day:
->
-> God: Please save me from your followers.

Man, I haven't seen one of those since the seventies!  Sets the wayback
machine way back...


I have one of those little "Jesus fish" badges, except it says "DARWIN"
and the fish has feet.  I never put it on anything because I figured
that here in the buckle of the Bible Belt, whatever it was on would last
about fifteen minutes before being vandalized by one of the Righteous.


Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 08:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Howzabout "My boss is a Jewish Carpenter."

A carpenter was a skilled and respected craftsman in those days.  The
Middle East had already been mostly deforested by Biblical times; wood
was expensive, and the tools to work it were a sizeable investment.  You
didn't just zip down to Home Depot and buy a radial arm saw.

As far as the "born in a manger" schtick, sleeping in the barn was
middle class by the standards of the day; poor people slept outside in
the rain.


Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 13:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Thanks for reply, Greg. Just seems like when the intelligentsia want
-> to slam "religion",

I'm not in the intelligentsia.  I can think for myself.


-> it's always Judeo-Christian variety that takes
-> the fire. When's the last slam or comic rant you heard about Taoism,
-> Buddhism, Secular Humanism, Nature Worship, Sun Worship, Pantheonism,
-> Atheism, Islam, Confucianism, Shinto, Rasta, or Bahai? Hardly ever
-> happens.

I didn't have any Baha'i or Moslems making my elementary school years
into living hell; no Confucians or Buddhists have beat on my door and
waked me up while working night shift to try to convert me; no Wiccans
or Rastas have followed me around like lost dogs, earnestly trying to
persuade me I'm going to their particular hell.


The Christians have managed to insinuate their prayers into our
schools, their God into our justice system, and their religion into our
government.  Looks like a big, fat target to me.


-> In our culture, we eat our young.

I always wondered where Swift Premium sausage came from...



Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 23:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> congregation came to Newport in 1658; and French Huguenots
-> (Calvinists)
-> settled in East Greenwich in 1686."

The Calvinists were Huguenots?!

The Catholic Inquisitors had a serious hard-on against the Huguenots.
When was the Inquisition officially terminated in Europe?  I know it
continued unofficially in Central and South America for several decades
afterward...  were the Inquisitors ever active in North America?


Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 23:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> This must have been the argument against suffrage - eh?

Personally, I don't think anyone who is, by race or sex, exempted from
being called up for military duty in time of war, should be allowed the
right to vote.

Exempted voters have proven themselves quite capable of voting for
governments and policies which will require American blood to enforce.
No skin off their asses, it isn't going to be *their* blood...

Heinlein said he was still getting hate mail about 'Starship Troopers'
thirty years later, and that was a relatively little-known work of
fiction.  The exempted are very defensive about their privileged
position in society.


-> Just stirring the pot... ;^)

"Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble..."



Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 00:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> very many moronic shows replaced everything. Soap operas became
-> increasingly a brainwashing tool to convince the housewives that men
-> are all bad and

My brother and several friends (and friends of his) are married to
non-American women.  When queried, their common response is, "because I
wanted someone who didn't think life was like a soap opera."

Unfortunately, for a very large number of Americans, soap operas *do*
reflect reality-as-they-practice-it.


I watched part of a TV show a few years ago.  It was presented as a
police documentary, but it was really an educational program showing
how to rob a convenience store.



Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 01:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> They needed better immigration laws.

And bureaucrats!

It took a couple hundred years for the Ottoman Empire to fade away.
They got conquered several times, but the victors got buried in the
paperwork.

The Turks could have taught the Mandarins a thing or two about how to
stall things with paper.



Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 01:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Religions have rights?

They sure do, at least if they're legally incorporated.  Corporations
have most of the legal rights of individuals, specifically including the
rights to litigate or seek redress under the law.  The Scientologists
are a particularly good example, both of an incorporated church and a
bunch of lawsuit-happy jerkwads.

It's almost enough to make me join up with the Elvi.  At least I've
driven by Graceland before...


Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 23:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Pantera project car for sale
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Hey!  That's how my wife adjusts stereos!  If it isn't doing what she
-> wants it to do, just push every button there is in a completely
-> random pattern.  Actually she acts this way around most
-> electronics...

Oh!  She must be a Mac or Windows user.

Clicking randomly on every visible thing is "intuitive."  Text under
icons is bad.  Manuals are works of Satan and seldom provided with
software nowadays...



Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 18:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Pantera project car for sale
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> If complex icons are so intuitive, why can't everyone just get the
-> meaning of Kanji? And why is the the stereotypical pictographic
-> writing -- heiroglyphics -- also the stereotype for incomprehensible?

Uh-oh, the human interface design people are probably sharpening their
knives and casting evil looks in your direction, Tom.

The HI goobers claim people think in pictures.  I don't think in
pictures; I think in words, just like I talk or type.  Anyway, they seem
to assume *any* picture is "intuitive" and an excuse for removing useful
text.

According to the best tenets of HI design, everyone is either
functionally illiterate or worse, so text must be avoided wherever
possible.  Which is why I stare blankly at toolbars full of mystery
icons.  Even if I clicked one, would it do something immediately
visible?  Or would it be like typing "divvy" on Unix, just to see what
would happen?  Or RECOVER.COM from MSDOS 3...


Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 06:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Pantera project car for sale
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> pictures; I think in words, just like a talk or type.

About a year ago AB suddenly lost the ability to pronounce the word
"I".  Now it comes out "ah."  She claims she can't hear any difference.
Every time she does it, I say, "ah?" and she stops and gets confused
about what she was saying.  Every goddamned time.

Holy shit, now she has *me* doing it...

Not like any of the cottonmouths around here would notice.  

- Dave "Ah feed the pigeons mah methadone so they'll come back" Williams



Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 19:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> statues?  The "big heads" at Easter Island?

I saw a goober wearing an "Easter Island" haircut this morning.
Thought it was a bald guy with a pillbox hat at first, but it was a
perfectly circular wad of hair on top, four or five inches tall.

He probably thought he was fashionable... mostly, he just looked
stupid.


Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 19:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The fall of the Soviet Union didn't do as much to end the possibility
-> of nuclear exchanges as one would hope.

Now we have a bunch of whoozi-stans, the Russian Federation, and all
the places they either sold stuff directly to, provided as part of
policy, or abandoned during the breakup.

Not that it's that hard to make your own plutonium; France, India, and
Pakistan all managed, and there was no technical(*) reason why Saddam
Hussein didn't have his own Iraqui nukes in the '80s.  The USA did it
from a standing start in four years, developing the technology as we
went along.  You can pick all that out of public sources nowadays.


(*)some people figure it was the Raghead Effect, others suspect sabotage
from within the Iraqui nuke program



Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 20:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I always find it interesting when one person with vague credentials
-> working for a fringe group is quoted as though they speak the
-> absolute truth. I'd like some proof of his claims before I would even
-> begin to believe this accusation or the implied and spoken
-> fortune-telling.

Hey!  Important and respected news services like "Sixty Minutes" don't
require credentials or verification.  Why should you expect it from an
anonymous Web source?!


Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 20:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> sell their soul for it. Would Iran nuke Iraq if Pakistan became
-> Iran's buddy? I'd think in a heart beat.

Maybe not.  Despite the hyperinflated claims of the nuclear protesters,
nukes aren't all that powerful.  Assume your device would completely
obliterate the medium-size city of your choice.  And, like the USA in
1945, you have two of them, and no immediate source for more.

If you're the big dog in Iraq, Iran, Indonesia, Korea, or even
Azerbaijan... where can you put those two weapons to maximum military
and political use?

Answer:  basically, you can't.  Half a century of anti-nuke propaganda
would make popping a nuke political suicide even of the enemy were dumb
enough to put all his eggs in one convenient basket.

Still, I wouldn't mind if someone were to sterilize Newport News or the
District of Columbia...


Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 19:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> to anyone with cash.  That simply made it less likely that we'll know
-> for sure, WHO will hit us.

The USA has lost a number of nukes; besides the ones that went down in
ships and aircraft, there are persistent rumors of ones lost or stolen
from the supply system.  Considering it's easy enough for the military
to lose tanks, aircraft, and other large and expensive items...  I'm not
a conspiracy type, but if the military lost a few nukes, it probably
would kick some sand over the evidence and pretend they never existed,
as opposed to calling a press conference.

The French will sell fissionables to damned near anyone, and from what
I've read about how the Soviet operated, they might not even have
noticed if they lost some equipment, or the KGB could have sold some for
hard cash to finance its operations.

If any medium-level dictator *doesn't* have a nuke or two I'd be
surprised.  There are probably plenty floating around out there, for the
right price.


Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 20:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: books
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Well, so, this is definitely the story that I remembered, but the big
-> question remains, will I still enjoy it, so many years later?

I enjoyed it again night before last.

Considering it was printed in 1984, Varley was right on track.


I'm rereading Charles Eric Maine's "B.E.A.S.T." now.  It was written in
1966, and even 35 years later it's full of a quite plausible
descriptions of artificial intelligence, self-modifying code, and so
forth.

Daniel Galouye's "Simulacron-3" from the same era is also technically
ept even by modern standards.

Take a look at L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach" (1980) for an
interesting foreshadow of the Web, except with decent content...


Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 07:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Who's flyin B-52's today?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Yeah, the USAF is flying them and there are operational planes to use
-> them up to 2050.  Almost a hundred years of service.

Fuckin A!  The B-52 has been the visible symbol of American air power
for longer than most Americans have been alive.

I was always amused that the '60s "peace" symbol was a B-52 in a
circle.  That's right, baby, peace through superior firepower!

"Peace On Earth... Death From Above!"

- Dave "B.U.F.F.y the Russkie slayer" Williams



Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 08:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> DC, sure, but not the carrier factory.  Hell Dave, you're not worried
-> about nukes anyway, who's going to waste one in Arkansas?  West
-> Memphis to LR looks like the aftermath of a nuclear war anyway.

I used to think so until I saw scenic areas like Jackson MS and Memphis
TN, where the slums reach past the horizon to infinity.

Too bad about Newport News, but it's just a cyst on the festering
cancer of Norfolk, which is the Rectum of the Universe, with clusters.
I'd favor taking out everything within a hundred mile radius of Norfolk,
just to make sure the site was well cauterized.

Some years ago I spent most of a day trying to get out of Norfolk when
the tollbridge out of Delaware turned into "road construction" that
dumped me off into the most industrial-strength slumlands I'd ever seen.
Looked like something from one of those "after the bomb" movies; cars
sitting on the street with no wheels, most of the street lights shot
out, gangs standing under the lights that weren't shot out, every
building with chain link or bars over the windows and doors.  Mile after
mile.  I didn't bother to stop at the traffic lights; most of them
weren't working anyway.  Every time I found a major road, it took me to
a Newport News tollbooth.  I must've jumped the same curb twenty times.
Tried to flag down a cop, and he gassed it and took off.

Finally I just kept following the same road when it turned out it
*wasn't* taking me to a tollbooth for Newport News, like every other
road in Norfolk appeared to do.  Sometime after dark the slums turned
into what the sign proclaimed was the "Great Dismal Swamp."  Dismal?
Hell, it looked great to me.  At least I was unlikely to be mugged by a
cypress tree.

The Norfolk highway department probably got a big laugh out of it,
turning every "detour" into a trip through postnuclear holocaust, but
let's see how they like the real thing, particularly the part about the
six foot mutant cockroaches that glow in the dark...


Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 21:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Guess you never lived in Detroit.

Never been north of the Mason-Dixon Line, come to think of it...


-> the malls or even on the highways above 8 Mile.  Ever notice how
-> Northerners act like segregation and racism are southern evils, yet
-> every southern city or town

We've been dealing with it for about a hundred years longer than the
Yankees have.  Nobody can say it's all sweetness and light in Dixie, but
we get along well enough.


-> I agree about Norfolk (that's pronounced no-fuk).  You should have
-> taken the road to NN (unless the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel was
-> blocked).  This would have put you on I-64, the way out north or
-> south.

The road to Newport News was a toll road, not marked on my map.  Looked
like it was headed off in the opposite direction from where I wanted to
go.  I was *trying* to get on I-64, but every damned onramp was blocked
off, and every other freeway apparently just looped around and dropped
me right back in slums.  This was late 1993 or 1994.

That's okay.  They had their joke.  A dozen or so appropriately-placed
megatons will express my displeasure.



Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 21:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Imagine if you will that the afghanistans started destroying
-> something that the world considers more valuable than buddhist
-> statues (Which may be something christian).  Certainly, the
-> consequences of their actions would be very different than now....

Consider Pol Pot's attempt to eradicate Cambodia's entire cultural
heritage as well as its history and most of its population.  Nobody gave
a rat's ass about his Year Zero plan.  Nobody worried about the USSR's
attampt at eradication of Greek Orthodox and various Islamic faiths in
the various Soviet Republics.

What's the sudden public concern about the Afghans?  Hey, it's their
country, after all.  It's their right to do anything they want; national
sovereignty and all that.

Besides, if any of that crap was worth anything, they'd be trying to
sell it instead of destroying it.


Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Having recently re-read "The Curve of Binding Energy", and "The
-> Making of The Atomic Bomb", I'm quite afraid that several members of

Davids Rhodes' book?  That one was pretty good.


-> this list could build a nuke, given the proper stuff, i.e. 4-5 lbs of
-> PU139 and say, 100lbs of C4...

It wouldn't even be that hard to start from pitchblende; some of the
separation techniques are slow but inexpensive.

The part all the books I've read gloss over isn't extraction or design,
it's how they machined all the uranium or plutonium bits.  I used to
think they were cast and then ground to size in oil baths, but now I'm
wondering if they used some sort of sintering or powder-metal process.
You can get decent densities that way, so it probably wouldn't affect
the neutron cross-section that much.

- Dave "jargon compliant" Williams


Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 08:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

->  Oohh, nuclear powered spud gun 

Don't laugh.  Heinlein described a nuclear-powered magnetic catapult
used for shooting rocks from the Moon to Earth in one of his stories.
Considering really big artillery can loft shells way into the
stratosphere already, I keep wondering if you could build a big catapult
in South Carolina and lob some unwelcome gifts to the Middle East...

The nifty thing is, if you're throwing something really heavy, it
doesn't much matter *what* it is.  I keep visualizing something like
submarine-sized blocks of compacted trash covered with white ceramic
tiles like the Space Shuttle...  if nothing else, it'd help the chronic
east coast landfill problem!

- Dave "Foooore! CHUNK!" Williams


Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 12:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> And then there was project Orion...

That was the one where you had the flying-saucer-shaped spaceship which
was supposed to move by setting off a series of small nukes?

I could see it kindasorta working in vacuum, but stuffing a nuke up
your ass and popping the cap doesn't look like a really good way to get
to orbit from the ground.  I still have trouble believing the occupants
wouldn't be turned into red goo even if the craft didn't simply vanish
in the mushroom cloud.

Even assuming everything worked as planned, it'd be a criminal waste of
fissionables.  Not to mention the political fallout from chains of
atmosphere bursts...  the anti-nuke dweebs managed to kill the NERVA
project before it went anywhere, and it was reasonably clean, no EMP, no
fallout, no blinding flashes.


Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 09:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 2V or not 2V?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Where do you live? Sounds like some candy-ass place like SF,
-> Berkeley, or Alexandria. Or the old CCCP.

Anytown, USA.

You know, the places where the streets are disintegrating and some of
the neighborhoods look like post-Apocalypse movie sets, but the city
inspectors (moving around only in the better neighborhoods) spend their
time measuring the length of your grass with a ruler and counting the
number of vehicles in front of your house, or making sure you haven't
installed a non-approved type of siding, or...


Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 16:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> questioning of mine to be condonance for the nazis. I just wonder how
-> many lies we have all been taught as truths.

In public schools in the '60s and '70s, I was taught that John Glenn
was the first man in space, that the Pilgrims were the first colonists
to the New World, that Lincoln fought the Civil War to free the slaves,
and that hiding under my desk would be a safe place if the Russians
dropped a nuke on the school.

The "history" I was taught was probably no better than what the Soviet
kids were taught.  Except it was "propaganda" when they did it, and
"history" when we did it.



Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More of your Tax dollars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I've seen newsreel footage of the Berlin book burning. All I have to
-> say is, th was one shitbag load of astrology books!

There are books and books.  They could have one hell of a bonfire with
the contents of the local public library.  It consists of several sets
of encyclopedias, travel and cooking books, a handful of reference books
(which are kept in the librarians' office so you don't even know they're
there!) and all the politically correct best seller schlock since 1980
or so.  They throw all the "old books" away.

Burn the whole place down; it'd be no great loss.



Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 06:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: "Jap" apology
To: fanglers@mail.xephic.dynip.com

-> Brought to my attention that some find the word "Jap" offensive.
-> Sorry for any hurt feelings.

To hell with them; they can kiss my ass.  "Jap" is a workable
contraction of "Japanese," big deal.  The British don't get their
knickers in a twist if you say "Brit", the Australians don't go batshit
if you say "Aussie", and the New Zealanders don't find "Zed" offensive,
so the Japs can just suffer their outrage while I give them the virtual
finger.

I, as a citizen of the United States of America, personally find
"American" offensive.  "American" could mean anyone from Tierra Del
Fuego to Baffin Bay; we're all Americans here in North and South
America.

And I find "Yank" extremely offensive, about the way a Scot would feel
if someone called him an Englishman.  We don't like Yankees much down
here in Dixie...

I've had long, whining messages from people who have complained they
find my use of "Oriental" offensive; their preferred term is "Asian."
They can kiss my ass too.

If they can carry that kind of chip on their shoulder, let 'em haul
firewood...


Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 06:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: "Jap" apology
To: fanglers@mail.xephic.dynip.com

-> some. It's a pity that official Japanese racist policies during the
-> War drew a bright line between ethnic Japanese citizens and
-> "non-Japanese" Japanese citizens. I assure you, the confusion arises
-> due to the racist government policy of Tojo's and Hirohito's, not

I've never understood this attitude, which seems to be commonly held by
Americans.  So what if the Japs had racist policies?  It's their
country, their ways.  You don't like it, don't go to Japan, don't deal
with the Japs.  Q.E.D.

This atittude of outrage is particularly amusing considering the
Federal and state racial policies of the United States during the same
period.  Blacks, Orientals, and Indians were de facto and de jure
discriminated against, exactly the same way the Japs discriminated
against non-Japs.  Furthermore, Indians are *still* discriminated
against; since they're "non-citizens" the Equal Rights Amendment has
been held not to apply to them.

If you're going to hold the high moral ground, it's best to check for
quicksand first...


Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 15:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Jap" apology
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> part of it was the sheer shock from not fully understanding the
-> capability of such a destructive weapon led us to feeling guilty for
-> causing such levels of destruction.

Ballocks.  Neither Hiroshima nor Nagasaki were as bad off as Kyoto, or
even Dresden.  Much of that "horror" was media play-up to make it look
like we had an invincible hand.  The truth was, it would have been at
least six months before we got the material for another bomb, and if the
Japanese hadn't cashed it in, Olympic would have gone into motion.  The
Allied forces expected losses of about a million men to take the Home
Islands.


-> Sure, we'll carpet bomb and use hazardous chemical agents, but Dog
-> forbid we should use another nuke.

It'd be political suicide.  Which is probably a good thing, all in all.



Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 15:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Jap" apology
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> responsibility for their actions during the China/Pacific war. There
-> was a book published recently purporting that the Pacific portion of
-> the war was in fact due to the refusal of the US and other allied
-> countries to sell them strategic raw materials.

That was one of the Japanese Embassy's complaints at the time of Pearl
Harbor.  It was bullshit; the Pac Rim nations and colonies would have
sold them anything they wanted at a better price.  It's not even
revisionist bullshit; the Japs were spouting it before the war.

The USA and China have ties going way back.  The Japanese had been
gnawing on China for thirty-odd years and they were getting mad about US
aid to the Chinese, pathetically little though it was.  They also had a
big case of the macho studlies after sending the Russian Army running
home, conquering Korea, etc.  And though it's hard to imagine it now,
the USA was a second-rate country in 1941; right there with Canada,
Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.  The USA had a humongously oversized
navy, though, and that made the Japs nervous.  So they decided to slap
down the White Devils to remind them of their place in world affairs.
Unfortunately, very few of the Japanese paused to consider what would
happen if the White Devils didn't mind their manners; Yamamoto was
nearly cashiered for writing a memo about it.


Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 05:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Jap" apology
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> pounded relentlessly over time and we suffered losses, Hiroshima was
-> (somewhat) levelled with a single bomb with minimal loss. At least
-> that's what the history books say

Read up.  The nuke only took out a few square blocks of downtown by
direct blast.  Most of the damage was from fires, which arguably would
have been a problem anyway, as Hiroshima had not been bombed regularly
and had no effective firerighting or emergency services in place.

The nuke was only one weapon, but it cost a lot more than letting
the AAF pound the city into rubble with conventional weapons.  A
sizeable chunk of the *entire* cost of the war went into the test at
Trinity and the two bombs used on Japan; "American know-how" didn't
drive the Manhattan Engineer District.  Whopping shitloads of money did.

How much money?  I've seen various figures, but put it this way - they
trucked a chunk of the gold reserves from Fort Knox to the work sites
and they were using gold bars as radiation shielding; lead was in short
supply...



Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 12:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Jap" apology
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> It wasn't "American know-how" anyways, it was Germans who cared more
-> about science than they did for Hitler. :)

The theoretical work came all over.  None of the Germans were key
people at Los Alamos, though.

Interestingly, the Japanese A-bomb project was right on track, unlike
the German project, which was fairly far off in left field.  But the
Japanese couldn't *afford* to build an atomic bomb; the resources it
would have taken were too desperately needed elsehwere.


Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 11:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Linus Torvald on the Penguin as a logo...
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Thrill at the sight of the flying Penguin.

We'd be... helping.  Yeah.  Giving them the long-lost thrill of flight!

With all those feathers we wouldn't even need sabots.  Just shove them
down the barrel and pull the lanyard.


-> Gentlemen, this is indeed progress.

Not only that, but if they were properly trained they could be
self-guided projectiles!  "Okay, Oscar, guide a little more to the left
for the next shot..."


Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 11:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Good line..
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Heard a good line on the radio this morning, probably and old one:
-> "Speed limits are just another mans opinion."

I stopped at a drive-in for some ice cream yesterday.  The car next to
me had the radio on one of the talk stations, quite loud.  They were
talking about some kind of nightclub shooting; one bullet, three
victims.  I almost choked on my ice cream when the guy said, "according
to the lab report, the guys in the lab haven't seen ballistics like that
since 1963."

- Dave "Other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, how was the drive?" Williams


Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: MB Salary system was: Big Pipe: light duty hoist?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> time I was impressed with how clear a grasp Scott Adams had on how
-> the corporate hive mind operated.

What's creepy is, no matter where I've worked, it was always the same.


"The first myth of management is that is exists..."?  There's
*something* out there making so many people miserable.


Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: DaimlerChrysler fires 2,700 people
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Shouldn't they be checking what is being carried into the building?

G. Harry Stine used to tell an amusing story about how he (a civilian)
managed to steal the last three existing Lark missiles from
Davis-Monthan AFB back in the '70s.  I probably have it in my compressed
BIX archives.  It was a combination of faked paperwork and intimidation.

A friend of mine used to use coveralls, a small toolbox, and a step
ladder to get into concerts for free.

Whackers call it "social engineering."



Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: E-mail addy change
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Burt's comment at the time was, "Yep, we paid some fool consultant
-> somewhere into six figures to come up with a new name, and they

My peeve is these names that are parts of words - "...athlon",
...presario", etc.   Is that an omputer by ompaq?

Then there are the fake-mod-Afro names, like "Extendra."  Well, it's
probably not going to get them into a trademark violation suit anywhere,
but it doesn't exactly ring any bells, either.

And then there are the real losers, like "In...prise Kylix."


Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: the honor system
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The vending machine guys retaliated by nailing 2x4's to the floor and
-> strapping the machines down. By then, it was too late, it only took a
-> minor shake to get stuff to fall.

One place I used to work, the vending machines only got restocked every
two weeks.  The good stuff usually sold out by the second day; after
that they were down to Korn Nutz, ChezNKrakerZ, and onion flavor potato
chips.  I think the dates visible in the window were several years
old...

One day I caught the vending machine guy and asked him why he didn't
fill the machine with decent stuff that would sell.  It turned out that
all the items sold at a given price didn't have the same profit margin,
so they put a minimum of low-profit items (the good stuff) in, and then
filled the rest with crap people only bought when they were desperate,
since they know *some* of it would sell, no matter what.

I figure they probably did an involved study on that, but it still
sucked.


Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 17:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Detroit May Face Pressure to Reduce CO2
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The guy who came up with "Global Warming" last year recanted his
-> theories.....

That's sort of like shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, waiting
until everyone is heading for the exits, and then saying, "hey, just
joking."

"*Hangin's* too good for 'im!
*Burnin's* too good for 'im!
He should be torn into little bitty pieces
AND BURIED ALIVE!"
- Hanover Fist, "Heavy Metal"



Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 06:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Detroit May Face Pressure to Reduce CO2
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I don't know why city busses haven't been converted. It seems like
-> they would benefit the most from being converted to HE.

Cost.  Little Rock has a city bus route; it's heavily subsidized by the
city, meaning the 99.5% of the populace who *doesn't* ride the stinking
bus.  Nobody wants to spend even more money on the damned things.

I still think the old San Francisco streetcar setup was nice, though.
Years ago you could park near one of the streetcar termini, then ride
the streetcar to your destination much faster than you could fight your
way in through traffic.  Of course, the weather in San Francisco is a
lot nicer than Houston or Minneapolis, though enclosed streetcars might
be useable.



Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 06:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Dan - no!  Re: book from Mike
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> With all of that, why the fuck do programs, messages, and other
-> potentially useful things just fucking vanish?

Bill Gates has you on his personal list?


"Mr. Gates, our spy satellites have indicated Mager is close to
deciphering our latest user interface."

"Better slipstream an upgrade now, Brad.  Last time he got too close to
figuring it out.  Oh, and put that 'random crash' feature back; it
worked really well."

"Immediately, sir!"

"Oh, and Brad?"

"Sir!"

"This time, make everything default to RTF, and have it send his
messages that way without telling him.  That way he'll look like a
fool as soon as he gets the upgrade."

"Yes, sir!"


Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Eureka!!!
To: gmecm@diy-efi.org

-> > With    B05 BODY EQUIPMENT, ARMORED
-> > With    B9Q CONVERSION, HEARSE
->
-> Isn't this overkill?  What's the dead guy need armor for?

Some hearses are both stretched and have raised roofs; as far as I know
the deck and coffin rollers are added separately by the hearse
conversion companies.  So it would be reasonable to get the stretch/pop
top hearse option if you were going to build an armored limo; more leg
and head room.


Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 18:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Okay, so...
Sender: owner-fanglers@xephic.dynip.com
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.

Oddly enough, "computing" for the masses seems to be a cross between
advertising billboards and CB radio...


-> -- Richard Hamming

Hamming looks familiar; he might have been the one I originally saw it
attributed to.

"Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes
hurtling down the freeway."   - Arthur S. Tannenbaum



Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 19:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: FBI architects
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I was once told "Security isn't your responsibility" by one of the

Some people have a really hard time understanding the concept of
security.  Even the military and the FBI; I just finished "Family of
Spies" ten minutes ago, about the Walker spy ring that operated for
twenty years.  They were practically begging to get caught, but entire
chains of screwups over and over and over and over by people whose job
it was to look for those kinds of things let them keep going until
Walker's wife got mad and turned him in to the FBI... and even then,
they roundfiled her testimony until one of Walker's runners started
putting feelers out for immunity.

You don't have to put armed guards at every door and read documents
though a slit in a cover sheet; basic security mostly consists of not
being a total moron and giving the stuff away.  Walker was a crypto tech
and passed background check several times, but each time it was just a
rubber stamp job.  If anyone had looked they would have seen he was
spending $50,000 a year on an $8,000 salary.  Not too many warrant
officers paid cash for homes and owned large sailboats and private
aircraft...

Too many times, even when a background check is done, they still focus
on what organizations the person or any of his relatives of prominent
friends might belong to, or whether any of those people might be
security risks.  Like they consider treason is contagious, or something.
Money and marital problems are better indicators, but nowadays that's so
common they don't bother to follow up properly.

A friend of mine held a Secret clearance for years, then went to work
at a certain three-letter agency.  You'd expect they would have classes
on how to keep out of trouble, but no...  I felt sort of like a dad
sitting his son down to explain the facts of life.


-> ly was "Even if the SOP said that was true, which it doesn't, it's
-> st= ill MY country, MY Navy, MY program, MY equipment, MY
-> responsibility = so get out of MY lab"
->
-> I thought I was going to get fired over that, but nothing ever came
-> o= f it.

You were in the right, and if they'd fired you and you decided to make
a pain out of yourself, a whole world of fecal matter could have come
down on them.  Leaving you alone was simply CYA.

Probably startled the hell out of them, though.  Not too many people
with balls enough to draw the line and say "no."


Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 07:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: FBI architects
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> True to our capitalist ethos, when Americans are recruited, they're
-> bought. And it's emotionally difficult for someone who's that tied up
-> in money to keep it a secret.

True.  Which makes it even more of a slap in the face that the Navy,
DoD, and FBI all dropped the ball numerous times on the Walker ring.
The FBI has been using IRS records since the 1930s; it's how they
managed to catch Al Capone, for cryin' out loud!

The Walker story was the same old stuff; the author didn't mention a
whole lot about the security clearances, but if you total them all up,
you had whole lot of people sitting around polishing their holsters or
picking their nose instead of even making the slightest attempt to do
your job.


-> If there is one thing that's been clear for at least the past twenty
-> years, it's that the USA does not produce ideological spies -

You're right.  After the difference in the standard of living between
the USA and USSR got too dramatic to ignore - the 1960s - the flakes
moved on to Carlos Castenada or whatever.  And after the 1960s,
relatively few Americans have believed in anything deeply enough to risk
their asses for it.


Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 11:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: [pcct] Books for Geeks
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> > 4. The Lord of the Files: Drunk on power, an IS
-> > director descends into barbarism, starts randomly
-> > deleting files from network drives.

I've had that happen.  One place I worked at was extremely insistent
that I keep my code on their Novell server instead of on my local drive,
even after they repeatedly demonstrated ARCserve's inability to actually
restore any "backed up" files from tape...

One of the Novell admins decided he needed some extra space for storing
motorcycle .GIFs, so he just went through and started deleting files he
didn't consider "useful."  One of those files was the sequential archive
set for some TCP/IP stuff I was developing.

After ARCserve spent three hours sucking on tapes without being able to
restore the file, I relented and pulled a backup floppy out of my
briefcase.

I would have pretended it was gone forever, except I was almost
finished and wanted to deploy it and move on to the next thing.


Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 11:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Plastic hydraulic clutch
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> failure.  So what's the collective fangler experience with old
-> plastic parts?  The floor is open for anecdotes, good and bad.

Plastic parts are the work of Satan.


The entire dome light housing on my truck has turned to powder, and
bits of the inside door panels.  No longer available from the dealer, of
course.  And the entire rearview mirror on my Capri, and the switchgear
on my Yamaha, and...

Ford is using all-plastic end links on Taurus sway bars, and supposedly
on brake pedals.  Ri-ight.

I know that all plastics are not the same, but the Product Cheapening
Department isn't going to use Rulon when recycled garbage is "just as
good."


Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 14:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Bill on Student Bullying
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> If we could save just one child's life....

Why would we want to do that?

I wonder if Soylent Green would be better with Chinese mustard or
horseradish...


Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 07:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: chest pains
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> This reminds me of the joke:
-> patient:     Doctor my arm hurts when I do this...
-> doctor:      Well dont do it then.

That's about the level of the "free" healthcare we had from the USAF
when I was growing up.  The military hospital system was so blatantly
incompetent my Dad paid for civilian doctors out of his own pocket when
we needed medical attention.


Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 07:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Mars Odyssey mission
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> our own Moon, Mars has attracted more spacecraft exploration attempts
-> than any other object in the solar system, and no other planet has

What surprises me is how uniform all the images of the Martian surface
are.  No matter where they drop a probe, it looks like the Australian
Outback, except with more rocks.


Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 14:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re:
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Gun control begins with being able to hit your target.

"This kind of accuracy... can only be Imperial Storm Troopers..."



Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 05:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: books (0)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> "The true university is a collection of books" - Thomas Carlyle

Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil" bemoaned the replacement of paper card
catalogs with computer terminals.  It's one of the few points I agree
with him on.  One day the card catalogs vanished, and all you could do
was keyword searches.  The problem was, at *least* half of the words
were not speled korectly, so you'd turn up zip with three copies sitting
on the shelf.  Plus the electronic catalog kept turning up books that
apparently never existed; there weren't even places for them in the
shelves.

I finally gave up and went back to simply browsing the stacks.  They
seldom have more than a couple of shelves of non-travel, non-cookbook
nonfiction anyway.


Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 13:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: books (0)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Ehhh, if you're talking about poor implementations of electronic
-> library catalogs, then work on making the implementation better.

Er, right.

The State paid Big Bucks(tm) for it, and it's under the aegis of the
Department of Information Services, as far as I know.

Assuming I could find the right functionary at the capitol to
buttonhole, there's almost certainly a rule against non-employees or
non-contractors from messing with the system.  And then, what am I
supposed to do about the bad data?  The paper cards are ten years gone,
even if I wanted to personally re-key the whole thing in.  And given
there were about five books in the entire library system worth checking
out (assuming they haven't been disposed of since I last looked), why
would I care?


-> I am a big fan of e-catalogs after finding that the 2-3 weeks of
-> scrounging through abstracts and catalogs and periodicals for
-> research papers cut down to about 3 days when the college library
-> went online.

Uh... you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the library system
works.  They have cookbooks, travel books, children's books, NYT Best
Sellers (if non-controversial), and the periodicals consist of the last
year's editions of "Arizona Highways" and "Fine Homemaking."  They don't
even get Popular Mechanics any more.

If you want to drive to Little Rock, fight your way downtown, and pay
for parking in the kind of place where you check to make sure you have a
round chambered before opening the door, you can visit the main state
library where the 'stacks' are.  The 'stacks' are verboten to scum like
you, or even me.  You tell the troll what issue and pages you want, and
they'll go in the back and eventually come out with blurry photocopies
with lines through them of those particular pages, for only a quarter a
page.  Fool, you didn't think you'd actually get to touch any of that
stuff yourself, did you?


The library's only use is as a place to ILL books from someplace else,
assuming I already have all the required information about the book.
Then I have to get confrontational each time, as each librarian (a
different one each time) claims to never have heard of such a thing, and
even if they had, it sounds like work and they wouldn't want to do it
anyway.

UALR has a four-year *degree* program in "Library Science."  Well, I
guess stamping cards and filing books is really, really difficult...


-> The lil bastids in school don't have any idea how much easier
-> things are now with their friggin' dorm room 10Mb+ connections.

The web will find you plenty of abstracts, but it's abysmally short of
content.



Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 13:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: International Space Station insulation & cooling
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> a delicate balance between the deep-freeze of space and the

...another media hack who didn't make it through fifth grade science
class, looks like.

- Dave "how cold is a vacuum?" Williams



Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 17:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Valve actuators
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> >I dunno...I still thinkg lfb's should be somewhere near
-> mid-continent

> Don't want the blue flash to be visible over international waters,
> eh??

"Hey, I wonder that this d



Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 18:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: "enter your email"
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

I've been hitting a lot of sites lately that want me to "enter your
email" in a tiny little box.  Uh... WTF?

I have this horrible suspicious the losers who send "emails" to each
other have further de-meaninged the word to mean "address."

Will they go around saying, "what's your email email?"

Fucking idiots.


Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 17:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: books (0)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> municipal libraries for anything serious, but found both the Los
-> Angeles and Pasadena, CA electronic catalogs at least as usable as
...
-> I'll choose to think that was simply a rhetorical comment.

Not entirely.  Many people seem to assume the whole world is just like
where they are.  It's a long drive from Little Rock to Pasadena...


-> with college libraries (Caltech, Duke, UNC-CH).

UALR has a beautiful three-story library building.  It has a few
shelves of 'litterchoor', some encyclopedias, and a skimpy magazine
section.  Otherwise, it's almost entirely empty.  They apparently shot
their wad on their amazing airport-like antitheft system, or perhaps the
book thieves made off with everything first...


-> go back.  I've found some very helpful librarians; they just
-> don't seem to be able to use that MLS degree for much outside
-> their range of experience.  Unfortunately, that can't be cured
-> by catalog technology.

As I become ever more antisocial, I start wondering how much of that
might be cured by application of a fully-charged cattle prod.


-> I like to believe that free libraries are the true, ultimate
-> hallmark of democratic civilization.

Back when you could assume there was some useful content to be had in a
library, rather than a place for people to hold knitting meetings or
political rallies, there was something to be said for that idea.


Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 18:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Valve actuators
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Course in the quiet moments you'd have to tolerate listening to the
-> corn grow,  this is as low stress as life gets.

I could bring all the parts for the steam cannon and we could put it
together.  Or we could all sit around staring mindlessly at Bruce's
oscilloscope while pretending it's a TV set...


- Dave "haven't I seen this show before?" Williams



Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 07:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: [pcct] Where is the International Space Station
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> > the earth's atmosphere), the extreme heat created
-> > will cause it to become a ball of flame.

Jeez, nobody seems to remember when Skylab came down...


$5 says nothing big enough to see actually hits the water.


Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 18:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Canola" oil is a scam, sort of
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> It's like when people referred to the car in Knight Rider as KITT
-> 2000... Knight Industries Two Thousand 2000???

I was always fascinated by KITT.  It had the same magical ability as
the General Lee - it could run into the back of a parked car, then leap
smoothly into the air, just like there was a hidden ramp...

The couple of collisions of that type I've seen usually just resulted
in two wads of mangled metal.


Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 18:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Dixie
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> >definition of the Mason-Dixon line:  the difference between "Y'all"
-> and "Youse Guys"

I've never understood why the "proper English" nit-noids get all
gnarled up over the plural-indefinite.  The fact that it exists in
regular use shows that it's quite handy.

"You"-indefinite being the same as "you"-specific never made much sense
to me.  Of course, most of "English" makes no sense at the collegiate
level, where they endlessly try to apply Latin grammar to Saxon syntax.

- Dave "y'all waited twelve years to spring 'gerunds' on me?" Williams


Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 15:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Need suggestions for a '76 F350
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> What would a cross country trip in a propane tow vehicle be like,
-> interms of fuel stops? Major PIA I should suspect. What do you do?

Conoco used to have propane fill guides.  I looked in one once; no
service in Arkansas, or about half the other states.

Most places that do have propane are only open 9-to-5, usually five or
six days a week.  So far I've not encountered a 24 hour propane filler.

Many convenience stores will swap the small bottles.   The usual price
is $25 to $30.  At $6 per gallon you might as well find the nearest
airport and buy avgas.


-> all over at each town you come to looking for 10 gal refill cans at
-> grocery stores? What's the infrastructure like along the interstates?

If you do find a place to refill, you have to wait for someone to get
around to coming out and doing it.  I've never heard of self-serve
propane.  Then you go back in and stand in line again to pay, so be sure
to allow plenty of time for fill-ups.

Some of the larger truck/RV stops have propane pumps, but they only
operate them during the day.  Might have something to do with operator
licensing, I suspect.

Oh, and don't depend on using the new-type propane tanks with the big
ugly plastic nut.  They have a built-in restrictor valve, so you'll not
be driving very fast with one hooked up in an emergency.

The local propane filler (only $2.85/gal) told me they won't be
refilling my tanks after the end of the year, as they will be prohibited
from refilling the old style tanks by law.  Whether it's true I don't
know, but since they're the only place in town, it hardly matters.


Traveling with propane would be like traveling with Diesel, except more
so.  Basically, you fill up when opportunity happens, and try not to
ever let it drop below 1/2 tank.  Fill up before 5 PM even if you have
3/4 of a tank, because chances of getting more after dark are slim.

Back when I was a kid my parents hauled me all around the country.  In
the '60s, you couldn't get gas after 5 or on weekends unless you were in
large cities.  Spent more than one night sleeping in the car at gas
stations, waiting for them to open.  The usual trick was to gas up
before dark, keep going until you ran out, then slide in to a station
before the fuel pump sucked wind and wait for them to open in the
morning.  Here in Arkansas we didn't get 24-hour gas until 1975, and the
blue laws closed them on Sundays in lots of places, like here in
Jacksonville.  The blue laws were one of the things old Sam Walton
fixed.  He drove his pickup truck down from Bentonville and opened the
Jacksonville store one fine Sunday morning.  About noon, when church let
out and the holy were outraged at his disobedience on their holy
Sabbath, JPD showed up and hauled him off to jail.  Monday morning his
lawyers arrived bearing a few billion dollars' worth of clout.  Sam
walked, and the blue laws were quietly rescinded not long after.  Well,
except for the wailing and gnashing of the holies, but they do that
about any damned thing, so we are all fairly well used to it.

After that the holies went after the town's only theater and shut it
down, which probably gave them extra points somewhere.  Changing
demographics has made the holies substantially less powerful, though
they've managed to keep it a dry town.  Still a lot of dry towns and
counties here.




Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 18:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 24-hour gas stations (Was: Need suggestions for a '76 F350)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The first 24-hour gas stations that I can remember were unattended at
-> night, and accepted coins and bills like a vending machine.  This was
-> in the late 1970's in Virginia and North Carolina.  They didn't catch
-> on...

Huh.  The unattended-credit-card stations came and went here just last
year.  But there's a big Coke machine in Alexander, AR that dispenses
live bait!



Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 18:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: the marvels of the English language . . .
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> "Bathroom":  a "bathroom" is likely to manifest precisely zero bath
-> facilities.  More mysteries.

The Euro "water closet" is no better.  Sounds like where the water
heater might be found, not a place to take a dump.


Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 06:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: ALERT -  WORM SPREADING  **Linux DNS** (fwd)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> This message is in MIME format.  The first part should be readable
-> text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without
-> MIME-aware tools. Send mail to mime@docserver.cac.washington.edu for
-> more info.

I love software that sends out ginkball-formatted messages, then
complains that *I* have a problem because I might not be able to read
it.  Makes me think about finding their router and trying out my
RJ45-to-120VAC wall socket adapter cable.


-> Please read this alert.  It affects Linux hosts which run DNS servers
-> or have port 53 open.  If you wish to know if port 53 (dns) is open,

I read the whole thing.  It keeps talking about Linux, but it doesn't
mention anything specific to Linux.  I might assume they're Linux-native
binaries, but from the information given in the alert, it's a name
daemon exploit.  The alert says "checks to see if it is vulnerable", but
doesn't tell us what the vulnerability might be so we could fix it.
Instead, it urges us to smurf over to a web site and download some crap.
And we're not told if the 'vulnerability' is in the OS or the Berkeley
name daemon, which runs on everything from Unixen to VAXen to IBM minis
to PCs with Windows NT.

  I'm sorry you got hit, but this alert isn't worth much.  If you
had seen it beforehand, would it have helped you?  "Your system might be
vulnerable... but we're not going to tell you what to look for or how to
fix it."


Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 17:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: 24-hour gas stations (Was: Need suggestions for a '76 F350)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Most of the gas stations around here have credit card
-> pay-at-the-pump, but still have a clerk inside to sell cigarettes,
-> snacks, and drinks.

Yeah, that's standard.  There was a chain called "FuelMan" around here
for a while, just a bunch of pumps on a concrete pad, with nobody around
at all.  You stuck your FuelMan card in and gassed up; they wouldn't
take anything else.  A friend's wrecker service was using them for a
while.

I could never figure out how they managed to keep from being
vandalized.  They're not as bad around here as a lot of places, but the
first time I saw them, they screamed "target!"


Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 17:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: LFB 2.5
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Any inflatable dolls?? Life size??

How incredibly tacky!


You wouldn't expect him to *share*, would you?

B.Y.O.D.



Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 20:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: LFB 2.5
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> steve, any favorite adult beverages

I'm still working on that whiskey sour kit you sent.  Felix and his
wife were over for New Year's and we hit the bottle.  Felix is about
Dans' size.  We don't have much in the way of small glasses; the
smallest will hold a full can of Coke, so that's what I used to serve
them in.

Felix: "Hey, this is pretty good."    "Gee, the glasses look a lot
smaller at Tia's."

Dave: "Yeah.  The sour mix gives it bite."

Felix: "Got any more left?"



Felix: "How much sour mix is in this, anyway?"

Dave: "Half whiskey, half sour."

Felix: "Is that how they normally mix it?"

Dave: "Damned if I know; I didn't bother to read the directions.  Want
another?"

Felix:  "Why the *#*@* not?"



Nancy: "Honey, we ought to head home now."

Felix: "Yeah, I guess so."    "F@*!*!"

Nancy: "Maybe I better drive."

Felix: "I can drive.  Where are my keys?"  
"F*#*@ the keys.  Why don't you get off your lazy ass and drive?"


I don't know if Felix is a cheap drunk, or that's considered an
excessive intake of Southern Comfort in fifteen minutes...


Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 20:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Well water
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> It is quite a nice little brain trust we've got going here.  It seems
-> regardless of subject, someone's going to know something about
-> whatever you ask.

Ah!  Dean has discovered the secret!

The list evolved into something quite different than it was originally
intended to be, but it still fulfills the Recommended Daily Allowance of
craziness and fangleage.



Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 20:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Well water
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> into a quarry in the early 60's.  Their plant was an hour away, in
-> the city.  They had land out in the country, for the sole purpose
-> of quietly dumping chwmical waste.

Vertac here in Jacksonville did the same thing, dumping dioxin,
2,4,5-T, and other stuff directly into the woods behind the plant...
which was right in town.  There was a nice graft arrangement with City
Hall and the various state inspectors.  When Vertac went bankrupt their
30-year history of dumping toxic waste into the city water supply was
suddenly "discovered."  The EPA moved in and became very officious, but
there was little they could do.

The city made arrangements with the Arkansas National Guard's arsenal
at Pine Bluff, 40 miles away, to dispose of the abandoned waste barrels
and topsoil via the arsenal's incinerator, which is one of the
half-dozen facilities in the country rated for disposal of nerve gas and
other CBW nasties.  The incinerator was just sitting there, since nobody
actually disposed of anything.  All had been taken care of nicely...

Governor Bill Clinton stepped in and prohibited the use of the
arsenal's equipment, then went off to DC (where he spent most of his
time anyway) and tried to persuade the EPA that Jacksonville rated their
"Superfund" category, which basically involves lots of Federal money
being spent to clean things up.  The EPA, in a rare non-foolish moment,
declared that the situation was well under control by the local
authorities, and they'd do no such thing.  Clinton basically decided if
they couldn't get rich siphoning Federal money off, then fuck everyone,
he'd see it never got cleaned up.

And it didn't.  At least, not until years later, at tremendous expense,
with the city hiring an out-of-state disposal company to come in an set
up an incinerator on-site.  It was a done deal by '92.


Oddly enough, I never saw anything about this in the national media
during either of his campaigns, or his drunken excursions throughout the
Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, etc.  I don't think *all* of the media
were in a pro-Democrat conspiracy, but even the opposition couldn't be
bothered to actually do any research.



Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 08:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: books
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> "Statistics show that less than 10% of people who buy a book read
-> past the first chapter." - Anthony Robbins

I don't know that I'd agree with his quantity, but certainly a lot of
people put one down and move on if it doesn't grab their attention
immediately.

Perhaps people pick up the habit in school.  In twelve years
incarcerated in public schools, we never once finished a textbook.  We
seldom made it past the halfway point.  In some texts we skipped around
from chapter to chapter in what was apparently a random sequence.  So I
can see where people would get the idea a book is something you'd look
at, not read through.


"I don't read books.  I read the dictionary once, and all the other
books are in there." - Hawkeye Pierce



Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: books
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Who's Anthony Robbins, and where did he get that statistic?  Never
-> met a book poseur, seems like it would be hard to fake...(unlike
-> motorcycle knowledge, Viet Nam experience, IQ, etc.)

It'd be easy to fake.  Just keep up with the best seller reviews.  They
probably even have them on TV for the non-readers.  Heck, I know the
basic outlines of several books I've never read and never intend to,
just from watching conversation go by.


Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 06:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: warehouse 617
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Mike  (I have seen incompetence, and then I saw ASU's FSAE project!)

Those are the guys who used to pop up at the beginning of each school
year on rec.autos.tech and ask where they could download some software
to design a racing car.  Uh-yeah...

What impresses me is how many resources they have available, yet some
of the teams fail to use them.  *Some* teams do - I was on the fsae list
for several years - but way too many of them zero the clue meter.  They
remind me of the old AAmco commercial with the chimpanzee beating on an
automatic transmission with a monkey wrench.


-> The students seem to be good guys, and they really do need help.
-> They do zero FEA!!!  The biggest help would be some money, of course.

They don't need FEA, they need the boring basics - strength of
materials, statics, dynamics, basics of mechanisms.  But it seems modern
curricula downplay these "low tech" courses and push CAD/CAM, FEA, and
microcontrollers.  Sure, but you have to walk before you can run.  Ever
notice any of those FEA ads in Design News?  The "before" designs always
show something like an air conditioning compressor hanging off a stick
or some other totally bogus design, then a properly-triangulated "FEA"
bracket by comparison.  Ballocks.  The FEA isn't going to design the
damned bracket for you; all it can do is estimate the stress on the
bracket *you* designed.  Argh.


-> The students seem to be good guys, and they really do need help.

Cars are easy enough, and they have successful designs to copy, space
to work in, money... a hell of a lot more resources than *I* ever had
when I was learning.  I have no sympathy.


Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 07:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Timing chains / surgery
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> No worries mate. Liz isn't one to miss it when opportunity comes
-> banging so loudly upon the door. She quickly sized up the situation
-> and decided that I must now make the book shelves that "we" had been
-> "thinking" about....

  Books are good.

Dock Myrick took me to a brewhaus in Raleigh that had the walls paneled
in books.  Yeah, interior decorators buy them by the foot... but this
place had some decent stuff, like "Theory of Stress Analysis", a bunch
of history books, some popular fiction like Dick Francis, etc.  And
(proof that the place was a pocket into some sort of alternate universe)
I actually saw a guy pull one down and start reading while he was
eating.

The root beer was good, too!



Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 11:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: warehouse 617
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> IMHO the cause is the complete lack of connection between technology
-> and real world applications in the college system.
...
-> My personal experience was getting
-> an A in an electronics class that taught how to use the diff-eq I had
-> almost failed in a pure math class.

I came to a screeching halt at beginning algebra.  I gave up after
factoring binomials, which I couldn't see any use for.  25 years later,
I *still* have never found any use for it.  A couple of years ago I
finally found some minor use for calculus.  Oh, *that's* what it might
be good for... not much, but something, anyway.  The crap they were
tossing at us in high school and first year college was no more useful
than memorizing ancient British religious chants in Latin.

Only recently I came across a book on "Operations Research."  Holy
shit!  OR is strictly applied math - queueing theory, applied
statistics, etc.  Hot damn.  Now I could use some of that math, except
I'll never have time to learn it now.

A few years ago an acquaintance with a Ph.D. in math was telling me
about how when he would ask his instructors about using what they were
learning to solve various problems, they always blew him off with,
"Well, that's not really math, that's operations research."  He said it
wasn't until he had his doctorate that he had time to read up on OR, and
then he felt cheated - a lot of that stuff that they learned, were
tested on, and immediately forgot, because they knew they would never
see it again, would have been useful for OR.

Well, we already knew the collegiate system was almost as screwed up as
the lower schools...


Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 11:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: This oughtta be a GOOD one before it's over!!!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The new law says that because the federal agency has failed to
-> fulfill its obligation to protect the lives and property of citizens,
-> it has forfeited its "jurisdictional supremacy" and the state is
-> stepping into the vacuum.

Yay!

And to really put the shaft in, the Governor ought to send the Fed a
bill for the State's services in alleviating a hazard to the public.

Lots of civil law backing on that one; it's the same thing that lets
the city send someone out to mow your yard if they think your grass is
too high, then send you a bill or put a lien on your property.

Or they could declare the property 'abandoned' and the State could
simply sieze it from the Fed.  Oh, I'd love to see that...


Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 21:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: more fan mail
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

More fan (?) mail...

-> Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 18:14:55 -0600 (CST)
-> From: Cru-Sin-2@webtv.net
-> Subject: vin-break down
-> To: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us
->
-> hi friend,----im dave--i work at a ford dealership
-> i have people call me and ask--what do i have
-> and then they give me the vin-#---i know that it used to be the first
-> --#--is the year--and the fifth --letter--is the engine----what do
-> all ofte other --#s--mean????----is the month of production-- in the
-> vin??---asssembly--plant???-------i know that ford has expanded the
-> vin-#--to,, i believe-17 spaces----any help that you can offer
-> is greatly appeciated---
-> thanks---dave-kruger


Oh, like, d00d, just look at any of the manuals around the dealership,
and it probably tells you how to decode the VIN numbers, like, gag me
with a backhoe...

Dig the creative puncuation----,,,???



Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 18:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: more fan mail
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Jeezus.  You actually get this stuff?!?  I think I just found another
-> reason not to have a web site.

Web site?  What would that have to do with it?  I've been getting stuff
like this since before the Web even existed.


->  There is some comedic value, however.
-> Maybe think about creating a 'Best Of' list.

Hmm... might be a good idea, at that.


Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 20:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: DLT
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I read that Franklin is blamed for daylight saving  [not plural!]
-> time. Hmmm . . . Franklin . . . Franklin . . . Oh!  He's the guy that
-> mis-polarized elctricity, no?  "Current goes out, electrons go in . .
-> . "

Nope, it was Roosevelt (FDR) during WWII.  It was part of the war
mobilization acts.  *Lots* of people were pissed; there were minor riots
in several cities, and you can find photos of people smashing their
watches rather than going to "Roosevelt time."

Me, I'd be happy to set my clock to Greenwich Mean time and leave it
there.  The relation of numbers to time of day is arbitrary anyway - in
Biblical times, 12 o'clock was late afternoon, for example.  So I'd get
up at "1400" instead of "0500", big deal.


"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine. staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation in the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be there when I can
When I come in cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells."

- Pink Floyd, "Time"


Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 06:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Amish virus
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Real men used card decks.  We punched them with 6 penny nails.
->
-> And we LIKED it.

...after you scraped the nails into a rectangular shape by rubbing them
on the sidewalk!

Damn sure you liked punch cards!  After winding all those state machine
tapes back and forth, you needed the rest...

- Dave "say chit" Williams


Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 19:18:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Now I gone an done it!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> He didn't have a badge visible so I asked him to show me his
-> visitors= badge or base ID. "Sorry, don't have it on me college boy".
->
-> I said no problem, pulled out my phone and reported an intruder in
-> th= e building.

I bet there's a written policy somewhere that *requires* you to report
an intruder in the building.  Tell the Human Resources department you'd
like a written commendation for your personnel file, and two attaboys.


Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 19:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Slavery Reparations?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The Turks haven't even apologized for the Armenian genocide.

Have the Italians apologized to the Britons?  After failing to
exterminate the indigenous population, they herded them north and
Hadrian built his famous wall to keep them there.

In revenge, the Old Britons, now known as Scots, invented haggis...


Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 10:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: death
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I've got some experience there as well. When I was in serious pain
-> (after my accident), the pain killers didn't kill the pain. They just
-> made me sleep. The pain was always there.

When they pinned my leg back together they gave me an assortment of
painkillers.  None of them affected the pain much; they just fucked you
up enough so you didn't really care that your leg was an oozing mass of
violated flesh.  Unfortunately, they also made it impossible to read,
and you can only sleep so much.  After that, boredom got so bad I quit
taking the pills.


-> Healing or pain killers, I don't know which, they take weeks to clear
-> out too. I was in top physical shape but dragged around trying to
-> just walk around the block.

Even a few days of being flat on your back can be very debilitating.
Back in the old days when doctors prescribed "bed rest" for various
ailments, they weren't doing their patients any favors.  Now they're
marching you down the hall as soon as you wake up enough not to stagger
into things.  I think it's a fine idea; if nothing else, it inhibits the
invalid mentality from developing.


Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 12:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chinese Stroker Kits
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Chicom entrepreneur? Norinco? My point: The free market system
-> doesn't work when one system is state owned and the other system is
-> privately owned

...and exactly what is the difference between Boeing and Airbus
Industrie?  The French government owns Airbus, but with the FAA, DoD,
and other agencies pulling Boeing's strings, it's not "free market"
either.


-> can't *make* anything any more). NO thanks. When Fred said
-> "Capitalism rules", how can it? When the exchange is with a commie
-> socialist command economy?

Are you going to make a distinction between Communists and Communists?
Italy and France have walked that route since WWII, and England and most
of Scandinavia has come perilously close.

Then you have your "managed economies", like Japan and Germany, where
nothing of importance is done in the so-called private sector without
government approval.

Only a couple hundred years ago, the English textile industry got
cheap American-grown cotton interdicted when they couldn't compete
against colonial and slave labor.  What goes around comes around...


Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 12:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chinese Stroker Kits
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> >> together.  Unfortunately a central planning, top down model didn't
-> work in >> the long run.

It works fine in Japan and other countries.  The problem wasn't central
control, it was that the whole system was corrupt to start with, and
then the real power was sidetracked to the Party, which basically raped
and pillaged each economic plan.  The parallels between the USSR and
Nazi Germany are very interesting.


-> NOT work!! He was, in fact, a WORSE curse on humanity than Hitler
-> ever managed to get close to being!

Hitler was at least trying to *make* something; a stronger, purified,
unified Germany, in a position of power.  Stalin, like Pol Pot, was
mostly interested in destroying his opposition, though he was always
happy to snap up any territory that wasn't well-defended.

 I can't believe I just stood up for Adolf
Hitler... but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.  Unless it's a
military clock, of course.


Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 13:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chinese Stroker Kits
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I don't buy it.  Mexicans are dying to come to the US, legally or
-> not, in order to make money that seems menial here but does a lot for
-> their folks at home.

You see a lot of migrant labor through the Southwest.  It's all
Mexican.  No American will do manual labor in the hot sun for less than
minimum wage (agribusiness is exempt from the wage laws).  It's still
work that needs to be done, and they'll do it; I see no problem here.
The x-thousand "American jobs" they're supposedly stealing don't really
exist, as no Americans are doing those jobs in the first place.


-> I agree that a net export of manufacturing tooling and skills can
-> have strategic effects, which should enter the equation.

Everyone can't be a manager; most companies need at least one peon for
the managers to lord it over.



Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 13:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Slavery Reparations?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> And in return the Britons exterminated their predecessors, the Picts,
-> by 1550!

Britain was overrun by everyone from the Romans to the Danes to the
French.  Very cosmopolitan place...



Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 13:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Chinese Stroker Kits
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I've found you can't teach the higher level skills needed to trouble
-> shoot. You've got it or you don't. That goes over like a sack of sh*t

Part of that may have to do with the "certificate" attitude.  You send
the guy to Microsoft classes where he's taught that the software is
correct, reliable, and does not crash, so when he's confronted with a
DOA system he either has to blame it on hardware or user meddling,
because he didn't pay $7500 to learn stuff that was wrong, did he?  So
he goes through the motions of the limited repertoire of permitted
problems and solutions he was given; if none of them work, he's
stranded, because all he has been taught is "click here, select that"
instead of what's going on behind the pretty menus.

Software certification was originally supposed to guarantee a minimum
level of competence, but it has been marketed so hard as "all you need
to know" that way too many people believe it.  An MSCE or CCNA is like a
driver's license; it's a start, not a destination.  Would you turn your
race car over to a kid that just walked out of the DMV office?  But lots
of businesses will turn their networks over to people with an equivalent
skill level, then wonder why they have problems.


Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 13:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Chinese Stroker Kits
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Marketing types have
-> convinced people to just buy more tools for more jobs. You reach a
-> point where you need to make better use of the tools you've got.

Yes!  Excellent point.  My 1988 text editor still works just fine; I
use it every day.


-> Tools are
-> great karma, 'til you find yourself having to call an expert to
-> decide which screwdriver to use.

That is an apt description of Microsoft "Visual Studio."



Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 13:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Chinese Stroker Kits
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I think you're right. It's been my experience that you go up in pay
-> and scale until you get to the point where someone suddenly says
-> "hey, we could get two kids for the price of this guy" and then
-> you're out. The new kids are happy to be thrown donuts while they sit
-> chained under their desks. Burn out is very high in Datacom.

That's standard operating procedure everywhere I've been.  Hire them
cheap, burn them out, and replace them.  Techs are a commodity, like
toner or printer paper.

Don't worry about those nasty problems that can happen when you train
new people up to speed.  Don't worry about the newbies trying to do bug
fixes; yeah, the work is crap, but you got it cheap - just have them
patch it enough to keep it working, and hire an all new batch for
Version 2.0.  Yeah, you could've kept the old guys, but where's the
budget for that?  Their paychecks would come out of your departmental
payroll, and sure as shit some other manager would scarf them out from
under you just when you needed them again, or they'd leave anyway.


Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 16:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chinese Stroker Kits
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Way differently than usual, this particular subject does have my
-> curiosity. I wish to avoid a 'Coolie world' . . .

I picked up a whole stack of books by Greg Bear recently.  Many of them
take place in a dystopian future where a handful of employment agencies
control all labor and most lower management jobs; workers strove to get
in with good agencies to get better jobs, as they had no real choice of
workplace, though they could (usually) choose their profession.

I've been leery of the increasing growth of the temp and contractor
agencies for years; Bear's vision gave me the creeps.  If your agency
paid for any training or unemployment benefits, you got indentured...

Brr.


Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 17:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: cellular telephone damping
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Are there any suggestions about cellular telephone damping?

There are several places that sell jammers.  High-end restaurants use
them.  I'm waiting for what happens when a physician-on-call doesn't get
his call and someone dies because of it.

The postmistressbitch at the Post Office has a new sign.  "NO CELLULAR
PHONES."  I don't much care for being around people who are shouting at
their phone (why do they do that?!), but I note there is no prohibition
against masterblaster boomboxes, talking loudly to people in line, or
to yourself, or even playing your saxophone in the Post Office.

I normally leave my phone in the car, but since the sign went up I've
made it a point to bring it conspicuously with me.  None of the clerks
will say anything, but perhaps I can provoke the postmistressbitch.

I hope she notices... I already have a "second offense" mapped out,
involving a piece of coat hanger, a bar of soap, and a disposable pocket
calculator.  What, they're going to hassle me for having a loud
conversation with a bar of soap?  Or just soap that looks like a
cellular phone?


Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 15:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Life in The Peoples Republic of Boulder
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I always found the "This property insured by Smith & Wesson" and
-> "Never mind the dog, BEWARE or OWNER" stickers to be at _LEAST_ as
-> effective as the NRA ones----

Here in the 'hood, it would be a screaming advertisement that there
might be something worth stealing in the house when nobody was home.


Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 15:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: death
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> lil $50 laptop, and a net link, I was able to retain a little of my
-> sanity. Bruce

There are some really *strange* people out on the net.

And some of them are us... 



Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 17:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Lileks
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I know what you mean.  I suspect that certain aspects of his
-> personality simply resonate with other thoughtful, reflectionary

I got a suspicion when I saw the Gallery of Regrettable Food.  My
mother had cookbooks like that.  I remember thinking I'd rather roll
over a fallen log and root for grubs than eat most of the meals depicted
there.  Then the interior decorating stuff - I'd looked at Architectural
Digest and suchlike, and had noted that few of the homes they showed
looked livable to me, and that most "interior decorators" seemed to have
horrible taste.  Lileks' tirades matched well with my own
partly-developed impressions.

Strange stuff in the Bleats, too.


Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 17:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Microsoft finally went too far
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The moral of the story being: if you have anything secret and you
-> send it out over the net, ENCRYPT IT. Which should really be nothing
-> new.

Hell, half the shit that comes in here is encrypted anyway.  Or might
as well be, since I don't use HTML or RTF or Javascript for mail.

I've also given up on replying to, or even reading, stuff with more
than a screen or two of unedited quotes.  If they're too lazy to trim
the damned things, off to the bit bucket with them.   The gmecm and diy
lists are particularly bad about people quoting entire threads back and
forth at each other, sticking 'me too' on either the beginning or the
end, as randomness impels them.


Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 23:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Splint City
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> except when showering or doing my exercises.  Crap!  I didn't know
-> this was going to take such a large chunk out of my life for an

I had some screws taken out of my left ankle last year.  I would have
done it myself - the heads made little lumps under the skin - but I was
afraid I'd chicken out if they started making that fingernails-on-the-
blackboard noise unscrewing from the bone.  So I went to the doc, who
referred me back to the orthopedic surgeon, who would only do it under
general anesthesia at the hospital.  They don't even do general
anesthesia for abdominal surgery any more, much less something trivial
like a couple of screws.

I don't know what they did in there, but when they were done my leg was
swelled up like a watermelon, black and blue, and I was unable to stand
more than a few minutes for a couple of weeks, and it was three months
before I got full mobility back.  I have large dead patches where they
evidently boogered some more nerves.

I was pretty pissed that they didn't warn me, particularly since they
knew I went in fully expecting to walk back out of the office that day.
Dickheads.


Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001 10:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Splint City
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Arkansas sounds more and more like a 3rd world country. Having good
-> medical resources nearby is one of my primary factors in deciding
-> where to pitch my tent.

Medical services here are nonexistent on nights and weekends.  The
local hospital, which styles itself a "regional medical center", doesn't
even have an MD in the emergency room, and none of the interns are
authorized to do anything at all.  Which is why I waited four hours for
a doctor after a DWI decided to run me down one evening for fun.

I can get better service than that by calling my local vet.  And
probably more competent.


Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2001 07:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Splint City
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Probably broke a couple of easy-out's in there.

  The two screws they gave me were *supposed* to be the ones that
came out of my ankle... but they're Allen head, and I would have sworn
they were flatheads on those X-rays back in '87.  Hmm...


Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2001 07:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: The horrors of Easter
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Those chocolate covered marshmallow bunnies are good.

Dang.  I used to see software from "Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Doom,
Inc."...

I always felt gypped when I got a hollow one.



Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 20:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Gun rant
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Do you have any recommendations for a full capacity carry pistol with
-> reasonably priced magazines that is on par with the Glock?

My M1911 carries a full seven rounds of .45 ACP.  If that's not
sufficient to stop an assailant, you still have a full-size steel pistol
to beat them on the head with.

Individual defense scenarios vary widely; if black-masked ATF or FBI
agents kick in my door, as has happened to many people, I have the
proper tools to deal with that.  And they aren't pistols.

"Carry pistol" is meaningless here, as there is no way that is both
practical and lawful to carry a firearm.  Thanks to our wonderful
friends the NRA, Arkansas now has carry permits... but they involve
gun registration and an extensive and impractical list of places you
can't carry it, with hideous fines and jail sentences if you're caught
and made an example of.

*If* I were to lug something around on my person, it'd be something
along the line of an AMT Backup in .45 ACP or a Charter Arms Bulldog in
.44 Special.


Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 23:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: GREATER FLEXIBILITY FOR STATES IN VEHICLE EMISSION
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Guess there'll be a hell of a market developing for stuff to erase
-> how many times you've exceeded (say) 80 mph from the "hidden" memory
-> in your ecu before you go in for your "emissions" inspection!

Nah, what you *really* need is a utility to set the tattletale to
something like, say, 300 mph!



Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 23:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: LFB 2.5 update
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> too... and I don't think they liked anyone.

Kemper, John, and Dan have a special disadvantage - even though the
lesbians can practice the Walk and the Look, it's awfully hard to stare
down a patriach who's six and a half feet tall.  Even in spike heels.
So when they're eye-to-sternum with the Tall Ones, their natural
inferiority complexes go into overdrive.


Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 23:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 4.6L - parts is parts
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> After that you throw some boost at them with a 10 psi Saleen (Eaton
-> M97 derivative) blower like a'la his S281 speedster. The Saleen S281



You start talking blower, and I can make a Rambler or Studebaker turn
tricks.  Whole different game with forced induction; how strong is the
short block?  How's the head gasket seal and cooling efficiency?  Crank
up the boost.

Heck, look what a crappy Buick V6 can do with only moderate boost; smog
cam, grotty cast iron rods, knobby ports, and all.


Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 07:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Windholes
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Windholes is making my easier and more productive, that's why the
-> clock went from 10 April to 11 May last night.

That's a fact, Jack.  And if you don't think Microsoft has your best
interests in mind, we'll wire open your glazzies, stick in the IV, and
make you viddy some of the old ultra-violence until you become a new
man.

- Dave "Viddy this, my droogies!" Williams


Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 20:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Jennings on triples
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> is my handicapped mobility assist.

If you decide to get the knees done, fangle some pipe around the
crapper and the shower stall.  Don't go by what you see in handicapped
stalls; the people who design that stuff must be absolute morons.  Raise
your bed up so you can swing your legs over flat on the floor, with a
piece of pipe or a rope to help you stand up.  With a knee injury you
can usually get about well enough, but getting up and down is the hard
part; a lot more stress on the knee joints than than most people think.

*Standing* in the shower is no problem; getting in and out is, where
you have to balance with one wet foot inside and one wet foot outside.


Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 10:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: GM ALDL stuff
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The street slopes sharply downhill in two directions away from the
-> house also.  I'd probably need to put wheels on the thing if I went



Sean's neighbors look out the window and see a sheet of plywood
levitated by a screaming leaf blower, topped by a flaming vacuum
cleaner, accelerating smoothly down the street...


Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 18:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Heavy Metal
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

One of the theaters in Little Rock played Heavy Metal last night on
their midnight show.  I didn't find out about it until early that
afternoon, but there was no question; I had to go see it.  I saw it at a
drive-in when it came out, and on videotape later, but never on an
indoor screen.  I know the soundtrack by heart; it's in the CD changer
out in the shop.

AB and Felix went with me.  Thirty miles to the UA Four, the 'big
titty' dome with the curved screen.  I watched the other viewers come in
to the theater.  Lots of mid-40s beards, long hair, and even a few
tie-dyed T-shirts.  Some Suits.  About a third of the 40-odd viewers
were in their late teens or early 20s, too young to have seen the movie
when it first came out.  No mohawks, no visible body piercings, no
leather.  And oddly enough for a city that's officially 65% black and
with a sizeable Asian and Hispanic population, 100% white.  Interesting
demographics there.

The movie started... I don't know why, but I had expected a new film.
This one had been played many, many times, with strings, spots, and
flickers, and the sprocket holes were so worn the images jittered
visibly.  Felix claimed the colors were washed out.  Every now and then
scenes jerked where the film had broken and had been spliced.  That was
okay; after the space shuttle bay doors opened and the Corvette dropped
out, none of that mattered.  An hour and forty-five minutes went by in a
flash, and at least half of the viewers sat with us and watched the
credits.

Yes, 20 years of experience in movie-length animation has made manga
technically better, but it was still Heavy Metal, and it kicked ass.

- Dave "Back home, I'm nobody.  But here, I'm Denn!" Williams


Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2001 19:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Late April fool's jokes
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> * Call 911 and ask if 911 is for emergencies.

Back in '86 a moron swung wide making a left turn and hit AB's RX7,
which was sitting innocently on the other side of the red light.  Left
tire tracks on the hood.

In those pre-cellular days you had to get a lift to a phone, leaving
the cars blocking traffic, as it was a misdemeanor to move them.  So I
get to a phone booth and start looking for the police number.  The only
number in the Little Rock phone number is '911', which had just been
introduced.  For anything; there was no other number for *any* police or
fire service, from checking burn bans to checking court dates.  This
persisted in most of the county until just a couple of years ago, when
the police stations decided their numbers didn't need to be unlisted (no
shit!) any more.  During this entire period of time they were running
newspaper and TV ads trying to get people to stop calling 911 to report
stray dogs, etc.  Apparently there was no communication at all between
the "911" people and the ones who made all the other numbers unlisted.

Mo-rons...

- Dave "beam me up, Scotty" Williams


Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 15:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Scrum bag wanted
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> And then Cheap Trick strumms in with "Reach Out".  I was only 16, and
-> still recovering from seeing full frontal cartoon nudity (I liked it)
-> but that scene almost made me fall out of my chair!

There were cheers in the audience on that one.  And I noticed that
the sound level was cranked *way* up through the entire sequence.  Which
was perfectly fine with me.  


Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 15:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Heavy Metal
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Elmer Bernstein.

I *liked* the intermezzos.  I'm disappointed they weren't on the
sountrack.  I also noted at least one song in the credits that wasn't on
the soundtrack.  Bastards.


-> actual film anyway, so print quality comes second to whether the
-> stuff can still feed through the projector without jamming TOO often.

Didn't jam at all this time.  Either I got used to it or the jitter
quit about halfway through the movie.

I remember when I was a kid sometimes they'd have an intermission while
they changed reels.  Either they do it on the fly now or they use longer
films.


-> Time to do it again, methinks!

They've [gag] remade damned near everything else.  Who would they pick
to do a new soundtrack?  BK Master-Slave Flip-Flop, Barky Bark, T-Square
Baaad Duudz?  I'd rather do without.



Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 17:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: LFB 2.5 Visitor
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Nah.... As a bachelor gear head you are entitled to a cluttered
-> house.

I wonder if his cousin is still borrowing Sean's living room to hold
karate classes.  Being awakened by shouted Japanese and bodies hitting
the floor is a novel experience.


Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 06:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Despite New Safety Devices, Fatality Rates Aren't Dropping
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> In fact, study after study shows that drinking, speeding and not
-> wearing a seatbelt are the main factors in fatal crashes, not tippy
-> SUVs, bad tires or defective airbags.

WOW!  Not wearing a seat belt CAUSES crashes?!

I think the bogometer needle is pegged...



Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 06:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Scarlet D
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> putting up an obnoxious sign on the property of someone who should be
-> considered innocent until proven guilty?

"Innocent until proven guilty" doesn't apply to drug, sex crime, or
child abuse accusations in many jurisdictions nowadays.  To be accused
is to be punished; we'll get around to the trial later.  Much later.

Nice people like the DEA have become expert at seizing people's assets
and selling them off *before* conviction - it's okay, they got a law
passed saying they can do that.  Tough shit, buddy, you might as well to
to prison since you don't have anything left outside...

Ask around and you probably *know* someone caught up in the mess of a
child abuse accusation.  All it takes is an anonymous phone call.  And
most of those aren't even handled through the courts; they're handled by
various state and city agencies, which can ruin you for life without you
ever even having the opportunity to prove you're innocent.

We're not living in Nazi Germany yet, but we're making rapid
progress...



Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 18:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: I've decided something...
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> panel switches.  At least that was the way we did it on the old Xerox
-> Sigma 7, the last REAL computer I ever worked on.

A friend of mine works at a large air transport company in Memphis.
They have a dozen FAA-certified flight simulators - full motion
cockpits, barf bags and everything.  Some years ago we went in one night
to play and had to boot the system from cold.  They were Gould minis
running FORTRAN.  To boot them, you knelt on a pad and flipped toggle
switches to set words, then pushed the button to load each word into
core.  It took about ten minutes.

The minis were something like half a million bucks each.  I kept
thinking, "What moron put the switch panel at zipper height?" and "why
doesn't someone plug this bitch into a PC or microcontroller so it can
boot without all this crap?"  Turned out they were usually left running
all the time unless they were down for maintenance or it was a holiday
of more than three days, so it wasn't a big deal.  But it was still
lousy engineering.

Meet me in Memphis sometime and I'll get you a full tour and
personalized instruction in your choice of jumbo jets.  You can buzz the
Pyramid and fly under the I-40 bridge.  Took me three tries to manage it
without clipping the vertical stabilizer off...


Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 10:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: NT fangling help needed
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I guess the rest of us are stuck doing it the old fashioned way -
-> looking under the keyboard.  [big smile]

Richard Feynman's book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" has a long
story about how he occupied spare time at Los Alamos by learning how to
crack safes.  He had an extensive description of what we now call
"social engineering"; peeking over shoulders, looking under blotters,
calling the safe maker and finding out the default combination, etc.

- Dave "Password: root" Williams


Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 10:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: NACA report 11
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> That was a good one.  Thanks for sharing.  All I need now is some of
-> that 'old' gas.  ;-)

There's a snotload of good fangle in those old papers.  Sometimes the
offhand comments are quite interesting, like the ones I quoted.

I'm reading Nikita Khruschev's 'Remembrances' now.  The manuscript was
smuggled out of the USSR and there was considerable doubt as to its
authenticity, which was brought up in the preface.  The translator and
proofreaders eventually decided that, based on testimony and surviving
historical evidence, that the manuscrupt was probably real.

Khruschev wasn't a particularly literate or cultured man even by Soviet
standards, so a lot of his stories were "Yuri and Georgi and Lavrenti
and I think it was Alexi, we were all at Stalin's at one of his
interminable dinners.  Stalin was pissed at Georgi and kept making him
drink vodka until he passed out at the table, but we are all shitfaced
drunk anyway, as usual..."

There are little reference numbers by the names, and down at the bottom
of the page are the proofreader's notes, "Yuri, executed as enemy of the
State, 1938, Georgi, executed as enemy of the State, 1937, Alexi,
executed as enemy of the State, 1938..."  After a while it's almost
funny, every time Khruschev went to the movies, or made a speech, or
attended some function, or went boozing, and he mentions a name, 90% of
the time the footnote reads, "executed..." or "disappeared..." or
something similar.

Hm.  The Terror wasn't a joke, but the whole story of mismanagement and
oppression is so depressing your sense of humor gets twisted if you read
about it long enough...


Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 16:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: geometry and SUV security
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> wants to get the frame and both wheels locked!!!  The
-> parking/graveyards here at ASU are full of the corpses of the
-> partially-locked sickles.

Hmm... for amusement you could find a bike rack near some bushes and
hide out until a perp starts to go for it.  Then come out and break both
arms and legs for them.  I wonder if you could get ASU to pay a bounty?

Thieves are about the lowest form of life.  The "life" part should, in
my opinion, be remedied ASAP.


Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 17:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: -nah, bees/wasps
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> > different poisonous snakes - including the coral snake - yet no one
-> in >
-> > Mississippi has died of snake bite in recorded history.

I have a little travel brochure for Australia.  It says:

Q: "How do I identify poisonous snakes in Australia?"

A: "All Australian snakes are poisonous."

Well, I guess it simplifies things...


Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 17:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Banks suck
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> My dad hit Omaha and made it through the bulge. Fought through the
-> Ardennes forest. Combat Engineers.

At least Eisenhower gave them credit in his otherwise self-serving
book "Crisis In Europe."  The combat engineers were right behind the
scouts, well ahead of the rest of the army.  And since they had work to
do they often went unarmed, they were depending on air cover and
artillery to keep from getting smeared while they were repairing roads
and building bridges.

The CEs got to get their licks in in the Pacific.  When the terrain was
right, the dozer operators would just drop their blades and fill in all
those annoying foxholes and gun emplacements, occupants and all; the
Japs didn't have any small arms that would faze a dozer blade.


Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: other problems
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> My other problem is that I am non-fat.  Sheeit!  What an odd-ball I
-> am. Finding pants in sizes smaller than fat is difficult.

Really?  I need to shop for pants in Arizona, then.  All you can find
here are sizes like 28-36, which would be fine for a stork...

On the rare occasions I find pants big enough, the front is cut so it's
all the way up to me sternum and the back is cut so low half my ass
hangs out.  Or I'll find some with a normal waist, but the crotch hangs
down below my knees.

Shoes also seem to be available only in "regular" and "narrow" and I
wear an EE or EEE.  Maybe next year the Boat From Taiwan will come back
with a load of wide shoes...


Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 15:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Fw: Ford engineers suck!!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I'll throw in the engineer that decided that on the floor was a good
-> place for the window crank on my '97 F150.

Hm.  Yes.

I've driven a number of vehicles where if I wore the stupid strap, the
only things I could reach were the turn signal lever and shifter.  Just
because most people drive around with the seat slid all the way forward
and their chin resting on the steering wheel doesn't mean everyone wants
to drive that way.


Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 08:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Air bombs, furys, etc
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> "Friday the thirteenth";  bad luck?

King Philip of France started the purge of the Knights Templar and
turned them over to the Inquisitors on a Friday the 13th during the
Middle Ages.  I'd give you the exact date, but I can't find my copy of
"Dungeon, Fire, and Sword" at the moment.  The Templars were filthy
stinking rich and Philip was having a hard time with his finances; it's
generally accepted that Philip did it so he could sequester their monies
and properties.  Well, such as he could get his hands on; the purge
spread throughout Europe as other monarchs decided they could use some
extra bucks too.

Philip's action was prompted by greed, but in my opinion it was a good
thing overall.  Imagine what Hitler's SS would have been after 400
years; the Templars would fill the bill nicely.

Anyway, *some* of the Templars were True Believers (each one was
absolved of any sins and guaranteed entrance to Heaven when sworn in)
and swore the Order had been maligned and betrayed (which was
essentially true...) and splinter factions too poor to be squeezed for
their cash turned "Friday the 13th" into a time of mourning.  Over the
years, most people forgot why.  Calendar reforms probably contributed
to the date issue.



Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 07:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: LFB 2.5 report (sat. only)
To: fanglers@gnttype.org

-> It was a quick jibe and was not aimed at you.  Its just when people
-> said that DV was there I am sure that, like me, all those that did
-> not attend but wanted to felt just that little more pissed off than
-> they did already.

  And we intend to rub your face in it forever.  Or at least
until LFB4!

vignette:  Saturday night, after midnight.  A long hard day of
fangling.  A bunch of us are in Sean's TV room watching fangler porn,
otherwise known as Steve's collection of "Junkyard Wars" videos.
By the third tape John "I don't snore" De Armond is "not snoring."
Everyone looked at each other and grinned.  Within five minutes there
are equally loud snores to my left - Steve has slid half off the couch,
snoring peacefully on his back.  Glances are exchanged again.  Shortly
after, there are little puppy noises from the right.  Eric is also
slumped over and snoring.  By this time we're all starting to get that
glazed-eyeball look.  I was going to try to slither away quietly to see
how many of them would still be there snoozing in the morning, but
unfortunately I woke everyone up trying to extricate myself from the
clutches of Sean's couch...


vignette:  Saturday.  Jim Sams and David Vizard have recently arrived,
and a group of us are out in Sean's garage, where Sean is showing Dave
the Suprang.  Dave is on a roll, telling Sean about the evils of
semi-trailing arm IRS and his experiences driving a Ford prototype at
Boreham.  He's looking at the big square hole in the back of the Mustang
and at the Supra rear suspension clip, which is sitting alongside the
Mustang.  It has the Supra's back seat on it, is held up with a
jackstand to keep from tipping over, and some fanglers are using it as a
couch.  Dave tells Sean something along the line of, "The front end
won't be that easy."  Sean says "You're leaning on it."  Dave turns,
notices the different color paint and the welds, and says, "Oh, my."


vignette:  Saturday after dark.  Sean and I are in the back yard while
the others are scarfing pizza in the house.  I'm the only one who
brought a vacuum cleaner, so I win the competition by default.  Or so I
thought.  Sean ran out the garden hose, an extension cord, and one of
those big work lights with two halogen lamps on a pole.  I added iron
filings and magnesium bits to the vacuum bag while Sean cut the top off
a milk jug and filled it with lawnmower gas.  Sean called everyone
outside, flipped the light on while I arranged the tableau, and everyone
waited expectantly, cameras ready, as I stuck the hose in the gasoline,
flipped the switch, and jumped back.  The Hoover made a faint pop (which
was apparently the vacuum bag expanding, as I found no sign of
combustion later) and... nothing.  It snorted the gasoline up in
seconds, and after a few minutes the aroma of cheap unleaded proved the
Hoover was merrily circulating it around its innards.  But no fire.
It was like when Geraldo Rivera opened "Al Capone's Vault."  After a few
minutes we unplugged it.  Dang.  Who would have expected a sealed motor?
I brought it back home to use as a backup shop vac.


vignette:  Thursday, on the way to Seans.  I'm somewhere on I-40 in
eastern Tennessee.  There's a pickup with an open car trailer pulled
over on the shoulder on the westbound lane.  The car is a Dodge Charger
painted up like the General Lee on "Dukes of Hazzard."  A
familiar-looking guy is cranking down on the tiedown straps.  John
Schneider, on his way to the Big Bend speed event that weekend.


vignette:  Friday, getting a ride in Carl's T-type.  Whoosh!


 heh, heh, heh... 



Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 11:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: PC nonsense
To: fanglers@

-> Now, I would have liked to read more about this "subculture
-> urban marketing" bit had the article's writer bothered to maintain a
-> bit of objectivity.

They've been doing that around here for fifteen years or so; at least
that's when I noticed.  Signs in affluent white neighborhoods advertise
automobiles, banks, and hospitals.  Signs in low-income (usually black)
neighborhoods advertise liquor, usually with white women with lots of
cleavage.  Most of the signs there advertise liquor; the remainder
advertise cheap lawyers, MacDonald's, and bail bondsmen.

Signs in middle-income neighborhoods advertise internet service, pickup
trucks, the gas and electric companies (as if there were any choice!),
and TV programs.  There doesn't seem to be any marketing difference due
to race; local middle class neighborhoods tend to be more integrated
than the opposite extremes.

Highly upscale neighborhoods have no billboards at all, probably
because the residents have the clout to keep those ugly eyesores from
going up.

Little Rock has no significant Hispanic population.  Not even Mexicans
want to live in Arkansas...


Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 12:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: MicroShafted again?
To: fanglers@

-> the port number and name of the server and almost instantly gain
-> control of the machine. On May 1, Microsoft published a patch

Microsoft used to claim NT was more secure than any Unix box because it
was a single-vendor OS and they kept all the source code secret.  I
could use this for another Microsoft bash, but the fact is, NT was
originally designed as a single user, non-networked OS, and once any
such OS gets beyond a certain level of complexity, it becomes vulnerable
if there are enough people devoting time to finding ways to crack it.
NT is now much like Unix; the core OS is fairly secure, but its bundled
applications may not always be.

Mainframe OSs tend to be much less vulnerable since security and usage
tracking were designed into them from the beginning, a legacy from the
days when every CPU clock cycle was billable.  Of course, in many such
installations nobody bothers to set up passwords... 


Date: Fri, 04 May 2001 18:18:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: twee
To: fanglers@

-> And here I thought it was what a faggot would say sheds leaves in the
-> autumn---

I thought a "faggot" was a small piece of wood used for starting fires,
and a "fag" was Brit slang for a cigarette...

What pisses me off is how the ADA gimps have managed to redefine chunks
of English to suit themselves.  They babble about "accessible"; they
mean "accessible by wheelchair", but they've managed to get their
version recognized by law.

"Of *course* it's accessible, fuckstick - if you want to know if it has
wheelchair ramps, say 'wheelchair ramps'".

Another thing that bothers me... a few years ago Arkansas put up lots
of signs on offramps saying "EXIT ONLY".  This year I saw them all over
Tennessee and North Carolina too.  I'm not sure what "EXIT ONLY" means.
At first I thought it meant the lane drifted off with the ramp, but it
doesn't, since lots of the lanes just keep on going.  Besides, if they
meant the lane was ending, why not say "LANE ENDS", which is the same
number of characters and not as cryptic?

- Dave "mystified" Williams


Date: Sat, 05 May 2001 23:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: the 100 year ride . . .
To: fanglers@

-> I have transcended, through reading about 45 of the Lucas-approve
-> star wars books.  Yes, Solo made the kessel run in a short distance -
-> by mucking about with a black hole

Ballocks.  Dead-trees-version revisionism years after the movie was
released, when even Lucas realized that some people knew a "parsec" was
a measure of distance, not time.

L. Neil Smith did the three Lando Calrissian spinoff books.  I always
got a kick out of the consignment of "tinklewood fishing poles" that
were aboard the Falcon when he got it, and his inability to sucker
anyone into taking them.  ref: "The Witches of Karres" by James Schmitz,
there the protagonist apparently had that very same consignment and
problem...


Date: Sun, 06 May 2001 22:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: David V
To: fanglers@

-> soon now'.  (We have all read of lots of things coming!:  I was
-> promised a Picture Phone, back in the 1960's, and 40 years later, I
-> still can't get it . . . )

Who'd want such a thing?  I've actually seen women check their makeup
before they'd pick up the phone already...  At least with audio only you
can do something while talking; with a picture phone you'd wind up
having to look at the caller 'to be polite'.



Date: Tue, 08 May 2001 08:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: sittin' here playin' with my nice hard...
To: fanglers@

-> Berylium is a deadly poison, yes.

Lots of things are poisonous.  Phosphorus and sodium are not only
toxic but pyrophoric, yet your body is full of both, as they're
absolutely vital for your cellular chemistry.

You wouldn't want to snort beryllium dust, but a chunk isn't going to
crawl off the table and go after your innocent quivering flesh like
something out of a '50s horror movie, either.


Date: Tue, 08 May 2001 14:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Retreat of Vikings from Greenland
To: fanglers@

-> NUUK, Greenland  The fate of Greenland's Norse colonies has endured
-> as a human mystery ever since the last Scandinavians vanished from

I don't understand why this is such a mystery to concern so many
people.  All the European cultures were very centralized; the English
once tried to trade all of North America to the Spanish for clear and
unimpeded access to Bermuda, which was considered much more valuable at
the time.  The Spanish weren't interested, being in the process of
withdrawing from their New World holdings and heading back to Europe
themselves.

Not to mention the many English and French colonies in the New World
that either simply died out or packed and went home after a few years...
I suspect many of them simply weirded out when they realized they could
look around the room and see all the people that existed within a three
month trip.  Natives didn't count, of course.


Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 12:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: compressed air boost
To: fanglers@

-> Is the carb inlet being sealed off from the atmosphere while the
-> pressurized air is being used?
->
-> If not, what keeps the air/fuel mixture from being blown out the top
-> of the carb when you activate the high pressure stuff?

In the words of Flip Wilson, "what you see is what you get."

Do people assume I clip out interesting factoids just to fuck with
them, or what?  If there had been any other facts in the article, I
would have included them.  I get enough of this type of message for it
to piss me off.

- Dave "What part of 'I don't know' is difficult?" Williams



Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 20:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Compressed air boost
To: fanglers@

-> My first job out of college was designing inflation systems for
-> aircraft escape slides.

A friend of mine works in a flight sim shop.  They also have a ditching
trainer, where you climb out the window and go down the slide to the big
air bag.  The trainer is highly popular with techs and visitors, to the
point where the slide and bag have to be replaced regularly due to
wear...


Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 09:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: trailer trash
To: fanglers@

-> I noticed kids toys in several shots.  That implies they're
-> breeding...marvelous.

Of course they breed!  They're PAID to breed - you can't get Welfare,
Aid For Dependent Children, food stamps, or any of society's other
freebies unless you have a passle of snot-gobblers.

Your tax dollars at work!



Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 17:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Derringers (Was: fanglers-digest V1 #2971)
To: fanglers@

-> I know derringers have a poor reputation, but it is not clear to me
-> if that is inherent in the design or if most of them are just poorly
-> made.

The ones I've encountered were all poorly made.  Someone probably makes
or has made some decent ones, but they're all firearms of last resort -
if they shoot more than a half dozen times throughout their life, the
manufacturer could justifiably claim that's all they were intended to
do.


-> I've handled have been single-action (cock hammer then pull trigger).

Besides cost, there's simplicity and reliability.  Consider how a
derringer gets carried - pocket lint and McNuggets aren't compatible
with complicated linkages.


-> Does anyone make a derringer that doesn't need to be cocked?

If you intend to carry it around, peruse the gun and pawn shops and
check out some of the old pre-'70s pocket pistols.  There were lots of
small, easily pocketable autoloaders made in Germany, Belgium, and Spain
in 7.62 Luger, 9mm Kurz (.380 ACP), .32 ACP, and a couple of odd .30
calibers.  The Gun Control Act of 1968 lowered the boom on imported
pocket pistols, and few American manufacturers made anything that small.
Also check out revolvers, even if you don't really like revolvers.
Shape has more to do with comfortable carry than size, and it doesn't
matter how great your pistol is if it's in the glove compartment or back
at home because it's a pain in the ass to lug around.  By modern
standards all of those pocket pistols use popgun cartridges, but in some
circumstances any pistol is better than bare hands.


A friend of mine did an end-run around the whole issue and carries a
regular .40 in a DayTimer.  We found it in a gun shop for something like
$35; it's a real DayTimer with a shaped hard pocket for a pistol.  Since
Felix's DayTimer and Visor follow him around like his socks, it's always
there if he needs it, yet he can just leave it locked in the car if he
goes somewhere where CCW isn't permitted.  Which is half of everywhere,
around here.


Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 18:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: hall of shame
To: fanglers@

I tried to get some information from Wills about their sealing rings.
I filled out their tedious web form, which netted me an apparently
automated reply from a Mary somebody.  I've sent a couple of follow-up
messages to that address, no response.

I called PRD, which makes carbon fiber pushrods.  Turns out their main
product is (at least now) golf clubs.  Their telephone number is a
voicemail-fuck-off machine.  I left messages for several people, then
hit their web site and got email addresses for others.  No response.

I called Lunati to ask about some custom pistons.  Got a tele-fuck
machine there, too.  Left voicemail.  No response.

Typical shit, but it PISSES ME OFF.  Why have a storefront, telephone,
salesmen, and a web site if you don't want to sell anything?

Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 20:19:16 -0400


Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 10:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Hy Tech Performance
To: fanglers@

-> 351W, or 351-converted 5.ohliter?  (Just what are "ohliters",
-> anywayhowover???)

I just got finished putting the pistons back in John's 525.  Each
*cylinder* displaces more than a whole Geo Metro engine!  8.6 of those
'litter' thangs.

Now if the freeze plug kit will ever get here, I can turn the crate
over to the not-so-tender mercies of the freight company again...


Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 10:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Derringers (Was: fanglers-digest V1 #2971)
To: fanglers@

-> little .22 LR myself.  But all the "experts" seem to agree that a .22
-> lacks immediate stopping power, despite its high velocity and good

Even the .44 Magnum lacks "immediate stopping power" by some people's
definitions.  There are lots of people out there who have been shot with
one who are still walking around.

Lots of muzzle energy is good, but managing your situation and placing
your shots properly counts for more.  Against a really determined or
doped-out assailant you need more firepower than you're likely to be
hauling around in an easily concealed weapon.



Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 15:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: stupid advertising
To: fanglers@

-> play any more.  I'd like to be able to buy shoes that don't
-> make me look gay...

Shoe-buying has become a major trial.  I want black.  I'll put up with
dark brown under protest.  I *might* consider gray.  Unfortunately,
anything that comes close to being comfortable is striped with white,
pink, orange, purple, mauve, lavender, and probably ultraviolet.  One of
these days I'll be out there on the back porch with a pair of ugly shoes
and a can of Krylon...


Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 15:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: OOPIC and RPM
To: fanglers@

-> I am currently designing a set of classes to run on a Java chip that
-> we are about to develop...

Is something burning?

"Captain, I sense... the spirits of UCSD Pascal and the Lilith
microprocessor, returned to haunt us..."

- Dave "nothing like a dedicated processor for platform-independent
  code!" Williams


Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 15:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: OOPIC and RPM
To: fanglers@

-> Maybe.  But if you're going to work on shared projects, and swap
-> around those "trivial" programs, having the object abstractions could
-> possibly be a significant help.

Mm.  Abstraction is great... up to a point.  Past that abstraction and
obfuscation become hard to differentiate.  The OOPIC is well into the
obfuscation zone.


-> Still, most people seem to
-> model worse than they program, which is saying something.

I've never actually seen anyone in Real Life(tm) model a program.
They're all such bad-ass hotrod programmers they don't need comments,
subroutines, flowcharts, documentation, or even a soiled paper napkin
with semi-legible ballpoint scribblings describing whatever it is they
were supposed to be working on... madly going nowhere, under the rigid
control of Microsoft(R) SourceSafe(tm) and this week's trendy software
metrics...

- Dave "square peg" Williams


Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 15:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: British Politics
To: fanglers@

-> same parcel of land to two different parties! Oh there's more, like
-> 500 years of it! Norm-pissing-on-Cromwell's-grave-Murdock

I can just see Hitler and his General Staff trying to decide when to
implement Operation Sea Lion (the invasion of England).

Hitler: "Looks good.  Hit them Thursday at 0400; we ought to have
everything wrapped up by Monday."

Doenitz, Goering, Manstein in unison:  "Jawohl, mein Fuehrer!"

Hess: "But mein Fuehrer... those islands... they're full of
*Englishmen!*  Besides, the weather in England sucks."

Hitler: "Hmm.  Piss on it, then.  Go ahead and ramp up for Barbarossa."



Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 16:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: OOPIC and RPM
To: fanglers@

-> getting it.  I think it must be the same guys who came up with the SI
-> bastardization who came up with this object crap.

No, there's nothing really wrong with objects per se.  They're just
like functions in Pascal or modules in Modula.  Or, hell, the "printf"
object in K&R C - just stuff in the variables, turn the handle, and
stuff comes back puree'd to spec.

It took me literally years to realize that "objects" really don't
exist; the whole paradigm (note: "paradigm" and "objects" are almost
always mentioned together) was just a backhanded way of trying to entice
the "whole program as one honking big loop" guys into at least
pretending to modularize their code.  So they took subroutines, filed
off the serial numbers, buffed up the paint, and remarketed them as
"objects" - a whole different paradigm!  New and improved!


-> Oh sure they do.  Just go here: http://www.oopic.com/mech.htm.  See
-> that little memory chip?  Now go to the motorola site and look that
-> chip up.  See how easy that is?  About as easy as OOPs.

Frankly, I'm starting to get discouraged with the OOPIC.  It looks like
a really nifty piece of hardware (Charles, I appreciare the loan of it!)
but I'm already tired of fighting their documentation and I haven't even
blocked out any code yet.

What I want is something like the OOPIC - 32 or 64 Kb of RAM so I can
use a bloated high level language like C or BASIC, two or three channels
of 8 or 10 bit A/D, a couple of digital gazintas, a couple of digital
gazoutas, some means of handling interrupts, and a moderate resolution
timer, say 1ms.  Something I don't have to buy a "development
environment" for, or a $500 compiler, and that I can download code to
via a serial or parallel port instead of burning EPROMs.  The BASIC
Stamp just isn't quite enough to do the job, but it wouldn't take a
whole *lot* more...


Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 18:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: OOPIC and RPM
To: fanglers@

-> implementation, or from design/architecture changes being made from
-> the bottom up because of implementation difficulties.

I could see wholesale design changes or implementation problems back in
ancient times, when software was new and language implementations tended
to be more academic than practical.  But now... 90% of all software is
communications, database, editing, or graphics in varying percentages,
plus glue to stick it all together.  Not that I'm always against
reinventing the wheel, but it's been done often enough to predict how
long it might reasonably take to write any particular type of program.

There's no excuse for designing yourself into a hole, then inventing
totally imaginary goal charts for plotting your progress.


-> software completely, all the way down to the module level.

The smaller the modules, the least affect a problem with one can have
on the whole project.  If your local talent flat can't do the job, you
can always toss it to a hired gun... *if* you have a good module spec
and some idea how you're going to test it.

I fully understand, having been in the situation, how sometimes
political realities mean you have to start writing code before you have
a good specification, and that other political decisions can mean
strangeness in program design.  But that's no excuse for fantasy-land
scheduling and 80-hour weeks.  It didn't work for the USSR, and it
seldom works for software development.


-> But what do I know?  I've only been doing this stuff for 20 years.
-> I'm not MANAGEMENT.

In the words of various ancient programmers, "It's like deja vu all
over again!"


Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 18:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: OOPIC and RPM
To: fanglers@

-> You know you can program the OOPic in C, right?

Uh, no, you can't program the OOPIC in C.  Nor can you program it in
Visual BASIC or Java, despite the links on the web site to microsoft.com
and sun.com language definitions.

The OOPIC's GUI is a token generator (best as I can tell) that lets you
arrange OOPIC objects (tokens) according to a *subset* of VB, Java, or
C.  From what the docs indicate, only the most basic language structures
are used - define a variable, make a loop, break out of a loop, test a
variable.

That's okay; I can see where the OOPIC designer(s) wanted newbie
nose-ring "visual" programmers to get the warm fuzzies, but without a
little more knowlege of the hardware under there, the OOPIC is just a
curiosity to me now.


Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 21:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: British Politics
To: fanglers@

-> Makes me wonder: which country first outlawed the pistol duel?
-> --

Aaron Burr blowing away Alexander Hamilton may have been the pinnacle
of American government in action...

Burr got really bad press over that, since the press were mostly
pro-Hamilton, and didn't mention it was Burr's first duel, while
Hamilton had blown away quite a few people.  It wasn't until *much*
later (the 1980s, in fact) that the Smithsonian X-rayed Hamilton's
pistols, which were used in the duel, and found they had 'set' triggers.
When pulled normally they worked normally.  If someone pushed the
trigger slightly forward first, the gun would go off if you breathed on
it hard, sort of like John's .308.  Most of Hamilton's duels were fought
with his own pistols, and most of Hamilton's opponents discharged
prematurely, letting Hamilton pop them at his leisure.

In his last duel, it was Hamilton who was left standing there with a
cloud of smoke and a surprised look.  Burr, having the good sense not to
play around with the trigger on someone else's pistol until he was ready
to fire, took Hamilton down easily.


Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 07:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: pocket pistols
To: fanglers@

-> Based on this table and my own preferences, the North American Arms
-> Guardian .380 looks good to me.  Any comments or experience with this
-> gun or others from North American Arms?

Before you purchase, check out your holster options for that particular
pistol.  The semirigid nylon sock holsters fit almost anything, but
they're bulky and not good on the gun's surface finish, if you care
about that.  Once you sweat all over it for a year or two the finish is
going to be history anyway...

I like the press-formed thinwall hard leather holsters if they're
available to match my pistol and carry position.  If you're inclined
toward corpulence as many fanglers are, your options for carry position
become limited to small-of-the-back or (if practical) an pocket liner
holster.  Shoulder rigs are comfortable, but the straps are a problem
unless you wear a jacket, and if you're wearing a jacket, you can stick
the pistol almost anywhere.

At one particular low point of my life I worked as a security guard to
make enough money to pay my rent.  I learned about how a conventional
hip holster will destroy car seats, get caught on stair railings, and
when one gets snarled in an office armchair, the resulting antics would
be worthy of videotape... if it was happening to someone else.

A proper holster is *almost* as important as the pistol itself - if
it's miserable to carry the pistol, you probably won't, at which point
you might as well have saved your money and blown it on car parts.


Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 00:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Fw: sittin' here playin' with my nice hard...
To: fanglers@

-> And those people that started before that? They should get damages.
-> The companies that lie should be fined and forced to pay those
-> damages.

Those danged American Indians hooked those poor innocent Europeans
pretty hard on the tobacco habit by the 1600s.  They didn't even have
product liability back then.

Smoking spread worldwide by the 1800s.  Finally, after 350 years, some
people started deciding it might be bad for you.  Close to 400 years
later court decisions are being handed against "Big Tobacco" by US
courts.

Sorry, people.  400 years of product usage predates the United States
and English Common Law as we now recognize it.  Tobacco and smoking are
what the insurance companies would call "preexisting conditions" of
modern society.

Smoking is bad for you; sue the tobacco companies into the ground.
Beer is bad for you.  Sue the beer companies.  Cars kill people; sue the
automakers.  Guns.  Coffee.  Tampons.  Hell, sue everyone for any damned
thing; you're bound to win eventually in the Courtarena...

We don't have the Coliseum Channel yet, but we have a shitload of "true
court" TV shows, the next best thing to gladiatorial combat.  Lots of
fun as long as they're not goring your particular ox that episode.



Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 00:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: "Shoot The Engineer"
To: fanglers@

-> It's really pathetic how most companies are run.

I've thought much the same.  Like "How the hell can these bozos stay in
business?"

Answer:  They usually don't.

The really weird thing is, you'd expect that companies that are
topheavy with ex-military people, who have mostly have several schools
in management, would at least know the basics of management.  In
practice, when the military geeks take off their uniforms, they
instantly revert back to the same clueless assholes they were when they
signed in.



Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 16:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: sittin' here playin' with my nice hard...
To: fanglers@

> > -> I'm amazed that even sheople allowed the seizure laws to be
> enacted. > -> Bruce

-> >  Nobody voted on those laws; the incumbents did it all by
-> themselves.

->> So the incumbents voted themselves into office?.   Sorry, it doesn't
->> work that way,  the sheople voted them in and kept them in.
->> Bruce

Sorry, Bruce, it *does* work that way.  No matter who voted the bozos
in, they do as they damned well please once they're there.  Voting them
back out doesn't undo what they've done; once something like a seizure
law goes into place, the bureaucracy has a vested interested in seeing
that it stays there, no matter what candidates might promise while on
the campaign trail.


Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 09:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: sittin' here
To: fanglers@

-> script.  About the only thing that DIDN'T surprise me was that they
-> didn't plant some dope.  I imagine that their youth and inexperience

Why would they want to plant dope?  The paperwork on a drug bust is no
fun at all; just the Federal forms are enough to deter the boys in blue
from making any more busts than they have to.

It was a slow night, not much going on, so they were making themselves
some entertainment and picking up a few souvenirs.  When they were tired
of it, they let you go.

Just a little innocent fun on the graveyard shift, hassling the yokels.
The shift supervisor doesn't care, the Chief doesn't care, the mayor
doesn't care, it's all cool, no problem.  Just make sure there's nobody
videotaping you...



Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 08:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: sittin' here playin' with my nice hard...
To: fanglers@

-> And they reason they continualy do it, is because they get away with
-> it. *WE* let them,  if they were held accountable then the act would
-> change. Trouble is not enough people really make an effort to change
-> a damn thing. You can blame it on *them*,  I'll blame the sheople.
-> The herd effect is in full bloom.

"We" is a squishy term.  I vote against the worst moron.  I could give
up my life and devote my free time to political activism, but frankly,
I'm not that upset about things-as-they-are yet.

About the only way I, personally, can hold a politician accountable for
his actions is to adopt the same method used by John Wilkes Booth, Lee
Harvey Oswald, and others.  Other than whining and sending nasty
letters, of course.  I admit there are times when climbing a tower
starts looking awfully good, but I'm not there yet.


Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 09:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Fw: sittin' here playin' with my nice hard...
To: fanglers@

-> That's an out of context quote followed by a (an elegant) support
-> argument tangential to the main point in question:

That's because I was more interested in expounding my point than in
commenting on yours.  


-> "Did the tobacco companies Lie when the truth about health problems
-> with their product became known to them?"

I think it's quite likely.  But what of it?  The President lies.
People lie under oath in court.  People in general lie their asses off.
I've been lied to so much I believe very little of what I hear or read.


-> If you think they did, then should they be fined for that activity?

Nobody else seems to get fined for it; why single the tobacco companies
out for special punishment?


Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 09:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Shoot The Engineer"
To: fanglers@

-> If you cant come to terms with what has evolved to meet the needs
-> left by C and assembler, and the lack of design then its time to quit
-> your job and stick to making bows and arrows and fire lighters for
-> when all this new fangled technology goes wrong.

There are still a few jobs left for the assembler geeks.  Network,
video, embedded processor stuff... the good ones are hired guns who pick
and choose who they work for, when they work, and name their own price.


-> OO has EVOLVED from industrial strength coding.  NOT from Marketing,
-> which is an epithet that people like you use to damn without a decent
-> discussion, and has proven itself many times.

Encapsulation was a normal large-project technique.  "Object
orientation" is marketing, pure and simple.  The magic bullet, the
solution to all our problems, the means to make the trains run on
time... er, met project deadlines.  OO for the sake of OO is a waste of
effort and time; no tool fits every problem.


-> Come back when you have read the subject, and have used it for a few
-> projects.

I've finished and been paid for quite a few projects in Object Pascal.
It was the right tool for those jobs.  Other projects, I used other
tools.  More than once, the tool was used not because it was the right
tool, but because it was the only thing we had that'd run on that
particular box and management was too cheap to spring for a compiler,
though we got new office furniture we didn't need...


Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 15:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Shoot The Engineer"
To: fanglers@

-> speed is needed in Java I drop down to native code sometimes
-> assembler - this is not a terrible thing because if you guard it
-> correctly the code you write is still encapsulated in the object.

And there's not a thing wrong with that.


-> This is a circular agument you are never going to agree with me and I
-> am never going to agree with you.
...
-> Well could you conceed the point

Never!  Net discussions don't have to be logical, just dogmatic!

What's the use of having a closed mind if you open it up and let new
crap in?



Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 15:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Shoot The Engineer"
To: fanglers@

-> > (and you can do assembly programing by candle light..)

> With an automatic pencil and graph paper  (I use a 0.5mm Pentel with
> H2 leads)

Flow charts!  Code diagrams!

I used a .3mm Pentel for a while, but I kept breaking the leads off.
H3 leads give you a darker line than H2s.


For my forthcoming web site expansion I will be posting a lot of
drawings via DaveCAD.  DaveCAD is a low-cost design system consisting of
a child's wide-lined writing tablet and a small box of Crayola brand
crayons.  After running the pages through the laser printer to generate
title blocks, I'll make the drawings freehand and scan them in.


Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 18:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: short story
To: fanglers@

Some years ago I read a short story about a guy who invented a device
to look into the past - even the past nanoseconds ago.  The story ended
with the inventor contemplating suicide as he realized that there would
never be such a thing as personal privacy again.

I just finished "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur Clarke and Stephen
Baxter, 2000.  It's basically that short story expanded into novel
length.  At the end they give credit several short stories only vaguely
related to the book... but they don't mention the one that I remember.
I *think* it was one of Asimov's from the 1950s, but I don't have much
of Asimov's fiction, and it's not among what I have.

Anyone remember a short story from the 1940s or 1950s with that plot?



Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 20:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Fw: Automatic shotguns
To: fanglers@

-> And every one knows that British Engineers do things the best way.
-> Yes a box magazine can be made to work. If all you have is a rimmed
-> cartridge to work with then that's what you do.

In the early days most cartridges were rimmed.  That was because most
cartridges used a self-locking taper (the designers evidently didn't
realize that...) and would stick mightily to the chamber when fired.
The big rim gave the extractor better purchase to yank the sumbitch out
of there.  That's one reason why the M98 Mauser's non-rotating extractor
was such a big deal.  When you absolutely, positively have to extract
the old round and chamber a new one, these things are important.
Particularly if you don't want someone to blow your ass away while
you're tinkering with a case extractor.


->  My .357 semi-auto has a box magazine
-> but it's complicated and hard to load. I can only put 6 rounds into

Desert Eagle or one of the old Coonan 1911-variants?  A friend's .44
Desert Eagle is no harder to load than any other autoloader; just push
the cartridges in until the magazine is full.


-> Of course I've never owned an Enfield due to the rear locking lugs on
-> the bolt.

Lots of guns have rear locking lugs.  The short-throw-bolt types get
all excited about it.  However, when I was drawfiling my Mk4 prior to
refinishing, I made a horrifying discovery - the receiver was CAST IRON!
Fine black dust with each stroke of the file.  I refinished it and got
rid of it in a hurry.


-> at the gunshop but the .303 rounds for it were generally not
-> available surplus so I never considered one as a bargain.

Every K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and gun shop has commercial .303, and you can
buy big Spam cans of surplus .303 out of Shotgun News.  .303 was still
one of the top ten commercial rifle cartridges last I heard.  Besides,
it's cheaper to load your own anyway...


-> surplus lately so that may have changed. Can the Enfield be loaded
-> with stripper clips?

Yep, but why would you want to dink around with stripper clips?  The
Royal Army just carried filled magazines, like the US Army does for
M-16s.  Shitloads of surplus .303s were imported here after WWII, but
it's rare to see just the magazines, though.



Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 14:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: riding in the big city;  A and T
To: fanglers@

-> Should be illegal for anyone over 16 to ride one anywhere but in
-> their own yard. The fucking things are nothing more than a hazard and
-> an annoyance.

If they ride them on the street, they ought to have to obey the same
laws as motorcycles - helmet and crash bars if applicable, headlight
wired on all the time, turn signals, brake light, front and rear brakes,
horn, title, registration, insurance, and property tax.  And they should
have to obey the goddamned rules of the road; just because they're
pedaling doesn't mean they have the right to dart out in traffic, make
unsignaled turns, or weave in and out between cars.

Most motorcycle deaths happen below 30mph and within 3 miles of home; I
bet that applies even more to the "healthy" bicyclists.


Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 14:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Shoot The Engineer"
To: fanglers@

-> The answer of how to connect up events inside the program.

I think I remember that one.  Long message about polling at 2x or more
of the expected event rate.  Nothing wrong with your code, but it was
no good without at least *some* idea of the latency I might expect from
the firmware.

I did the numbers for polling when I had Sean's Stamp here.  By a few
thousand RPM it would have been saturated just polling for RPM signals.
Is the OOpic faster than a Stamp?  They won't say.


->  Lets just
-> forget it we aint gonna see eye-to-eye on this and we never will.

Charging off writing software when you have no clue as to the hardware
it will run on isn't exactly an efficient way to write code no matter
what methodology you subscribe to.

Gordon Letwin of Microsoft didn't bother to read the Intel 80286 docs
very closely and didn't notice there was no official method to drop the
chip from protected mode back to real mode; Microsoft's losses probably
ran into the hundreds of millions of dollars before they wrote off their
losses on Operating System/2.

Microsoft could afford it; the time I would have to spend trying to
find the limits of the OOpic would have to come out of the time I spend
trying to make enough money to keep the bills paid.  It's not an OOP
issue; it's that the bozos who made and documented the OOpic did a
shit-lousy job of documenting the thing.

- Dave "rape, pillage, *then* burn" Williams



Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 15:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "Shoot The Engineer"
To: fanglers@

-> I am a fan of many of the more intelligent aspects of OO methods,
-> like front-loading your development (spending proper time on
-> requirements, analysis and design instead of lab hacking) and
-> providing good tools for abstraction.

Those methods go all the way back to programming the ENIAC in machine
code.

It's basic programming.  Hell, it's basic problem solving, not just
programming.  But it comes back as part of every new methodology.  Not
that the new method is any better, but because you wind up with too many
hack'n'slash code slingers writing crap that costs you money in the long
run.  So you sugar-coat basic problem solving as "new paradigm" and try
to get all the ducks herded in more or less the same direction... for a
while, anyway.

Structured programming can be taken to extremes; I've seen (but
thankfully haven't worked in) shops where the majority of time was taken
up with company-standard commenting and formatting, hierarchical code
libraries, layers of approval for every piece of code... it's shops like
that who are proud to meet the old standard of "ten lines of code per
day."  *Sometimes* you need that kind of control; damning an entire
project to that kind of micromanagement is a recipe for failure.


The other factor is, it's *management* that writes the checks for fancy
new systems, not (usually) the programmers.  I had a rather major run-in
with that while developing some code for an ex-employer.  They wanted it
written in 32-bit Delphi 2, current at the time.  I explained to them
that Delphi 2 binaries would only run on Windows 95 or NT machines...
but 3/4 of their installed base was Windows 3.1, *and* almost all of
those machines were in other departments or belonged to customers.
There was much puffing and breast-beating then, "let them upgrade!" and
so forth.  So I agreed to do it in Delphi 2... and delivered the code in
16-bit Delphi 1.  By then the 32-bit manager had moved on, nobody
remembered the compiler selection incident, and as I had the only copy
of the program specification (funny how that happened...) it ran on all
the target systems and met spec.


Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 20:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: New Car!
To: fanglers@

-> Well, it seemed so -- appropriate.  Ode to Joy at 95 is something to
-> be experienced.

Next, try Alan Parsons' "Hyper-gamma-spaces" off his 'Pyramid' album.
If it had been written when Kubrick did the Orange, it would certainly
have been part of the sound track.

- Dave "ah, the visions!" Williams


Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 21:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: stupid advertising
To: fanglers@

-> sure.  To me, almost every actor is a non-entity;  I basically just
-> fail to recognize their existences.  Why would I care?  Yeah, yeah,
-> the character

I stopped in Memphis and watched "The Matrix" on Jay's DVD player on
the way back from LFB3.  Very interesting movie.  Last weekend AB and I
were visiting some people locally and she got to see the movie.  (What,
sit around and *talk* all evening?)

The vision-of-the-future the plot line was dependent on was so bogus it
was laughable, but the rest of the movie was pretty good.  Decent camera
angles, not much overzooming, no dribbling the camera like a basketball.
Most of the characters were believable, and continuity was excellent.

The kicker, though, was watching the guy who played Morpheus.  Fishman?
Fishburn?  I'm pretty sure I've never seen him before.  The guy is an
actor like Jack Palance or John Colicos - he *owned* every scene he was
in, even if he was just standing in the background doing nothing in
particular.  The "star" (Keanu Reeves?) made little impression on me the
first time I saw the movie.  The second time I realized he wasn't bad,
he was just so badly outclassed by Fishburn that he was overshadowed.

- Dave "this will feel a little weird" Williams


Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 08:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Cash cow
To: fanglers@

-> just into things for the money, ya ya, I know wake up Bruce.   Damn
-> just what is going on?.   Is the whole f*ckin world just wrapped so
-> tight about the dollar bill?.

Money is power.  More money is more power.  Too many people are power
junkies.


-> Anyone care for a used *spy plane*?.
-> Parked in China at the moment.
-> Some assembly required.

The Chinese are doing pretty good, intelligence-wise.  First they had a
free hand for years in US nuclear research centers, then they get a free
spy plane literally dropped in their lap.  There are probably some happy
campers in Peking.


Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 10:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: stupid advertising
To: fanglers@

-> DVD players are great.  They're cheap (unless you get a techno-weed
-> up your ass), and the software can be found cheap if you want to buy.
-> More and more are being added to the rental stream, too.

We just got the VCR fixed after it got whacked by lightning.  Not that
I have any desire to see any more VHS tape now... who would have
expected crappy low-resolution NTSC video could look so good?  I'd
always thought "broadcast quality" was as good as it got.  DVD rocks!


-> Laurence/Lawrence/Larry Fishburne.  He's a cool dude.  Been in lots
-> of shit; I'm surprised you didn't recognize him (despite your
-> anti-Toob stance).  Sheeit, he was in _Apocalypse Now_ for crying out

I recognized a couple of the *names* of movies he'd been in, but I
haven't seen any of them other than about 15 minutes total of
"Apocalypse Now" back when it came out.


We also watched John Carpenter's remake of "The Thing."  I realized two
things:  Kurt Russell is a one-character actor, and the movie sucked so
bad I was getting fidgety.  Gratuitous changes from Campbell's short
story or the Arness movie, yeah, I expected that.  Fancy special
effects, yeah.  But too much of it didn't make sense; a whole cabinet
full of rifles?  Why?  To protect themselves against killer penguins?
Other than weeds, is there anything else alive in Antarctica?  *Two*
flamethrowers?  What the hell would you need a flamethrower for in an
Antarctic research station, anyway?  And I loved the way they just
yanked all the information they needed about the alien and its life
cycle right out of their ass, with a little help from a 40-column text
mode PC...  they go outside after a supposed snowstorm and the snow is
churned up with footprints, continuity problems like that all the way
through.  And somehow they managed to completely avoid any suspense;
how, I'm not exactly sure.  Ho-hum, the monster got another one.  Is it
over yet?  Oh?  Finally?  The monster got them all.  Okay, it's over
now...



Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 14:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: very sad
To: fanglers@

-> Folks can't raise a dog, and yet have kids, figure that one out Bruce

Lots of places in the USA you have to buy a license to keep a dog, but
they'll pay you to have kids.

Somehow, despite being ass-deep in the things, the attitude persists
that children are rare and precious and valuable.  They're not; children
are what you get if you don't take precautions...

- Dave "Soylent Green" Williams


Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 07:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Bad Times Virus alert
To: fanglers@

-> expecting company.It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your
-> Nair with Rogaine,

I remember Nair commercials from when I was a kid.  In context, I can
guess what Rogaine is supposed to do...

... but it sure sounds like the name of a product you'd purchase to
alleviate "that itching, burning sensation" mentioned by the ad for a
preparation described by a single letter.


Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 23:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Stop and Rob
To: fanglers@

-> > It's my opinion if push came to shove, these silly regulations and
-> > procedures would be dumped for the common good.

> Of course they would.

I really don't know.  I don't think it's undue cynicism, either.  The
EPA types have one hell of a power structure in the government; hell,
they've turned "environment" into something uncomfortably close to a
State religion and they're teaching it in the schools, with remedials in
the workplace, and their Gestapo-type enforcers to see everyone toes the
line.

A lot would depend on how the power structure was arranged at the time,
but consider this:  we're starting to see politicians elected who have
grown up with environmentalism all their lives, and it's like a big
blind spot where they're programmed never to think closely about
anything related to the buzzwords.  Most people really *are* stupid
enough to cut off their nose to spite their face; cutting off someone
else's nose they'll do without a second thought.  Your nose, perhaps.


I read a novel once where the USA lost a war because the Pentagon
couldn't get launch authorization for their antimissile missiles.  That
authorization, due to feel-good politics, had to come via the EPA, who
denied permission because "it might damage the ozone layer."  It was the
kind of fiction that makes your skin crawl, because it's way too
possible for it to become reality.



Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 00:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Damn government
To: fanglers@

-> the government's view the computer is always right.  If the computer
-> shows him as not being disabled, then he can't possibly be.  Not good
-> enough to show 'em his discharge papers or the handful of
-> shrapnel or his medical records.  Nooooo.  Bastards.

Maybe Kemper can tell us the story of the state of, what was it,
Connecticut? and his Mississippi driver's license.

It's easy to blame the computers, but it's just gigo.  The problem is
microspecialization and micromanagement - everyone is just a clerk,
nobody has any *authority* to determine and/or correct mistakes, so
every glitch turns into a major clusterfuck.

Did you ever wonder why fast food places and chain restaurants will let
customers stand out in the rain while someone stands inside with the
key, checking his watch, waiting for 11:00:00 before he'll unlock the
damned door and let them in?  Because that's what Corporate HQ's rules
say, and the local "manager" has absolutely no authority to do
*anything* on his own - all he's there for is to collect time cards,
hire new employees (if the chain has more than a couple of stores in the
area they'll probably do that from one central location, though), and
make sure everyone shows up; for this, he gets an extra buck an hour or
so.  Anyone (hopefully) with any brains would notice, "oh, we have
people showing up here at 9 AM to open, we have enough customers to at
least break even by 10 AM, why not open at 10?"  or even "it's quarter
to 11, we're not serving yet, but we can at least let them come in, sit
down, and have a cup of coffee while they're waiting."  Nope, gotta lock
everybody out until the clock says *exactly* 11 AM.


Date: Sun, 27 May 2001 18:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: swapping seestores;  Yankee
To: fanglers@

-> it that a Yankee is called a Yankee, but there is nothing that a
-> Dixie person can be calt but "a Dixie person"?

We call ourselves "Americans."  It's the Yankees who thought they were
such hot shit they had to have their own name.  And more power to them,
I say.  I wouldn't want anyone to confuse them with real Americans.


Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 17:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: UNDELIVERABLE MAIL
To: fanglers@

-> That pre-supposes humans as being suceptable to natural selection.
-> Civialization has removed us from those controls.

Au countraire!

Civilization selects for sheep.


Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 12:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: FangleBase
To: fanglers@

-> I will do just that. PennDOT stopped sending hard copies last August;
-> you eithe read their notices online or you don't read them, so a good
-> .pdf reader is de rigeur.

 heh, heh, heh... 

That'll be nice when someone slipstreams some "corrections" in behind
your back, then tries to gyp you for 'noncompliance'.

Dead trees with signatures in ink are good.  Even the courts are
beginning to understand that anything that can be digitized can be
twiddled.



Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 13:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: SWAPPING SEESTORES;  YANK
To: fanglers@

-> On a typical plantation (more than 20 slaves) the capital value of
-> the slaves was greater than the capital value of the land and
-> implements.

Ah!  Thanks for that figure.  I have had a hard time making people
raised on white guilt understand that slaves cost a shitload of money.


-> Slavery was profitable; a large part of the profit was in the
-> increased value o the slaves themselves. With only 30% of the

Nowadays the entrepreneur types are raising emus...



Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 14:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: SWAPPING SEESTORES; YANK
To: fanglers@

-> Lets not forget that until a few hundred years ago, your average
-> working family (a large %age of the population) was effectively
-> `owned' by the Land Owners, so those poor white folks have got a need
-> for Islam as well perhaps?

Around 1200-1400, the largest single slaveholder in the world was the
Catholic Church.  People would, for various reasons, "offer their
service to God", which made them de facto property of the Church... and
all of their descendants, if any, were automatically included in the
deal.  The Knights Templar also made a tidy profit by ordinary slaving.

You know, King Phillip of France lowered the boom on the Templars out
of plain old greed, but maybe a whole lot of people eventually
benefitted from Friday the 13th.


Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 14:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: fanglers-digest V1 #3082
To: fanglers@

-> to put it together.  I remember that he was showing how the Chinese
-> could have put together the Jet engine around 2K years ago, they had
-> all the required materials but did not put them together in the right
-> order.

They couldn't have made anything that would run more than a few
seconds, or perhaps minutes, and it couldn't have made much thrust.
You need bearings, decent steel, and a whole bunch of things to make a
jet engine hold together - the NACA papers will quickly
show you some of the problems, but the fact is, if they'd had all the
materials sitting there right in front of them they wouldn't have been
able to do one damned thing with them!  It wasn't until the 1800s when
we got decent steelmaking processes, Naysmith invented the metal shaper,
Maudlay invented the engine lathe, Whitney invented a whole snotload of
stuff.

The world might as well have begun in 1800, because the tools that
created the modern industrial society did not exist before then.

- Dave "tools are good karma" Williams


Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 15:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Streaming audio
To: fanglers@

-> Sometimes, I think I am hearing the voices in other peoples' heads.
-> I hear something about a Pantera on an almost daily basis, but that
-> couldn't be in _my_ head!  Or could it?

Oh, must be crosstalk; you're still plugged in!  Let me help.

"This will feel a little weird..."

- Dave "Matrix" Williams


Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 15:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Children, dogs hold off Idaho sheriff
To: fanglers@

-> soon.  In the US, "politically aware" seems to mean "reads the
-> newspapers and watches Firing Line" rather than "can think one's way
-> out of a paper bag."

A few years ago the Cuban government used to run a very nice
English-language news service web page.  Whoever was writing the
articles was pretty good; rather than hammering the anti-American theme
hard, he/they were mostly limiting themselves to letting the absurdity
of events speak for themselves, with a few barbed comments here and
there.  In all, probably less slanted than my local TV news channel.


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 00:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: SWAPPING SEESTORES;  YANK
To: fanglers@

-> to shut off that pager too. She began digging around behind the
-> dresser and told me that sound was a horsefly!

Those things can bite the hell out of you.  And they can leave weird
stuff behind.  I got bitten back in '92; the area always itched, and by
'97 there were a definite lump there.  I finally went to the doc, who
sharped up his scalpels and started carving on my back.  He shot me full
of something to deaden the area, carved until he got to the knot, and
said "eeeew!"  Then he's tugging and yanking at it, rolling me around on
the table.  Finally he gets it loose and says "That's gross.  Here, look
at this," (shows it to the nurse, who agrees it's gross), then holds it
out for me to see.  Looked like a little white peach pit.  Yep, it was
gross.

The lab work came back, showed it was some kind of fungus the horsefly
had left behind.  The doc said it wasn't all that unusual for fly bites.

Mother Natures *hates* humans.

- Dave "The Fly" Williams


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 00:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Children, dogs hold off Idaho sheriff
To: fanglers@

-> Well then, let's get busy on Confederacy II !
-> -Aron-

This time, let's make the North secede!

- Dave "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out" Williams


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 00:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: seat-belt roadblocks
To: fanglers@

-> As long as injuries in crashes are more severe from lack of belts,
-> insurance costs are higher as a result.

My insurance costs would be lower if there were fewer crashes to start
with.

The highway departments in most states could do a hell of a lot better
job on signs, lights, intersections, and general traffic flow.

The various police departments could spend a little less time with
their precious radar guns and a little more time ticketing dumb-ass
drivers, like the ones who run red lights, or run up to the head of the
line and try to horn in when the road narrows for a construction zone,
etc.

We all know licensing is a joke, but when I had to retake the
operator's license exam a few years ago after letting my motorcycle
endorsement expire, I failed the test.  Why?  Because almost the whole
test was "what is the penalty for when your blood alcohol level is
between .1% and .15%?"  and "which of the following substances may cause
impaired driving..."  but nothing whatsoever on the rules of the road.


There's a lot of stuff we could do before we start ramming a
State-backed safety religion down peoples' throats.


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 08:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: soliciting
To: fanglers@

In England, they call lawyers 'solicitors'.

In the USA, 'soliciting' is usually a misdemeanor.


There's a lesson there, somewhere...


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 08:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Children, dogs hold off Idaho sheriff
To: fanglers@

-> al)?  How many generations did it take before transplanted Africans
-> started getting sunburn??

High melanin content doesn't stop you from getting sunburned, as a
friend of mine found out once, to his enormous surprise...


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 08:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 007 Inspires Army's SmarTruck
To: fanglers@

-> ideas. Sounds like a ridiculous idea until you see a Hummer
-> taking up three parking spaces at the mall. - Sandra Swanson

Hell, any real full-size car or pickup truck can do that with the
cheesy little parking places at some malls.

I used to be able to occupy *six* parking slots at the local K-Mart.
It has tiny little places marked at a 45 degree angle, which means
they're all about six feet shorter than they look.  My '60 Chevy was
already wider than the slot to begin with; if I pulled in all the way so
the tailfins weren't hanging out in the aisle, it spilled over to the
two side places, a couple of feet into the one in front, and hung the
corners of the front bumper well into the forward adjacent slots.

- Dave "mmm, big" Williams


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 08:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: SUPER CLEAN PANTERA FOR S
To: fanglers@

-> I saved the web page and put it on my bathroom wall. I like to look
-> at it and frown. It's a hobby of mine. Frowning.

There are three Panteras in the local area.  I have the engines from
two of them out in the shop.  The owners think I'm rebuilding them, but
it's my Secret Plan to accumulate parts to build my own Pantera.

- Dave "ALL YOUR PANTERAS ARE BELONG TO US" Williams


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 08:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Children, dogs hold off Idaho sheriff
To: fanglers@

-> There is also the question of "is skin cancer on the rise?". Some
-> studies out of Australia indicate they are. There are further studies
-> on frog (amphibian) populations indicating they are on the decline
-> world wide. It is guessed that since amphibians don't have good UV
-> protection that they are an indicator UV radiation is on the rise.

Someone's going to have to establish causality on this "indicator"
thing.  Every time I see it, I flash back to Statistics 101, with the
prof demonstrating a 90% correlation between the rise and fall of the
Nile river and women's menstrual cycles.

Statistics reminds me of a chainsaw.  Powerful tools let you make big
boo-boos...



Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 13:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Children, dogs hold off Idaho sheriff
To: fanglers@

-> Be careful what you wish for.  Most revolutions result in
-> one tyranny being replaced by another, often worse, tyranny.

Some years ago there was some minor agitation for a new Constitutional
Convention to do some major remodeling of that poor old document.  I
took a look at the type of people who were likely to be the ones to do a
new Constitution, and decided I'd fight like hell to keep the old one as
it was, warts and all.  It's not much better than nothing now that the
Supreme Court has eviscerated it, but it's probably better than what
we'd get now...


-> I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
-> Take a bow for the new revolution

I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns
I heard Maria crying
Late last night I heard the news
That Veracruz was dying
Veracruz was dying

Someone called Maria's name
I swear it was my father's voice
Saying, "If you stay you'll all be slain
You must leave now - you have no choice
Take the servants and ride west
Keep the child close to your chest
When the American troops withdraw
Let Zapata take the rest"

I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns
I heard Maria calling
Saying, "Veracruz is dying
And Cuernavaca's falling"

Aquel dia yo jure                  (On that day I swore
Hacia el puerto volvere             To the port I will return
Aunque el destino cambio mi vida    Even though destiny changed my life
En Veracruz morire                  In Veracruz I shall die
Aquel dia yo jure                   On that day I swore)

I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns
I heard them in the harbor
Saying, "Veracruz is dying"

- Dave "send lawyers, guns, and money" Williams


Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 13:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 6 Siblings Make a Lonely Stand
To: fanglers@

-> The family's rugged and autonomous existence was not all that unusual
-> in the Idaho Panhandle, where scores of families live "off the grid"
-> unconnected to schools, churches, telephones, television and most
-> everything else in conventional society...

No TV?  That's child abuse in some places...


-> "This is what they have been taught - they have been told all their
-> lives, `Don't trust the authorities, don't trust anyone on the
-> outside,'...

Damn straight!


-> But they will not use force, the authorities said, after the
-> disastrous confrontation with a white separatist in nearby Ruby Ridge
-> nine years ago, leaving a federal deputy marshal and the separatist's
-> wife and teenage son dead.

That was FBI Special Agent Lon Horiuchi who blew away Vicki Weaver and
her baby.  He claimed he thought the baby was a "weapon."  Eight months
later he was one of the snipers picking off people trying to climb out
of the burning compound at Waco, Texas.  Horiuchi claimed he never
fired his rifle, but other agents testified against him.  Horiuchi had
no explanation for the empty .308 cases found in his position.

There are serious crazies out there, and some of them have badges.

"That kind of thing doesn't happen around here, and even if it did, it
would happen to somebody else."


-> Local authorities say they are trying to offer the children help,
-> possibly to place them with relatives or in foster care. But the
-> children are intensely suspicious of outsiders.

"Help."  "Possibly."  I love the spin on that.  I bet it's the *law* in
Idaho that they have to be hauled out of there and placed wherever the
State feels like putting them.  That's the law here, and most places I'm
familiar with.  It's very unlikely more than two or three of them would
wind up at the same institution; they break them up by age.


-> the mother had angrily rebuffed several offers of help and indeed
-> refused to sign any paperwork that might have brought medical help to
-> her husband because, she said, she did not trust the government...

That's not a crime.

Yet.


-> But some neighbors admitted that they had become so afraid of the
-> dogs and Mrs.  McGuckin's belligerent attitude that they essentially
-> avoided the property altogether.

"Get the hell off my property and *STAY* off!  Damned go-gooders!"


-> The authorities arrested Mrs. McGuckin after persuading her to come
-> into town to see them under a pretext.

Paranoid?  They really *were* out to get her!


-> One neighbor, Stephanie Almy, said she had been attacked by several
-> of the McGuckins' dogs as she walked her own dog past the house last
-> week, suffering a laceration on her arm that required 17 stitches...

Now we get to the only real meat here.  McGuckin is liable for her dogs
and what they do.  The State could justifiably fine her (fat chance of
collecting, given what we're told) or even have the animals destroyed if
they're allowed to run loose.

None of this is unusual, even the kids trying to barricade themselves
in the house.  What *is* unusual is that the local cops didn't get their
big drug-house-buster piece of telephone pole and knock the whole damned
door off the wall and drag the little snots away screaming in handcuffs,
which is exactly what would happen in 99 out of 100 police departments.
Someone in the local PD appears to have at least some brains.



Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 16:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Children, dogs hold off Idaho sheriff
To: fanglers@

-> Oh, it sucked in the airplanes, no doubt.  I dunno; the last thing I
-> want in the frickin' produce section is to take a whiff of Camel
-> sansfilter when I'm checking the melons...

Hah.  I can't even go into the produce section in either of the local
grocery stores.  Whatever it is they spray-wax the veggies with makes my
eyes burn and then I start coughing.  It smells bad too.  I think they
spray the stuff to make the veggies shiny or something.  Heavens above,
they mustn't look like they were ever anywhere near DIRT, you know...

It's much worse than cigarette smoke, at least to me.


Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2001 11:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 6 Siblings Make a Lonely Stand
To: fanglers@

-> I'm reasonably sure the Forest Service police (yep, now they're cops)
-> have a SWAT team.  Gotta watch out for those evil, assault trees,
-> after all.

The Arkansas Game & Fish Commission is (or used to be) the #1 dope
busting outfit here.  Marijuana grows wild throughout much of the South,
including Arkansas, so it's a congenial climate for large-scale pot
growing.

The growers were having problems with deer eating their crop, so they
were shooting the deer.  This pissed off the G&F people, who take
poaching seriously, and the G&F would bust the growers when they came to
collect the crop, then burn the crop.  Made the DEA's puny efforts look
sick.

Of course, my idea is to legalize pot and tax it just like they do
other drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol.  I'm still amazed the
politicians continue to overlook such a potential revenue source...


Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 09:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 6 Siblings Make a Lonely Stand
To: fanglers@

-> Do you suppose that the pols are being rewarded for keeping a
-> competitor out by the purveyors of the other "legal" drugs?

Alcohol, maybe.  I doubt RJ Reynolds would have to put out much effort
to change what they put in the little paper tubes.  They're just
packagers; the tobacco farmers get screwed either way.



Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 21:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: hatches
To: fanglers@

I just realized that hatchback cars seem to have gone away.  The new
Mustangs are all sedans now, as are the Camaros, and most of the imports
as well.

Good riddance - the hatches were just a pain in the ass anyway.


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 08:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: car buying
To: fanglers@

[from another list]

-> "We used to think that the average American car buyer was
-> just...dumb. We were wrong!  We're now thinking that the average
-> American car buyer is a total idiot."

That makes me think of the station wagon purchase in "National
Lampoon's Family Vacation."  You can tell a movie is funny when your
grandfather turns purple and goes into that funky breathing pattern
people get when they're starting to have a heart attack.  We had to stop
the tape and find his pills before he kicked off right there on the
couch...  We had to reassure him about ten times that the movie would
resume right where it left off, he wasn't missing anything.  That was
back when VCRs weren't very common, and he'd never watched a movie on
tape before.

- Dave "well, how much y'got?" Williams


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 09:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "RV's" or Recreational Vehicles
To: fanglers@

-> Interstates.  FWD is superfluous everywhere except Arkansas where
-> they just discovered concrete last year but haven't yet figured out
-> how to lay it smoothly.

I think Arkansas hired all of the highway people from Mississippi when
MS started its road improvement program a few years ago.  MS used to be
*hell* to drive through.  I finally decided those weren't really
potholes; the road was just gravel with intermittent strips of asphalt
laid over here and there.

I'm not sure what the ADOT's problem with I-40 is.  Even the parts that
are "under construction" are falling apart.  There are huge holes in the
concrete that will wreck a motorcycle if the rider isn't careful, and
when the holes fill up in the rain and become invisible, I bent a wheel
in one once.

I won't even talk about the sections where they've laid asphalt over
the concrete.  The trucks turn it into parallel canoe trails, then start
throwing big chunks of it up.  This *can't* save any money over a
proper road surface...


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 09:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: tan or not
To: fanglers@

-> I am pudgy and pasty faced, I sit all day in front of a PC, those who
-> can spend time in leisure tend spend it in the gym and on holiday,

What you need is sunlamps in your cubicle or office!

"And here are our programmers, shackled to their chairs to enhance
productivity."

"Why are they all wearing shorts and sunglasses?"

"We have ultraviolet floods to bring up their vitamin D level to reduce
time off for sickness, and it let us remodel the employee gymnasium into
a management-only leisure center."

"'Management-only leisure center?'  What does that mean?"

"Oh, nothing special, just a sushi bar and Swedish masseuses."

"What do the employees get?"

"Well, they have their sunlamps in their cubicles, and we have a box by
the time clock collecting donations to buy them a picnic table to put
by the parking lot."

"I say, very progressive..."


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 09:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Only in Britain
to: fanglers@

-> Only in Britain...can a pizza get to your house faster than an
-> ambulance.

On the whole, Britain sounds amazingly like Arkansas!

The only major difference seems to be, around here the ambulances show
up pronto; all the ambulance outfits are private companies hustling for
dollars.  However, they'll have to sit there with your broken body for
a while to wait for a cop to wander by; 20 minutes is considered
"average" response time for police, and an hour is not unusual.  On
occasion, thanks to our highly efficient "911" emergency service, they
may never show up at all.  (the same service handles fire calls; you may
wish to invest in a good alarm system and several extinguishers)


-> Only in Britain...do we buy hot dogs in packs of ten and buns in
-> packs of eight.

It's a fucking CONSPIRACY, is why.  They do that here too.

Most cars sold in America, even the imports, take 5 quarts of oil.  I
can stagger to the counter trying to hold 5 individual quarts, or I can
buy oil in the convenient jug size... which only holds FOUR quarts, so I
have to grab a spare bottle.  Eh?  They tooled up special for the four
quart containers; why didn't they think?


-> Only in Britain...are there handicap parking places in front of a
-> skating rink.

Got 'em here too.  Of course, those are reserved "teener-asshole"
parking places; it's so rare to actually see a gimp or a vehicle with a
handicap plate in a handicap spot that it's worth commenting on.

Frankly, I'm against the handicap spots.  They can drive; let 'em
cruise for a parking spot like I do.  And why park right next to the
door if they're going to make a three mile loop through the mega-mall?
Another 20 yards to the door is going to kill them?

The Americans With Disabilities Act made the gimps a de facto favored
class; they get their own water fountains, their own bathrooms, they sit
at the front of the bus.  Thanks to the ADA, I can experience exactly
the same social discrimination as an Alamaba black in 1962, back in the
days of "separate but equal."


-> * Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after cracker pulling
-> accidents.

Is that like a "fecal floatation incident", or whatever that thread was
a few days ago?


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 09:18:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Fw: pretty good...
To: fanglers@

-> If your teen-age son kills himself, you blame the rock 'n' roll music
-> or musician he liked.

Yeah!  Way to go!

- Dave "OZZY IS MY GOD!" Williams


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 17:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Trucks crash tests
To: fanglers@

-> difference being, at least the El Camino did try to pose as a real
-> pickup.  People who really need a truck buy F250s or equiv.

The "real truck" people *hated* the El Caminos and Rancheros, totally
missing their point:  if you want to haul a bed full of concrete blocks,
an ElCo isn't the right vehicle.  What it is, is a Malibu station wagon
with the top cut off, so you can haul a washing machine, sofa, or other
bulky but light items that won't fit inside a station wagon.  And in
states that charged extra for registration and/or tax for trucks, the
ElCo usually rated as a car.

Besides, an air conditioning system designed for a Malibu wagon worked
REALLY GOOD in a two seater Camino cabin...

I don't see any Caminos around here; I don't think I've seen one since
last year.  Considering my Buick engine would bolt right in, I'd almost
consider one of those instead of the B2000 conversion.  Of course,
losing almost 2000 pounds of "road-hugging weight" would make the B2000
a bit friskier.


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 17:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: hatches
To: fanglers@

-> What's your gripe with hatches?  I like them, they make loading bulky
-> items much easier.  My Escort ZX2 has a decent size trunk,

1) the struts *always* die rapidly, and usually aren't reliable even
when new

2) if you stick something big in the trunk you can leave the lid up;
if you don't latch the hatch back down, it'll twist and the window
will break, assuming the pot metal hinges don't break right off

3) if you knock the board supporting the hatch (see Point 1), the
results can be very painful

4) open hatch.  Wind.  Bad.

5) open hatch.  Rain in back seat.  Bad.

6) stinky car parts in back advertise their presence due to nice air
circulation

7) even more space for the overloaded air conditioner to work on


Other than that, they're okay, I guess.



Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 21:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
To: fanglers@

-> <>

-> Bring back the T-tops!

I was working in a fifth floor office one day when a tremendous
thunderstorm came in; one of those where you stand back from the curtain
wall in case it blows in.

We're all standing there looking out, street lights are on, parking lot
looks like a lake.  One of the girls says, "Wow, it's *really* coming
down... ooh!  look!  Dave has a sunroof!" (pointing down at Thunder in
the parking lot)

I used my sourest tone, "Thanks, Kimera..."  They all thought it was
hysterically funny.


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 21:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: VPC sues Ashcroft
to: fanglers@

-> Check System (NICS) for firearm purchases. The regulation gives the
-> FBI the ability to combat abuse of NICS by conducting periodic
-> security audits of electronic records in NICS.

That is, letting the FBI mine the NICS data for their own purposes
under the guise of "audits."


-> electronic records in NICS. These audits are essential to ensuring
-> that NICS is not being defrauded in ways that allow felons,
-> fugitives, and other prohibited persons to obtain firearms.

Yeah, here in Arkansas all our criminals run down to the gun shop and
buy a new pistol whenever they decide to commit a crime, nobody would
want to commit a crime with a *used* gun...


-> Director and Legislative Counsel. "Unfortunately, the Attorney
-> General's illegal action, combined with his letter to the NRA
-> endorsing a view of the Second Amendment that openly conflicts with
-> existing Justice Department

That is, the Fed doesn't like the Second Amendment, and has made
regulations which render it both void and illegal.  Your government,
working for... someone.


-> Administrative Procedure Act,
-> the principal federal law that gives all interested parties the right
-> to participate in the regulatory process.

I'm interested.  Nobody asked *me*.


-> laws to keep prohibited persons from getting guns. This delay shows
-> that Mr. Ashcroft's interests lie with the NRA, not with the safety
-> of the American people," Nosanchuk added.

I bet the Attorney General swore an oath to defend the Constitution of
the United States.  If not, I bet it's part of his official duties
anyway.  So now he's being sued for not implementing unConstitutional
regulations promulgated by Congress, which does not have the authority
to override the Constitution?

You know, they could probably make a daytime soap opera out of this!


Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 21:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Electronic Warfare Revisited
To: fanglers@

-> When my office was in the 'hood, I used to conduct a showy ritual of
-> cleaning my so-called assault rifle on the front porch.

Around here, that'd just be advertising that there's something
worthwhile to steal while you're not home.  Then they'd kick the door
out of the frame, or lever the windows out with a tire iron, and you
wouldn't own it any more.  If you were lucky they'd just trash
everything else and smear shit on the walls.  If they didn't find enough
to make the B&E worth their while, they'd set the house on fire as they
were leaving.

Ten years ago this wasn't a bad neighborhood.  Then HUD came in with a
bunch of Federal money, remodeled a bunch of the old houses, and started
bringing in third and fourth generation Welfare hard cases from Little
Rock.  They all know each other; their parents and grandparents grew up
alongside each other.  And a 'generation' is only twelve or thirteen
years for them...

Every morning when I'm picking up the night's collection of trash from
the yard, examining the new chips in the cars from thrown rocks, or the
new key scratches, or whatever, I come closer to understanding the
thinking of people like Andrew Jackson, Benito Mussolini, or Adolf
Hitler, and why they marched entire groups of people off to the death
camps.  I have a little list of my own, I do, I do...


Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 05:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Got Parts?
To: fanglers@

-> Mike  (Contrast "Traff-O-Data"!)

Yeah, but I liked "Intergalactic Digital Research" better!

Anyone remember "Kentucky Fried Computers?"

By contrast "Ashton-Tate" was downright stodgy; George Tate owned the
company, but there was no Ashton; he just tacked it on to make it sound
impressive.  Or Borland.  There was no "Frank Borland", despite what the
ads said...

- Dave "Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of Doom, Inc." Williams


Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 05:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: dyno days again
To: fanglers@

-> imagine until you crawl the stacks and actually see what they have.
-> And then find out what is archived.

The local public libraries (city, county, and state, 25 miles away in
LR) have "Arizona Highways" type periodicals, everything Barbara
Cartland ever wrote, and a selection of NYT best sellers.

The University of Arkansas LR has a library only 30 miles away.  It has
a complete set of all the paper the Confederate bureaucracy put out
during its existence, a couple sets of encyclopedies, and a bunch of
biology books and some "classikal litterchoor."  The UA Beebe campus is
30 miles the other way; it has books on animal husbandry, farming, and
classikal litterchoor.

The options for purchasing new are similarly dismal - B.Dalton and
Waldenbooks, at the nearby (15 miles) mall.  They have junk periodicals,
zillions of cookbooks, various travel books, self-help books, and "How
To Run Your Pirate Copy of..." books.

People tell me about these wonderful "library" things they have nearby,
but it seems very few actually take advantage of them.  If I'd had
anything like that available I'd've had my own turf staked out in
there...



Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 05:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: books: Tesla
To: fanglers@

-> Tesla was no slouch.  Makes Edison look like a backyard hack IMO. :^)

Edison *was* a backyard hack.  He showed that trial and error can
sometimes lead to success, but he had no apparent grasp of the
scientific method.  One of Tesla's idle thoughts would have blown
Edison's head off.

It's too bad Tesla became the patron saint of some of the crazies,
though.


Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 06:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: hatches
To: fanglers@

-> Ironically the cheapest car had the best quality struts.  The local
-> dollar store has little vice grips that work perfectly for the bad
-> struts.

I suspect the really cheap struts simply have long coil springs in
them, which would last almost forever.  The fancy high-end struts are
"gas", and once the strut rod gets rusty from Dixie humidity or the
rubber seal goes away, you're hosed.


Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 07:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: oummmm....oum.......
To: fanglers@buick.

-> Dave, you wanted a story....

Story!  Story!


-> the mosque called the faithful to worship not with a live muzzein,
-> but by a taped "call" over loudspeakers. VERY loud.  5x day.

Yeah.  I thought that was pretty cheesy when I heard about it.  My
brother was somewhere in one of the Moslem parts of Africa once; he said
he learned to carry earplugs in case he got caught near one of those
things.


-> taped "call" over loudspeakers. VERY loud.  5x day.  One of the
-> speakers was right outside the contractors' room.

"How often does the muezzin call?"

"So often you'll never notice..."


-> cassette...when the appointed hour arrived next, the faithful
-> followers of Allah were treated to a concert-level performance of
-> "Thriller."



They should have been glad it wasn't The Clash and "Rock the Casbah."
Which, incidentally, was the first song played by the US Armed Forces
Radio system after Desert Storm kicked off!


Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 19:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: It's not my fault!
To: fanglers@

-> I am not slagging off my old man, its just to illustrate that a fair
-> %age of people who are locial and intelligent, loose all rationality
-> when confronted with a system that they cannot understand.

...and don't *want* to understand.  Like me trying to drive a new Olds
Alero the other day.  First, I couldn't find the switch to turn the
instrument panel lights on.  GM apparently no longer uses English, so
all the randomly-spaced controls were marked in Egyptian heiroglyphics.
Tommy finally came over and turned the lights on for me.

The dome light wouldn't turn off when I got out of the car.  Okay, I
knew about that.  But I'm trying to lock the goddamned doors.  There is
a group of four buttons on the door; I guess these operate the windows.
So I wiggle the odd rocker switch and slam the door.  Open the door.
Wiggle it the other way.  Slam the door.  Open the door.  Finally I try
the key, and the doors lock.  Later, as I'm bitching about it, Tommy
tells me the switch just notifies the computer you would please like to
have the doors locked; it then locks them when it's damned good and
ready.  Five minutes after you've been carjacked...

Every one of these new GMs is carefully engineered to make me want to
climb up on the roof, beat my chest, and emit screams of frustrated rage
in the direction of Detroit.


Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 19:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: It's not my fault!
To: fanglers@

-> Bruce Lee from Enter the Dragon, "Don't concentrate on the finger."
->   "Or you will miss all of that heavenly glory."

DANG!

I brought my cassette of "Tae Kwon Leap!" to LFB3 and completely forgot
about it!

- Dave "Observe.  Boot-to-the-head.  WHACK!" Williams


Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 21:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re:[2]  [2]  [Fordnatics] Dateline NBC report on F-150 and
To: fordnatics@mustangworks.com

-> That's why they don't put concrete or steel barriers on freeways,
-> after all, right? ;>

> Right.  Going down the freeway they don't put concrete or steel
> barriers perpendicular to the highway for you to run into head on.

I can tell you don't often drive in Tennessee... the TDOT has all sorts
of amusing tricks like that.  One of their other favorites is to
excavate a hole in the middle of the road that will swallow a complete
motorhome, then to carefully mark it with one (1) orange cone, which
lasts about an hour before someone runs over it or steals it.


Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 10:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: hatches
To: fanglers@

-> citizens.  This may just be another case where the Fuhrerprinzip
-> fails as a social model.  The hive mind simply doesn't
-> react quickly enough to changing conditions.

Perzackitly.

The Kaiser and the Nazis were great at planning and would work out
detailed battle ops and scenarios months or years ahead of time.  So
when Wilhelm or Adolf said "kick ass there" someone would open the
correct filing cabinet and start issuing orders instantly.  The Kaiser's
General Staff was so effective at this that they were specifically
banned by one of the articles of the Treaty of Versailles.

On one hand you have detailed plans.  On the other you have the
Fuhrerprinzip.  Authority, like shit, only ran downhill; very few German
commanders had the luxury of being able to make decisions above the
immediate tactical level.

This meant the Germans could implement plans quickly and in detail, but
the structure of command meant it was very hard for them to adapt to
changing situations.

It's common to damn the Germans for this, but the French had it ten
times worse; they not only were unable to respond to changes, they only
had one plan to start with.  When the Nazis went around the Maginot Line
the French high command basically ignored it until they were overrun.

The British *would* have had a similar problem, except the British
military was composed of dozens of rigidly ostrich-like pieces, each one
with its own chain of command, responsibility, and supply.  These chains
were cross-linked here and there just to make things more amusing, which
is why the British Navy wound up shelling British troops in Norway,
knowing full well who they were shooting at, because they were "just
following orders."

Conventional thinking promotes the idea that the USA's vast
contribution in men and materials was the key factor in winning the war
in Europe, but if you read enough about WW2 you start getting a
different slant.  One of Churchill's very first actions - even before
formally signing the treaties with the USA - was to agree to turn over
complete command of all Empire forces to the United States.  In
retrospect this seems logical, but at the time... ah, things were
different then.  In the Empire, no English soldier could serve under any
officer from Canada, South Africa, or any of the other colonies.  Any
English officer outranked any colonial officer, and they were in
separate chains of command anyway.  It seems silly now, but it was
important then; important enough to effectively cripple the entire
Imperial military.  Churchill's master stroke was to place this
collection of wayward units under *someone else*; it was not politically
feasible to put English troops under a Zed commander, but it was okay to
put them under an "alien" US commander.  The USA also brought a logical,
simple, and clearly defined structure and chain of command to the
Imperial chaos.  And more than half a century later, the remnants of the
Empire still operate under the American system.

Guns and bombers are great, but first you have to have a chain of
command!


Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 10:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: It's not my fault!
To: fanglers@

-> I still don't get it.  Some people's thought patterns just
-> don't parse in my head.  After all, I wouldn't dream of blaming the
-> circuit and calling an electrician if the lights go off
-> after I pressed a button.

That's because you're off on the end of the social sigma curve, out
where people stand on street corners talking to large rabbits who aren't
there, and people wearing aluminum foil helmets to keep the CIA mind
control beams out.

To the average American, whatever goes on is *always* someone else's
fault.  You spilled hot coffee in your lap?  "They" should have put a
warning on the cup.  You left the kid in the running car and he put it
in Drive and ran over his sister?  The car manufacturer didn't provide
proper shift interlocks.  You shot yourself in the foot with your new
.357?  It should have had safety instructions stamped into the barrel.

They teach them this crap in *school*, Ron.  Someone *else* always has
to pay.  And now the first couple of generations of them have grown up
with these ideas and taken their place in society.

20-30 years from now, we're going to have a "Generation Gap" like
nobody ever imagined...


Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 10:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Got Parts?
to: fanglers@

-> Larry, if you don't mind my asking, where do you live?
-> Do you often get the chance to use Japanese in public?

Some years ago I was in one of the chain restaurants in Little Rock (a
"Lone Star" western-style) eating lunch when I observed a group of half
a dozen stereotypical Japanese businessmen sitting with a single
American.  They were practically rolling out of their chairs, howling
with laughter, which was notable as rather un-Japanese behavior, at
least for no more than the usual amount of alcohol consumed during a
business lunch.

Lone Star restaurants used to serve buckets of boiled, salted peanuts
as appetizers.  You shucked the peanuts out of the hulls and threw the
hulls on the floor, which got swept two or three times a day.  I thought
it was rather amusing myself, but the Japanese were shucking handfuls of
goobers, throwing the hulls on the floor, and roaring with laughter.
The waitress brought them another half-gallon bucket of peanuts so they
could continue amusing themselves.  The American looked rather
distressed, for some reason.

- Dave "food fight!" Williams


Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 17:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: It's not my fault!
To: fanglers@

-> Some people act on totally auto pilot.
-> They have no conscience thoughts about what they are doing,

No fake.  I suspect if you opened up most heads and looked inside,
there'd be hard vacuum in there.

People like that used to give me the creeps before I developed my
thousand-yard stare.  Now I just place them in the "object" category and
continue about my business.


Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 18:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Got Parts?
To: fanglers@

-> They knocked that policy off, for some reason.  I was very
-> disappointed the first time I went in and couldn't get a
-> bucket of peanuts.

I haven't been back since they stopped.  The story around here was the
local health department had a fit over it.  I can't imagine why, unless
the EPA has decided peanut shells are "hazardous materials."


-> Their food really isn't noteworthy enough for them to knock
-> off the peanuts, IMO.

I'll agree to that.  They were espensive as hell, too.


-> Probably thinking about what he was going to put on the
-> expense report:  "peanuts for laughing, drunken Japanese clients."

The peanuts were "free", the cost offset by $6 cheeseburgers.


Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 18:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: I'm a happy camper!
To: fanglers@

-> I also got to shoot a co-worker's .45-70 Govt. rifle. Damn!

The .45-70 cartridge was designed when the US Army wasn't interested in
making "casualties", they just wanted to kill the fuck out of the
enemies of the United States of America.

The .30-40 Krag, .30-'06, and .308 Winchester were more accurate,
lighter, and smaller, and decently effective, unlike the .223 Remington,
which was originally developed as the .222 Remington, a 'sporting'
cartridge for groundhogs, woodchucks, and other small game.

They still tell the grunts that "hydrostatic shock from the .223 is so
great that if you hit someone in the finger it will blow their eyeballs
out."  The USAF told that to my brother in basic training, anyway, and
the Army started the Big Lie back when the M-16 was phased in during
Vietnam.


Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 18:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Draft discussion again
To: fanglers@

-> I think Dave brought up Heinlein's _Starship Troopers_
-> suggestion to tie the right to vote to military service.

No, I was distinguishing "draft" from "military service."  Actually, I
*meant* "draft registration" instead of "draft", but I had a brain
seizure or something while writing the message.

If you register, you at least have the *risk* of being called up,
whether current political trends make it highly likely or not.  But
instead, we have well over half of all Americans exempted to start with.


-> You want a say in how things are run?  Put your ass on
-> the line to defend it?  You don't want to do that?  You
-> get no say.

I can agree to that in principle.



Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2001 21:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Help End Draft Registration
To: fanglers@

-> I strenuously oppose the draft because it is so unfair.  A fair
-> system is one in which EVERY person, regardless of sex or abilities,
-> serves for a short period of time in the army.  Even the gimp in a
-> wheelchair can answer the phone or shuffle papers.

Nice, but official policy is for "equality", meaning all soldiers are
100% interchangeable round pegs.  Theoretically any one of them can be
trained to do any other's job.  You start ringing in the gimps, and all
of a sudden you have to make some radical changes in the way the
military handles its personnel.

Not that it can't be done, but I expect there would be serious
resistance to it, unless the military becomes so politically correct
that even a blind wheelie can pass basic training.



Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 17:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Help End Draft Registration
To: fanglers@

-> We've never had an invasion of foreign soldiers in our Country.

I keep hearing people say that, but the British Imperial Army marched
all over the United States of America during the War of 1812, long after
the Revolution, shooting people, burning property, and otherwise doing
the kind of things invading armies usually do.  They also burned down a
chunk of the US Capitol.

The Japanese also took and occupied the Philippines, which was a US
posession we took from the Spanish during the Spanish-American War.  The
Philippines was just as much a part of the United States as Hawaii,
Alaska, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, or Tucson, Arizona.


Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 17:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
To: fanglers@

-> All the hysteria about the "Nazis marching again" every time the
-> Bundeswehr sends a small-arms platoon on a peacekeeping mission

You ought to read about the political squabbling during the formation
of NATO.  Truman and Atcheson wanted the Germans, or at least the West
Germans, to comprise part of the NATO forces.  The French and Italians
went completely orbital apeshit every time it came up, deadlocking
NATO's creation for many months.  Oddly enough, the British were also
against the inclusion of German forces.

Truman got his way, but only because the USA was paying 90% or better
of the cost of supporting NATO during those early years, and he who has
the gold, makes the rules.


Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 10:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Help End Draft Registration
To: fanglers@

-> Surely you don't harbor any beliefs that the Gulf War was about
-> Towelheads, do you?  IT was about oil.  Fine with me.  The US needs
-> to remind the rest of the world occasionally that if they don't sell
-> us what we want at a nominal price, we'll come take it.
->
-> John, the imperialist running dog and proud of it.

I like to use that line myself.  The peace-and-tranquillity crybabies
get all torn up over it.

Cheap oil is a political goal I can identify with every time I gas up;
it's much better than "let's get involved in a foreign civil war where
we can't even tell the two sides apart."

Besides, most of the world's cultures reason along the line that, if
you don't crack the whip every now and then, you probably won't crack it
at all, and they start getting uppity.


Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 12:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: It's not my fault!
to: fanglers@

-> addicted to smelovision and diet magazines knows _exactly_ what
-> _every_ sort of power switch _ever_ made looks like.

I like the power switches with the Euro markings.  They have to be
white by DIN standard, and carry DIN-illiterate-heiroglyphic markings
which I refuse to learn.  I guess the I and O mean something in Suomic
or Croatian, but the only "graphic interpretation" they remind me of is
pornographic.

The EU has, in just a decade, overcome the USA's 200-odd year head
start in bureaucratic bullshit and forged into the lead, BS-wise.

It's almost eerie how the EU resembles the Austro-Hungarian Empire that
Hitler spent so much of Mein Kampf wailing about.


Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 11:08:45 -0700
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Sprag clutches.
To: MC-CHASSIS-DESIGN Mailing List 

-> How did the Husky Autos operated?  I was never exposed
-> to one but was always interested in just how the trans
-> was shifted or not shifted.

It had several centrifugal clutches, each coming in at a different RPM,
with their own gear pairs to the output shaft.  One-way sprag clutches
were used to keep things from binding up.

The US Army used a bunch of them, then went to Kawasaki KLRs.  My
brother does USAF Special Ops air drop stuff; he's dropped lots of them
into the woods by parachute.

Motorcycles are high-mobility transportation; in WWI and WWII Erwin
Rommel made extensive use of motorcycles for reconaissance; Tuchman's
"Guns Of August" describes how the demoralized French forces came to
associate the sound of Rommel's motorcycles with the German vanguard,
and how Rommel used to send his motorcycles on feints to keep the French
guessing where his main forces really were.

The Germans also made heavy use of bicycle infantry, a concept which
seems ridiculous nowadays, but bicycles were cheap, highly efficient,
and could more than double the striking range of troops at very little
cost.

After WWII the concept of light, high-mobility infantry was
overshadowed by all the new bombers, missiles, and nukes, but by the
1970s the US Army, among others, was realizing that there were still
combat situations where a motorcycle would be useful, hence their
acquisition of a bunch of Husqvarna Automatics.  The original idea was
that the soldiers would ride them one-handed and shoot with the other
hand.  That turned out to be more difficult than it was worth, so the
idea changed.  Now they use dirt bikes to get small tactical groups into
position rapidly.  Once near position, they park the bikes and attack on
foot.  This is the same stuff the Army does with helicopters, but
the advent of cheap, man-portable surface-to-air missiles means you
can't use the choppers in all situations nowadays, hence the
motorcycles.


The Army presumably has training schools for normal riding; my brother
just tosses the riders and bikes out the back of a C5, where they get
dropped into strange territory and have to use orienteering methods to
make it to the official rendezvous point.  He drops a lot of them at
night; they use helmets with infrared and Starlight viewers.  My brother
says it's all ancient, bulky Vietnam-era technology right now, no depth
perception, and they run into trees a lot.  When the DoD procurement
system finally does its thing, they're supposed to get new "TimeRider"
helmets with binocular color displays, built-in GPS map overlays,
frequency-hopping packet communications, and so forth.

I can hardly wait for one of those skid lids to show up at the
government surplus auctions...


- Dave "just another off-topic excursion" Williams



Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 23:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Hot Bologna
to: fanglers@

-> hearts, pork hearts, mechanically separated chicken, pork tongues,

All normal mystery meat constituents, except for "mechanically
separated chicken", which is new to me.

It is a phrase to savor; the Voices are clamoring with suggestions
about how a chicken might be mechanically separated...

- Dave "RONCO Chicken-A-Matic!" Williams



Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 08:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Interesting ebay project
To: fanglers@

-> Motorcycles fit through most of the same
-> doors humans do.

Wheelchair doors and ramps are excellent, too, though steps are no
problem as long as the bike isn't so low it high-centers on the top one.

I used to park on a piece of plywood in the living room; it kept the
neighborhood slimeballs and yard rats from messing with my bike.



Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 08:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Help End Draft Registration
To: fanglers@

-> And to think just one klutz tripping over a cord, and unplugging it,
-> and we'd all have to learn chinese.

Or one well-placed Chinese agent at Microsoft.  Way, way too much of the
military and defense industry are hardwired to Microsoft Office and
Windows.  One good back door in Windows and the entire US military would
come to a screeching halt if the bad guys wanted it to.


Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 09:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: My trip to the book store
To: fanglers@

-> We have only 1 used book store here and it's chock full of cook books
-> and old fiction

Raleigh is the used book capitol of the universe, as far as I know.
There used to be six or seven in LR, but some of them went to comics
only or romances only, so we're down to about three.  Only one of them
has hardbacks and softbacks together like most of the Raleigh ones do.
It was surprising to find out there are places with fewer used book
stores than LR, though.  Whenever we travel, one of the first things AB
and I do is check out the book stores.  LR actually rates around
mid-list!

Last year when I was in Raleigh I played roadie and helped Dock and Sam
haul their stuff to a book store/cafe in Chapel Hill where they were
playing.  Their set was one of the last, so I'm wandering around...
wound up out in an alley nearby, some corrugated sheet metal over some
bookshelves and chairs, no walls, a couple of lamps on a long extension
cord heading off into the dark.  It was cool and drizzling rain.  I
wound up sitting on an old sofa, flipping through a copy of Marx' Das
Kapital while holding up my end of an involved discussion on the
evolution of walled cities in Europe.  I can see how people could get
addicted to a collegiate lifestyle...



Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Sheople strike
To: fanglers@

-> Ugh, thanks
-> Motherhood sure seemed to change with the advent of disposable
-> diapers.

20 years ago I had a Triumph Spitfire.  It pretty well broke me of the
urge to own another convertible.

I wondered why the passenger seat was all ripped to hell, and why there
were no good ones in the junkyards.  That's because every asshole who
gets into the car thinks they can step over the door and stand on the
seat.  Then they swing down using the windshield frame, which breaks the
windshield.  3 out of 4 people would do this; maybe they saw it in a
movie or something.  I didn't bother to replace the cracked windshield;
it wouldn't have lasted long.

If you took the car to the store, you'd almost always find some asshole
had tossed their trash into it while you were gone.  I lost count of how
many McDonalds' bags I tossed out.  Then there were the coke cups,
usually about half full, it appeared, which turned the cockpit into a
sticky mess.

The full Pamper in the driver's seat was the last straw.  I figured I
could set the car up as a decoy and blow the motherfuckers away as they
approached, but I finally just sold the damned thing.

I've related the problems to other convertible owners who claimed
they'd never had any problems like that, but it always turned out
whatever they had wasn't a daily driver; it always turned out to be some
one-trip-a-month garage queen which was never left out of sight when
parked.  Yeah, right.  Welcome to the real world when you drive it every
day...


Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: when pigs fly
To: fanglers@

-> We seem to be stuck on toilet fangleage/toilet humor.  I'm sensing a
-> disturbing trend...

Well, it's not like the bad old days, when you could just take a dump
and all you had to worry about was slick toilet paper or something,
which was easily enough taken care of by switching brands.

Now that we have "improved" Federal government regulated plumbing,
taking a dump is no longer a flush-and-forget experience.  Now you have
to stop, wait, and watch to see if it'll need a second flush, or even a
third.  All that waiting and staring makes the "toilet experience" a
larger part of the average fangler's life.  And you know what happens
when fanglers start *thinking*...


Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Help End Draft Registration
To: fanglers@

-> school so I could amount to something and not be a waste like the
-> goof-offs.  I listened, and now I'm there.  The goof-offs are still
-> that.

Yeah.  Except the goof-offs always seem to have the fast track into
management, where all the money usually is.  I guess not actually doing
any productive work gives you plenty of time for schmoozing and
sucking up.


Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 23:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Samurai Janitor
To: fanglers@

-> Probably pretty tacky to have a couple of drums of VP nitro on the
-> truck at the same time...

Don't laugh; if they happen to think of it we might get another law.

The ATF, which is "empowered" to make their own regulation, says you
can have an AR-15, or you can have an auto sear, but if you have both of
them on the same premisis, you have a "machine gun" and are in violation
of all sorts of regulations, since posession of both equals "intent" to
assemble them into a machine gun.

Part of the warrant they eventually generated for the assault on the
Branch Davidians was that they were reported to have a milling machine
and a lathe, therefore they had the *capability* of converting semi-auto
firearms into full auto.  So just owning the tools was considered
justification for a warrant.  In Arkansas, if you're in posession of
anything which might, under the most extreme interpretation, be
considered as "burlgary tools" your ass is grass unless you're a State
licensed locksmith.  Posession = intent = crime; the entire basis of
the common law is slowly being subverted.


All it would take is one "empowered" regulator in any of half a dozen
agencies, and they'd be arresting every farmer in the United States for
"intent to make explosives" or some similar charge.



Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 06:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Bitching
To: fanglers@

-> I don't know about everyone else but I'm growing very weary of this
-> bitching about PDFs in particular and every advancement since CP/M in
-> general.  Yes, I wish things were different but they're not so

Run with those lemmings!  Run!  Run run run!


- Dave "this too shall pass" Williams



Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 06:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global
To: fanglers@

-> And it aint China and long range weapons you need to worry about - it
-> just takes one Muslim fundamentalist with the convictions of his
-> beliefs to get to the right place with a brief case sized device and
-> this stuff wont be funny any more.

I've been saying that for decades.  Why build ICMs when UPS or FedEx
will do the job cheaper?  But that seems to be one of those "we're not
going to think about that" scenarios where if you pretend it can't
happen then it won't.

I'd be surprised if there weren't plenty of devices already emplaced
near their targets, simply awaiting their trigger signals.  It'd be
silly to wait until you were at war if you could do it years ahead ot
time.


Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 06:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: coffee war
To: fanglers@

-> When interviewed an EU spokesman simply stated: "If you've decided to
-> enforce this as a law then its your problem not ours"
->
-> Simply stated they make rules but its our lot that choose to enforce
-> them. Those that do not enforce them dont get any come back...

Any law that's not enforced is a parasite upon society.  Looks like you
guys are in need of a thorough delousing, having adopted a whole body of
foreign law to supercede your own...


At one time I was in favor of the "one world, one government"
philosophy.  Something I'd picked up without thinking about it much.
One day someone made the comment, "well, what if you didn't like that
government?  Where would you go?"  I realized I had another of those
indefensible concepts then.  Sure, nationalism often leads to strife,
but the usual brushfire wars seem a cheap price to pay compared to the
"one government" being the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, or even Israel.



Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 07:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global
To: fanglers@

-> Beyond that, a treaty is just an agreement and when it suites the
-> interest of one party to back out, it does so.

That's what Mussolini said about the League of Nations, and what Hitler
said about Versailles.

If treaties weren't intended to be binding, there would be no use
making them.  Once you start abrogating treaties unilaterally, you're
not in a good position to negotiate new ones, and all the other old ones
become suspect.  If it's only good until it suits the policy of one
party to back out, NATO, SEATO, and the SALT treaties aren't worth the
paper they're signed on either.


-> treaty.  I'm unsure about what Klinton might have done but in the US,
-> a treaty ain't a treaty until Congress votes on it.

In this case, the treaty was never ratified in the first place, as
Klinton's signature was just a warm fuzzy, not legally binding.


-> this.  I'm old enough to remember when the pseudo science fad was the
-> coming ice age.  I forget the details now but it had to the

Problem:   Global warming
Solution:  Nuclear winter


-> Regarding global warming, the best thing that can be said is that the
-> science is dubious.  Realistically, it isn't even good fiction.

Science and politics don't make good bedfellows.  Unfortunately, in the
conflict between them, science loses.  Most people I talk to nowadays
don't even know what "science" is, other than a degree and a white lab
coat.  I think the last I saw in school about the scientific method was
in the third grade.


-> The real polls, the ones the White House pays for and keeps secret.

Well, the ones I *hope* Bush is taking.  If Klinton's people took any,
they were done in some alternate universe, or were designed to generate
specific results.


Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 08:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Bush etc.
To: fanglers@

-> action.  You get a mass of people thinking that everyday is going to
-> be their last and see if they give a shit about money, possesions and
-> the rule of law. A captialist economy relies on these three elements.

Oh?  Like London during the Blitz?


-> Or is it the hard nose attitude of Israels leaders?  Neither side
-> will give an inch, and that attitude ends up with attack and counter

I admire the Israelis for carving out a nation with shrewd politics and
a willingness to fight, but if you read up on Israeli political history
it soon becomes apparent that:

A) Israel creates more than half of its problems all by itself.

B) some of their leaders (Begin as a good example) were just plain
bugfuck crazy.

They aren't content to just consolidate what they have and build up
their nation; they have this suicidal urge to keep running out and
kicking the ragheads in the shins to keep them at a high boil.  I fully
hold with the concepts of vendetta and revenge, but the nation of Israel
is not in a good position to make those its cornerstones of foreign
policy in the Middle East.  They seem to have the idea the United States
will bail them out if they push the ragheads too far, but when push
comes to shove, the Israelis have nothing we want, and most of the
ragheads do.

Then there's the little matter of them being a religious state.  Yeah,
so are the ragheads, but "democracy" or not, that puts them a couple of
steps below the outright dictatorships in my book.



-> Taking a hardline and kicking ass makes enemies, these you then have
-> to fight - we lost the empire because we made too many enemies, and
-> spread our resources too thin, the behaviour you subscribe to will
-> repeat this element of history.  Diplomacy is a better weapon than
-> military on-slaught,

Ballocks.  Politically correct, but utter rubbish.

The Empire lasted precisely as long as the government was willing to
kick ass, and no longer.  Moving from onslaught to diplomacy killed the
largest and most benign empire in the history of civilization.



Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 12:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global
To: fanglers@

-> So if some corrupt moron gets to office and makes dumb agreements we
-> are forever bound by them.

Exactly.  Which is why the country gets hurt more than most people
realize when they vote the likes of Carter or Clinton into office.


-> I think not.

Mussolini, Hitler, and others would fully agree with you.  And all the
Presidents that tossed their agreement with the various Indian nations
into the trash can.

Not good company.

If an individual reneged on his sworn oath, you would never trust him
again.  You'd let some nation weasel out of their sworn oath and
commitment to you if they just blamed it on an out-of-office politician?


If an individual or nation makes an agreement, they should intend to
keep it.  To do any less is dishonorable at the very least.


Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:18:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Bush etc.
To: fanglers@

-> "The best diplomat is a fully charged phaser bank."
->
-> Scotty


"Diplomacy: the art of maintaining tension short of actual combat."

- Keith Laumer, "Galactic Diplomat"


Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001 13:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global
To: fanglers@

-> To be honest what we see from ourside of the fence is that the
-> political situation is heating up and the world is getting more
-> dangerous again.

That's what you get when you put your army and navy out to pasture and
let diplomats handle things.

Back in King Edward's day, just a century ago, the world's political
situation depended mostly on what mood he was in when he got up that
morning.

"All these things, gone, like tears in rain..."



Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global
To: fanglers@

-> You sound like you've bought some of  that "one-world"-ism bullcrap,
-> Dave. Name a specific League action which the US would have/could
-> have changed. Our membership in the League wouldn't have mattered
-> dick.

The League was originally intended to be more like NATO than the UN.
Wilson was the driving force behind its creation, but it was crippled
when Wilson's own nation wouldn't ratify membership.

A specific action?  The US might have been able to give them a little
spine when Mussolini gave them the finger and set up his extermination
camps in Ethiopia.  The League voted for reprisals, but the member
nations were too jellyfish to do anything except send agonized notes to
the Italian Embassy.



Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush etc.
To: fanglers@

-> Agree with your assessment of Israel, Dave, pretty much. But Great
-> Britain "most benign" empire? Hohoho.......  Now that's funny.

Compare it to the Spanish Empire, French Empire, Soviet Russia,
Imperial Germany, or Imperial Rome.

Merrie Olde Englande's Empire looks pretty darned good compared to
that.


-> invoke my Irish ancestry on this occasion, since this is an obvious
-> DW "gasoline" splash. ;-)

Oh, I have some Irish in there with the Cherokee.  But the Irish and
Welsh are doomed geographically, just like the Cubans and Ceylonese, to
being the satraps of their nearby neighbors.  England/Scotland is a BIG
island; anything too much smaller just can't assemble the manpower
needed to go a-viking and keep their conquests.



Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 13:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: when pigs fly
to: fanglers@

-> The author described the difference as: with a European toilet you
-> keep a brush by the toilet, with a US toilet, a plunger.

Better a plunger than a shit-covered brush, then...



Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: video compression
To: fanglers@

-> I'm glad to hear that erratic camera motion bothers someone besides
-> me. I can't watch some programs without getting motion sickness.  My
-> wife thinks I'm weird for looking away from the TV during especially
-> high-motion commercials.

Most of it has come about since I went cold turkey in 1986.  Sometimes
I'll be walking through the living room where AB's video shrine is
barking and quacking, something will catch my eye, and I'll stagger into
the wall.

AB literally does not notice the bouncing, zooming, or
every-other-frame stutter-cut defects, though she usually notices when
they do an "artsy" flip into black and white.


Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 20:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global
To: fanglers@

-> over Africa today, and we bailed from Somalia. Plus, you're not
-> trying to say Ethiopia-Italian campaign caused WW2, so what would the

No, it wasn't *the* cause, but it was a contributing factor.

Most people seem to forget that Hitler and his Nazis took it slow and
easy, watching Mussolini and his Fascists, then waiting four or five
years before they did the same things.

There is *nothing* the Third Reich did that the Mussolini's Fascists
didn't do first, testing the bounds of how far things could be pushed.
Italy became an ally of sorts before the end of the war, and even before
that, the propaganda machine leaned almost entirely on Hitler.  Heck, by
contrast to the war crimes trials in Germany and Japan, the Italians got
off almost scot-free.


Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 08:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: TELEFON
To: fanglers@

-> << I'd be surprised if there weren't plenty of devices already
-> emplaced near their targets, simply awaiting their trigger signals.
-> >>

> "Miles to go before I sleep....."  - Charles Bronson, TELEFON

Hm.  I didn't see the movie, but in the book it was a group of
deep-cover assassins that a hardline Kremlin general had set off.



Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 08:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
To: fanglers@

-> < - -> military on-slaught,>>

> I dont think "Bomber" Harris would have agreed with you, mate

Well, look how the Brits treated him during and after the war...

It was okay to for the Nazis to blow up innocent British babies, but it
was somehow wrong for Harris to return the favor.

The British press didn't like Churchill or the war, and vented their
spite whenever they could.  Harris became one of their favorite targets,
and Churchill apparently did nothing about it.


Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 08:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
To: fanglers@

-> I always noted that the phasers never did jack against another
-> ship...

"Just once, I'd like to come up against something that wasn't immune to
phaser fire."   I don't remember which episode it was, but I almost fell
out of my chair laughing.

There were a whole lot of times when a .357 Magnum, or even a sharp
stick, would have been pretty damned useful...


-> "Take me hooooommmmeee agaiiiiinnnnn,
-> Kathleeeeeeeeeeeeen..........One....more....time!!!!!"

I flash back to that episode every time I am exposed to
overly-aggressive Muzak...


Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 08:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Old Zs, war stories
To: fanglers@

-> Seeing whats in the eyes of others, at times ain't pretty.
-> What's worse is when there in no one home, and those dead eyes are
-> gunning for you.

I'd heard stories about that kind of stuff and largely discounted it.

A friend of mine has a WWII picture book.  I was flipping through it
one day and came across a picture of some Australian soldiers at
bivouac.  They're just sitting there staring at the camera, and there's
nobody home.  Gave me the mega-creeps.

I don't remember their unit; it's one of those things I ought to know
and remember.

They'd been called up in 1940, sent to Africa, and fought all over
north Africa playing footsie with Rommel.  They watched Torch land,
fought some more, then got shipped to Italy.  They fought all the way up
the Italian peninsula.  Then they went to France, marched across France,
and fought their way into Germany.  Then the long, long, long voyage to
Rabaul in the South Pacific.  When the photo was taken, they were
waiting to be sent off as part of the invasion of the Japanese mainland.

Five and a half years.  The Brits didn't rotate combat troops like we
did, and those guys had been in combat almost the whole time.

"Nobody home" is a good description.  They're having their picture
taken, but they're not looking *at* anything.  They don't look like
they're thinking about anything, or tired, or bored.  Just nothing.



Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 08:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush Will Continue to Oppose Kyoto Pact on Global
To: fanglers@

-> Well as I said in another mail, diplomacy works a whole load better
-> if you've got a good military.

The carrot and the stick.  You have to have the stick; carrots alone
are only useful until they find out there's no stick.



Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 16:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: C4 (not the explosive)
To: fanglers@

-> It's one of those television commercial things you never see.

I live in my own alternate universe!


Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 17:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Near miss
To: fanglers@

-> was going around to my right wasn't so lucky.  He reacted to me by
-> doing the same thing as I did but lost control and smashed into the
-> concrete overpass wall.  His car climbed the wall and got

I found, much to my distress, that the law here in Arkansas doesn't
provide for evasive action.  If some dickweed moves into your lane, runs
a light, etc., and you go into the ditch to avoid a collision, *you* get
a ticket for "loss of control of vehicle."

Collision report forms (at least for the local city; I think they're
standardized across the state) still have a place where they're supposed
to write down the length of any skid marks, as proof of "attempt to
avoid a collision."  Of course, lots of modern tires don't leave much in
the way of skid marks, and most newer cars have ABS anyway.  But they're
still supposed to get the little wheel-on-a-stick out and measure any
they find, though it proves nothing.




Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 10:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: still cold outside...
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

It's up to a blazing 21F outside.  Looks like the car projects are
going to wait a little longer.

I'm amusing myself by cleaning out the study.  I've made several sweeps
through already, tossing old catalogs and documentation, etc.  Ah,
*there* is my heavy duty staple gun, buried under some motherboards...
286s?  Can I even *give* a 286 motherboard away?   Into the trash.
Another cache of Byte Magazines... a 1979, a 1980, a couple of 1984s...
keep those...  Data acquisition catalogs from 1991.  Trash.  More OS/2
documentation.  Trash.  Wait... keep the REXX manual just in case.  A
small booklet with the old-style "Microsoft" logo... what... how about a
primo "Microsoft Quick Reference Guide For CP/M-80"?  Copyright 1982.
I wavered a bit, then put it in the 'keep' pile.  It doesn't take much
space, and it will make a great show-and-tell piece for some newbie who
thinks the world began with Windows 95.

Cleaning is sort of fun.  If you keep crap long enough, it's all new
again when you dig it back up!



Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2001 12:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 2 more transplantees
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Looking back it was humorous, I mean climbing out of bed with chest
-> tubes, and then not being able to do anything when ya got to the

I always worry about doctors fiddling around inside.  I got hold of an
orthopedic surgery text once.  Had lots of X-rays of limbs held together
with crudely-sawn pieces of flat bar stock, twisted wires, even a chain.
Sharp wood screws all over the place.  Every one of those guys probably
went into orthopedic surgery because they failed wood shop in junior
high.  Brrr...



Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 07:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Iron Chef addiction?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I have never had Chitlins. Do they really taste like shit? Or just
-> smell like it?

Nah, they're the Southern version of haggis.  As far as I'm concerned
chitlins are a lot like squid - no particular flavor, but they look
grotesque and the texture is the tactile equivalent of raking
fingernails across a blackboard.

The biological engine will run on almost anything, but I'm happy to
support my prejudices in favor of muscle tissue and legumes.  Hold the
fat, lamb thyroids, beef tongues, chicken gizzards, and monkey brains,
thank you...



Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 07:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Pontiac & Buick 455 Valve Covers
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Why don't Christians have special hats?
-> Jews got hats, Muslims got hats, Buddhists shave their hair so kinda
-> head relat So, how come no hats for the Christians?

Well, the Catholics wear stuff that's apparently designed by the Monty
Python Ministry of Silly Hats.  I don't see how the Vatican conducts its
business without falling into convulsions of laughter.  Hell, I can't
even figure out how they keep the damned things *on*, unless they're
actually balancing them on their heads like some Africans carry
packages.

I bet the doorways are all really tall in the Vatican, too.  And wide.



Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 08:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: P to D
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> No, not what you think, you eggheads.  ;-)  Has anyone seen or found
-> any coverage of the Paris to Dakar.  Things began to get underway
-> yesterday.

Paris to Dakar... pfui!

In 1908, when only major cities had paved roads, and when you bought
whatever flammables your vehicle could burn (gasoline, kerosene, naptha)
in gallon containers at pharmacies... there was a race from New York to
Paris.  Cars from all over the world were entered; the only American
entry was a 1907 Thomas Flyer, purchased just six days before the
beginning of the race.

Leaving from Times Square on February 12, 1908, it took the Flyer 41
days to make it across primitive roads and wagon trails to San
Francisco.  The Flyer was an open car, as all were then, and 1908 was a
particularly cold year.  Battling snow, ice, floods, and oceans of mud,
it reached Frisco 11 days ahead of its nearest competitor.

The original route called for going north to Nome, Alaska, where the
contestants would be ferried 150 miles across the sea to East Cape,
Siberia.  The Flyer had reached Seattle when the officials decided the
weather conditions made the route impractical, so it was directed south
to Valdez, where the contestants went by ship to Kobe, Japan.  They went
350 miles overland to Tsurugi, and were shipped to Vladivostok, Russia,
where they proceeded through the taiga and tundra through Irkutsk, Omsk,
Ekaterinberg, Moscow, Petrograd (St. Petersburg, the capital), and then
into Germany, through Berlin, and then on to Paris.  The 8250 miles from
Vladivostok to Paris took 72 days.  The Flyer rolled into Paris at 8 PM
on July 30, 170 days after leaving Times Square.

The Flyer averaged 152 miles per day, 420 miles on its longest day's
run.  It covered 13,341 miles under its own power, 8,569 miles by water.

Buddy, that was *hauling ass* in 1908.

The car was returned to the United States in 1964, originally to become
part of the Harrah's collection in Reno, then was moved back to New York
in the late '80s.

The Thomas Flyer still exists.

It has been restored to running condition.

Just a few days over seven years from now, it will be one hundred years
since the Flyer left New York for the first time.

Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?



Just in case the story of the Flyer sounds vaguely familiar, there was
a comedy called "The Great Race", loosely based on the New York to Paris
race of 1908.


I've spent more than a few idle minutes trying to get a feel for what
those guys went through.  In 1908 the only paved roads in America were
in cities.  There was no automotive infrastructure; much of the "race"
was probably spent just trying to find fuel... and the front runners
would probably suck a town dry every time they stopped; the big round
tank straddling the Flyer's rear held 50 gallons at least.  The old
magazine article I scrounged for information (Cars & Parts, September
'84) mentioned the Flyer is the only vehicle that stuck to the specified
route.  Probably the others had to divert to forage for 'the previous
juice'... anything liquid and flammable.  If a part broke, there
probably weren't any Thomas dealerships nearby.  Hell, they didn't even
have standardized *screw threads* in 1908!  Anything broke, they made
another one.  Once they got to Russia they didn't even have maps; the
Czar discouraged such things for reasons of national security.  Just
follow the compass west, village to village.  Roads in Siberia are
*still* only passable at certain times of the year; Siberia has two
seasons - snowed in, and oceans of mud.  Practical road travel is only
possible in the times between.



The Flyer is ready.

The Centennial is coming...

Does anyone even remember?




Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 08:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Iron Chef addiction?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> "Octupus?!  How the hell am I going to barbecue a goddamn octupus!  I
-> don't even want to touch the damn thing.

Nah, it's just like gutting a deer after it's gone cold.  (yuck, in
other words...)

Not even barbecue will improve something that has the consistency of
foam rubber.


-> and gloves.  Get me some beef motherfucker!

If [insert diety of your choice] hadn't intended for us to eat cows,
[insert pronoun of your choice] wouldn't have made them out of beef!

As Americans, we'll slather our beef with barbecue sauce, or dice and
spice it into chili, or just warm up a big naked chunk of it and serve
it alongside a big ol' potato, because we're Americans and we can afford
to feed our livestock better than a lot of countries can afford to feed
their citizens.



Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 09:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Please help this guy with a VERY large project
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> in people - there are a huge number of places that would generate
-> good power, but the moment anyone applies to put a wind farm in one
-> of these places all the locals get arsey and talk shit about noise
-> polution and spoiling the scenery.

I think they're very cool and scenic.  They're also noisy as hell.  I
used to pause at a rest stop in Colorado (New Mexico?) that had a bunch
of power generating windmills on a ridge at least a mile away.  They
went "WHOP-WHOP-WHOP" like giant helicopters, and since it's windy there
most of the time, it'd probably drive you nuts after a while.  Hell, it
was annoying even just stopping long enough to take a leak.

I don't know how the Dutch type sound.  These were the enormous power
generation type with the high aspect ratio propellers, like you used to
see in features in Popular Mechanics.


->  What gets me is that a local bird
-> sanctury is trying to block a wind farm beacuse it will 'confuse the
-> water foul'.

"Think of it as evolution in action."


-> hundreds of years?  Can I see 4 within a mile radius of where I live?
-> (yes)

Well, now we know why you're "Mad Robbo..."  


-> and I am never failed to be shocked by the complete lack of piles of
-> dead birds that got confused and flew at the turning sails...

A friend of mine was stationed in Turkey some years ago.  The base had
big radars looking east... right through the enlisted mens' barracks.
They were assured the radar was perfectly safe, but every morning there
were guys picking up the dead birds in front of the antennas.  Doug said
he wondered why every TV or radio in the building was in a box made of
screen wire; they were Faraday cages to keep the radar from screwing
them up.  He said watching Turkish TV through screen wire was a
psychedelic experience.



Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2001 10:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Iron Chef addiction?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I guess I think of the invertibrates as more shellfish than
-> fish.

In Okinawa you can get packages of dried octopus tentacles from vending
machines, sort of like pork skins here.  Hell, they even taste like pork
skins.  Not one of my favorite flavors.



Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 18:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Fangler fieldtrip idea!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Texans don't do BBQ better, they just do it big. Real BBQ (or
-> barbeque) is pork, on a bun, with slaw on top. Period.

SLAW?!

On barbecue?!

You're a pervert, Porter...


Yeah, just a little diced cabbage at first, then lettuce, tomato,
onion, pickles... pretty soon you have a goddamned garden on there.

Make mine meat.  I put up with the bun so I have something to pick it
up with, but in Atlanta I was served barbecue in a weird gravy bowl
thing with a fork and Texas toast on the side.  I can handle that.



Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 19:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fangler fieldtrip idea!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> england and they have a most tasty offering - lobster rolls.  YUM!
-> It's a truckload of shredded lobster in a hot dog bun with a little
-> butter. And they're cheap!

Articles of indenture during the Colonial era often specified that the
indenturee would not have to eat lobster more than three times a week.

Lobsters are sufficiently alien to lack various essentials required for
a balanced diet.



Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2001 10:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Spelling checkers (Was: Mustang hop-up)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> at the "custom dictionary" on his word processor.  It contains dozens
-> of misspelled words!  Evidently he is so self-confident about his
-> spelling that he doesn't believe it when his spell-checker points out
-> a word - he just adds his own spelling of the word to his "custom
-> dictionary" so the



Some of the lists I've been on, I've unsubbed from because the influx
of doodz looked like an invasion of people with the written equivalent
of Tourette's Syndrome.



Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 07:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Ranger plans 750 mile hump in full gear as protest
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> ear to protest Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki's recent
-> decisi= on to allow all soldiers to begin wearing black berets in
-> June.=20

They'll probably hand out Purple Hearts and paratroop wings next.

They have a whole army full of people who grew up being praised and
getting a handful of gold stars stuck to their test papers because they
made a "D" instead of an "F".  Kind of hard to motivate that kind of
people to "failure is not permitted" standards.


-> Critics of Shinseki's decision say changing uniform requirements
-> will= do little to improve morale.

Well, getting rid of that damned Cuban Army camouflage as the base
uniform certainly wouldn't hurt.  That looks ridiculous on an Air Force
base, for example.  They look like clowns.

General Shitsucker shows that the Dilbert Principle applies to the
military just fine.



Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Fangler fieldtrip idea!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> That's what _is_ done - for evil profit - in 2001.  Look at any
-> Arby's type of place, or other places, and they have cooked meat, and
-> they have barbecue sauce.

They could squirt sauce on a mud brick, but it'd still be a mud brick.


I'm pretty well fed up with this "tolerance" shit.  It always seems to
boil down to someone else expecting me to change *my* mind about
whatever it is they're babbling about.  Seems pretty one-sided to me.

Maybe it's time to gather up the Faithful and embark on a Barbecue
Jihad.  "And you shall know them by their sauce-stained T-shirts and the
trail of burning Arby's behind them!"



Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Fangler fieldtrip idea!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> That's not barbecue, that's a sloppy joe....

Fool!  Everyone knows you make a sloppy joe with hamburger!



Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 15:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Mack Reynolds quote
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I don't understand "Hard to read".  Incomprehensible, boring, coma
-> inducing, I understand. But words is words, one's about as hard to
-> read as another, given a vocabulary.

For me, when the author's basic assumptions differ greatly from the
reader's.  For example, I'm still boring through Clausewitz.  It's hard
going, even though I've come to realize that Clausewitz' worldview
divides humanity into rulers, officers, and unpersons; that the actions
of the military are not only not to be questioned, but the very concept
of wrongdoing seems to be very faint; that he assumes the normal state
of affairs is war, and peacetime is only for regrouping to fight again.
Everything I read has to be run through those filters, examined at odd
angles, and fit into the Clausewitz model.  Like Marxist economics or
various religious doctrines, Clausewitz' ideas are self-referential and
fall to pieces outside their artificial playpens.

Hitler, by comparison, is a marvel of simplicity.  The world crapped on
him and they're going to get it up the ass in return.  Whatever he wants
should be his; the desire conveys the right.  That about sums up Mein
Kampf.  Interestingly, it also applies to most preschool children and
hardline Democrats.



Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 15:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Fangler fieldtrip idea!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Who is God, in the cookbook, that He shall tell us that we must blend
-> flavors???

Beats the hell out of me.  For example, most people appear to want
their spaghetti sauce homogenized.  I like to cook the meat, add the
tomato sauce, then big handfuls of finely diced onion, chunks of bell
pepper, and a couple of diced cloves of garlic.  Cook just long enough
to warm everything up, serve.  You get nice little blasts of flavor from
the crunchies.

Of course, most people boil pasta until it's a shapeless mush you can
strain through your teeth.  Yuck.  Cook until no longer crunchy, serve.



-> I'd much rather warm my food as minimally as possible and get on with
-> the eating.

Fire is one of the major things that separates Homo Sapiens from the
lesser primates.  I like to demonstrate my essential manliness by
thoroughly cooking most things I eat.  Sorry, Bonzo, chimps are pretty
smart, but it took real sapiens to perfect barbecue.



Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 17:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Mack Reynolds quote
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> newspaper articles, pamphlets, etc. to support their positions.
-> What's always bugged me is the fact that they had an audience.

There wasn't that much to go around.  Back then, a "best seller" meant
half the country had read it.  Now it means five percent have heard of
it.

You sometimes hear the phrase "men of letters."  I thought that meant
men who were literate, but I found out it meant men who wrote letters.
You can see examples of this sort of thing in "The Federalist Papers"
and the collected papers of many of the revolutionaries.  A would write
a letter (white paper?) expounding some idea.  A sent it to B, who would
read it, add his own two bits, or even write his own paper, then send it
all to C, who would do the same... the kula chain looped around until it
eventually got back to A, who would often boil it all into a new paper,
then send it around again.  That's why, despite their geographic
distance from each other, so many of the revolutionaries knew each other
quite well.  Many of these letters still exist.

"Letters" in that sense seem to have faded out after the American
Revolution, though the practice was common in England well into the 20th
century.

I always thought it was a nifty idea.  In a minor way, fangle works
something like that.



Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 04:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fangler fieldtrip idea!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Is that sound I hear Von Neuman spinning in his grave? I suppose
-> Alexander Graham Bell had no inkling of either telemarketing or phone
-> sex. Oh well.

I gave up after I saw residential wall thermostats with embedded 80386
microprocessors... back when 386s were still state of the art for PCs.

Besides, if I buy a new CD player, it'll probably have a microprocessor
of some sort in it anyway.  "When your only tool is a hammer, every
problem looks like a nail."  I used to have a printer with an onboard
processor considerably better than what I had in my computer!

I was in one of the very first serious VR forums.  Part of the
discussion was about that VR would be useful for.  The usual
walk-through architecture drivel was brought up.  I proposed that VR
would reach critical mass in the porno market; even then, vendors were
claiming over half of all pre-recorded videotapes sold were porn; porn
is what made VCRs commodity items.  I've ventured some unpopular
opinions before, but that one was spectacular...



Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 04:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: off topic / traction control
To: diy_efi@diy-efi.org

-> The newspaper article I read stated that the internal Ford Docs
-> stated that Ford's own internal testing showed the Explorer wasn't
-> very stable and that Ford decreased the tire pressure not for ride
-> quality but to make the tires have less grip so it wouldn't roll as
-> easily.  When the dropped the
-> tire pressure it would pass Ford's own internal stability test, with
-> the tire pressure
-> raised it was not stable enough.

Even allowing that story is true, so what?  It shows that Ford did test
the vehicle, that they found a problem (surely they find problems with
some regularity, or they wouldn't bother to test, would they?) and they
came up with a fix for that problem.

There have been lots of cars very sensitive to tire pressure.  The
Chrysler K-cars could easily be rolled over if the front tires were
underinflated; there was even a big media flap over it.  Hell, I *saw*
one do it once.  Before that, the Corvair used different tire pressures
front and back.

Ford can't be held responsible for people driving around with under- or
over- inflated tires, any more than they can be responsible for the same
idiots hitting other cars or stationary objects.  Most drivers are
absolute morons anyway.


Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 04:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: LARGO: let's Choose Moderator
To: largo@chambana.com

-> I think nominations would be in order and also volunteers. If there
-> is fear of a moderater at all, then I would suggest a 6 month or 1
-> year trial period.

Why don't you go off and start your own list, then?  The way I see it,
your incessant raving and whining has moved you up to the top
troublemaker slot here on Largo.  Take your ball, and don't let the door
hit you in the ass on the way out.

We don't need any moderators, we don't need any troublemakers, and we
particularly don't need *you*.  Begone!



Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 07:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fangler fieldtrip idea!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I alluded to something like the alt.binaries.pictures groups and
-> figured that porn was where digital video was heading rather than
-> enlightening distance learning or anything like that. I didn't get
-> invited back...

Yeah.  They'll learn...

I'm still not all that impressed with VR in general; I view it as one
of those flash technologies that people think they want until it
arrives, then nobody cares.  Videophones are a good example.  From the
1920s on they were a staple of science fiction books and movies; in the
'60s and '70s mainstream magazines predicted their imminent arrival...
but now there's more than enough bandwidth at every telephone line, and
the market could really care less.  A few units are sold for
videoconferencing, but there's no sign v-phones are going anywhere soon,
if ever.

Carol Burnett did a hysterically funny skit about videophones on her
variety show back in the '70s; I'd like to have a tape of that one.

I've actually *met* women who checked their hair and makeup before they
would answer the phone...



Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Mack Reynolds quote
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The ideas are simple, but you have to wade through a pile of crap to
-> dig them out.  _Mein Kampf_ was not an effortless read.

...as I well know.  But Clausewitz makes Hitler look like a marvel of
simplicity.

There's no pedant like a German pedant, and that's a fact, Jack!



Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 10:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: More EPA news - gas standards and more on diesel trucks
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Trains move lots of stuff cheaper than trucks can. It becomes a
-> factor of convenience and masked cost defrayed through a public
-> subsidy.

If there's enough of whatever you're moving, like coal or iron ore,
yes.  You run spurs from the source to the destination, which costs a
fortune, then you start working on payback.

Anything else you want to ship, you have to load a truck, truck it to
the railhead, assuming you don't have to pay for warehousing in the
meantime, the railroad company moves the stuff somewhere else, where
it's unload, possibly warehoused again, then loaded back on trucks,
driven to the destination, and unloaded again.

Don't forget, you're paying union labor every time you fire up that
forklift.  Even if the rail was *free*, it wouldn't be significantly
cheaper than just trucking whateveritis to its destination, not to
mention time, possibilities of damage or theft, etc.


-> And now the real reason: I like trains. Especially steam ones.

Me too.  And they make excellent sense for passenger transport; I'd
take a train from LR to Vicksburg, or St. Louis, if the terminals
weren't in ghettoes and the fare was cheaper than driving.  Passenger
trains *could* be cost-effective and profitable, but they're hosed by a
century and a half of legislation and bad design.  How many people do
you figure would want to go from Memphis to Vicksburg on any given day?
Not enough to pay for a locomotive to haul them there, for sure.  But
the European concept of railcars never even made it to the States, and
it's dying out over there.  A railcar was just a self-propelled
passenger coach.



Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 10:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: [Fordnatics] aftercooler or intercooler?
To: fordnatics@www.mustangworks.com

-> natural disposition, talent, from in- + gignere to beget
...
-> 1 obsolete a : INGENUITY b : evil contrivance : WILE
-> 2 : something used to effect a purpose : AGENT, INSTRUMENT  and terrible engine of horror and of crime -- E. A. Poe>
-> 3 a : a mechanical tool: as (1) : an instrument or machine of war (2)
-> obsolete : a torture implement

Hmm... I detect certain prejudicial aspects of that definition.

"Beyond the Palace
Hemi-powered drones
scream down the boulevard..."



Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 22:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Leece-Neville alternators
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I'd like to see/build/own a grid-independent pad, no problem.

I don't want to be independent of the grid.  I just want to be able to
do something besides sit in the fucking dark when Reddy Kilowatt slips
into a coma again.  That week of downtime in December put the hurt on my
income, among other things.


If I wanted to be independent of the grid, I'd see about a real
generator, and a couple Olds 350 Diesels, and a supply of fryer grease.
If I could get three months between overhauls, I'd still be way ahead of
the usual $400/mo summer electric bills.

But I'm not *that* bent.  Yet.



Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Auto Makers Take Lead to Make NASCAR Safer
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> CONCORD, N.C. -- Since Adam Petty died in a race-related crash
-> at New Hampshire in May, the racing community has been looking
-> for NASCAR to take steps to keep race drivers from getting killed.

Radio control?


-> "All the Saturday-night racers all over the country look up to us
-> guys," he said. Winston Cup drivers need to tone down the macho
-> image,

Look up?  Macho image?  Looks like they've been snorting too much of
that expensive white powder again...

The local racers around here, who own their own cars and pay their own
way, tend to regard the NASCAR driving stars as lesser life forms.



Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: '67 Shelby Cheap?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> No, I'm tied up in the meeting that will not end.  I was hoping one
-> of our Georgia types would call.

Wow.  You do mail during those kinds of meetings?

I used to make paper airplanes.  At first I tried doodling in my
notebook, but apparently the speakers thought I was recording their
Great Thoughts, so it only encouraged them.

Hmm... if you had some decent comm software, you could write a script
so your desktop PC could call your pager about halfway through any
meeting that looked like it might be ominous.  "Oops!  Looks like one of
the servers exploded, gotta run..."

Failing that, using the buddy system and having a friend call or page
you might work.  



Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 07:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: '67 Shelby Cheap?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> >  Failing that, using the buddy system and having a friend call or
-> page > you might work.  

> If you don't do this already you should find some new friends around
> the office.

I was a slow learner.  It took me a long time to understand that, even
if they disposed of the subject in fifteen minutes, they were still
going to use the entire allocated hour for the meeting, no matter what.

My brother has the ability to sleep standing up with his eyes open.  No
shit.  My parents took him to a couple of different doctors because of
it.  I suspect that trick has stood him in good stead during his years
in the military.



Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Long drive
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> > would rather drive for 4 days, than take a 6 hour flight.
->
-> I dont' understand that at all...why is that?

No hassle getting to the airport
No expensive airport parking
No bullshit at the check-in counters
No bullshit from the metal detectors
No sitting around the airport all day because the plane was late
No getting bumped from your flight because the airline overbooked
No having the asshole in front of you recline his seat into your lap
No screaming children in a closed space
No barfing from pressure sickness
No sitting around all day because your connecting flight already left
No hassle trying to get your luggage back
No hassle trying to rent a car or get someone to pick you up


I don't do airplanes.



Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 13:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: LARGO: P38, Nambu, Star "I" Need values & For Sale!
to: largo@chambana.com

-> God.  Janet Reno has already left Washington in a red pickup loaded
-> with four kayaks heading to Fla where she plans a 120-mile float
-> trip.  I am not making this up.  May she enjoy the trip she deserves.

I just flashed on that famous scene from "Deliverance..."

If not that, we can always hope for venomous spiders, copperheads,
alligators, or drowning...



Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 18:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Making a barrel
To: gunsmith-list@swcp.com

-> Kind of like wars are *always* caused by defenders.  If they
-> didn't defend, there'd be no war.

Oddly enough, that's just about how Clausewitz describes it.  And any
resistance whatsoever justified any level of retaliation.  I'm not sure
why Clausewitz is so highly respected by the military types; practically
every atrocity laid at the feet of the Kaiser and the Nazis came
straight from Clausewitz' "On War."

I've read Macchiavelli's essays, and I've read Hitler's "Mein Kampf",
but Clausewitz comes close to turning my stomach.  If Clausewitz even
halfway beleived the crap he wrote, he'd be a perfect match for the
FBI's serial killer profile.



Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 21:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: book and turbocharging
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I have misplaced my own quotation, but there are more different old
-> engine books than all of us together could ever buy/name/read;

Note the qualifier:  OLD

Somewhere about 1960 they stopped writing design engineering books and
went to textbooks, boiling down complex lines of reasoning into sound
bite factoids.  Heywood is a prime example of that bad lot.

I can see the line of reasoning the publishers use.  "There probably
aren't more than a dozen people who actually design engines, there's no
market there, so we'll just go for the textbook market."



Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 21:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Is Dubya Really That Dumb?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Funniest part of this is that Herbert Hoover was probably _THE_ most
-> intellectually capable man to hold the office in the twentieth
-> century!!

The next-funniest, though probably not to Hoover, was that all the crap
he got blamed for was done by the previous administration.  And perhaps
the third-funniest, is most of the recovery programs Roosevelt took
credit for were started under the Hoover administration.

The "history" we were taught in school was curiously twisted...



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> also know that I refuse to use the once innocent word "gay" to
-> describe their lifestyle. (I know 3 women who cannot use their given
-> name any more.)

That chaps my ass too.  And you'd be really worried nowadays if your
kid's teacher said he was "special."

What was that Orwell said?  "If you hate black, call it white and love
it?"



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 06:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Mosquitoes & AIDS Re: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Statistically mosquitoes usually only bite once,

There are something like 1500 identified types of mosquito, and I
assure you some of the local ones will walk right down your arm biting
just for the hell of it.

Just what I need here in the 'hood...



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 07:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I would take what little time I had left to live and use every damned
-> minute killing fags and drug users.

I would be a little more selective, but if I ever showed up HIV+,
future generations would see my name at the head of the list with people
like Jack the Ripper and Son of Sam.

Money is easy enough to get if you don't have to worry about paying it
back.  Otherwise, I'd be armed, mobile, and the only thing I'd have to
lose if I got caught before I died would be the chance to take a few
more of the bastards with me.  The FBI's typical VICAP serial killer is
a fucked up head case loser; I'd have to make some really bad mistakes
for them to even get close.



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Any bets on what percentage of parents would abort feti with genetic
-> markers for faggotism??

Since I figure the USA is about 200 million overpopulated already, I'm
all for the fags and lesbians, as long as they don't breed.

There are too many rats in this cage already.



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> pilot, who spread it around through sex.  Of course, there is an
-> overlap betwee the gay community and the drug community, and the rest
-> is obvious.

There's an overlap between *every* community and the drug community;
that's the justification the drug Nazis use for mandatory drug testing.



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Ya know, there are certain things you really might not want to
-> yak about electronically...

Nah, even if they did a data mining thing (some employers do that, by
the way, when screening applicants) they'd A) have to do it
pretty-damned-quick, since I wouldn't see much reason to wait around
after getting notified, and B) even if they had it in front of them,
they'd put it down as "harmless anger response", as the number of people
who actually follow through approaches zero.



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Is Dubya Really That Dumb?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Per the Subject Line: did you guys read that Dubya has exited the
-> cyber world-- is not using email while in office. Yea, that's another
-> dumb thing he's done, e

Really?

How many full-time Federal employees do you figure it would take to
sift through the spambot mass mailings to "president@whitehouse.gov",
even assuming some fuckheads in Annacannapannastan didn't just mount a
continual denial-of-service attack?

Does anyone really believe Dollar Billy ever saw any e-mail?  I don't
think even the Secret Service would bother to read it; they'd just point
the spool to /dev/null.



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 14:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: HTML in email
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I agree with you, BUT, I find proportional fonts much easier to read.

I *most definitely* don't.  I'm not all that fond of proportional and
kerned printed text to start with, and all the common proportional
screen fonts ridiculously overdo the weirdo spacing thing.



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 16:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Well, as far as I recall from my biology classes in High school, anal
-> sex and oral sex does not result in pregnancy.

According to our previous incumbent, oral sex isn't "sex."

As for anal sex, where did you *think* lawyers come from?



Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 16:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Really pitiful is folks even think they are smart enough to drive,
-> and then distract themselves from there.
-> Watched one guy have an agrument with the phone at 70.

I watched a couple having a major argument while driving.  They were
doing it in Ameslan.  The driver kept watching the passenger to see what
she was saying, then he'd jerk the car back into line, let go of the
wheel, argue back, jerk the car back into line...

Talking on a cell phone is no different than talking to someone in the
passenger seat... but some people can't talk to someone in the passenger
seat and still watch the road.  Weird.




Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 05:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Lehighton News - "Man slices off hand, shoots self with nails"
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Lehighton worker accidentally cuts limb off with saw, fires spikes
-> into head to deal with pain.

These people vote.

And serve on juries.


The law says they are your peers and equals.


Be very afraid.




Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 05:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Mark my words, it will be proven to be very different.
-> Your mind, (oops, well mine), does work to fill in the blanks.
-> When talking to someone in the abstract your attaching images to the
-> conversation.

Possibly, but at such a low level I'm not aware of it if so.

I'm not one of the see-it, feel-it type.  "Intuitively obvious"
illiterate heiroglyphics on signs and equipment leave me baffled.  It
took me three years to learn to navigate Windows to a "beginner" level,
where I'm still at.

There's an anthro tale of an explorer trying to show some Pygmies a
map.  They didn't understand the arrows; they "saw" them as pointing the
other way.  After much confusion the derivation of the arrow symbol was
explained; "here is the point, here is the shaft, it flies *that*
way..."  The Pygmy looks at the map and says, "How interesting.  Why
would anyone think of something like that?"

I've read books on what used to be called "desktop publishing."  They
talked about arranging things so pages were pretty; there was nothing at
all about making it easy to understand.  Sort of like the brief font
discussion yesterday.  Yes, if you're a very slow reader, down in the
500 words per minute range, there probably isn't any difference between
proportional and fixed-space text...

For over thirty years I've averaged about one book a day, reading.
That doesn't count screen text.  Hell, I *write* the equivalent of one
full-size Stephen King novel a month, just on outgoing mail; I don't
have any metrics for the stuff that stays on the computer.

To me, everything is text.  Has been for most of my life.  When people
mumble at me, I have to translate it back to text.

Apparently, this takes much less processing power than generating your
own in-head video...


-> Look at how easily eye witnesses are fooled.
-> The mind just fills in what it persceives to be missing.

That's because the majority of the losers don't look *or* hear to any
significant degree.  They pay just enough attention to the world to
trigger their reflexes and prejudices, which guide them around like
automatons.  Which they are.  Haven't you ever had one of those "alien
encounters" where you've tried to talk to someone, and their replies
showed that they were obviously earnest, but just as obviously had no
idea what you'd just said?



Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 06:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Or maybe we really don't have any and they are lying to us about it.

That sort of thinking can lead to some really nasty causal loops.

Of course, politicians lie as a matter of course; the truth is much too
valuable to be casually spread about.




Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2001 16:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> It all depends on how your in-head processor works.  I see and think
-> in pictures.

I've seen lots of "user design" books talk about picture-think, but I
most emphatically *do not* think in pictures.


-> up when changing from a computer keypad to a phone keypad.  For me
-> its like speaking two different languages.

Computer keypad?  You mean the cursor keys?




Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: road trippin'
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

I had made arrangements to make a loop up from Little Rock to Wichita
to deliver an engine, then across to St. Louis to schmooze around with
Dan Jones for a day or so, then  down to Memphis to pick up a pair of
ported cylinder heads before zagging back to Little Rock.  I'd decided
it would be a good idea to do something about that ominous howl coming
from the rear of the B2000 first, so I yanked the driver's side axle out
and took a look.  The B2000's rear end is like nothing I ever saw
before; it uses huge taper roller bearings held against the flange end
by jam nuts, with threads cut into the axles, which are at *least* as
beefy as 9" Ford axles.  There is a cast iron housing sandwiched between
the flange and bearing.  Though the inner race is held by the jam nut,
the housing and outer race just flop around.  You bolt the housing to
the rear end and there are shims between the two to set the end play of
the axles and bearings.  It took a while to figure out exactly what was
going on there...

Anyway, the inner wheel bearing seal was destroyed when removing the
axle, and it turned out they're weirdballs that aren't available from
any of the usual aftermarket sources, even though the outer seals are $5
at AutoZone.  The Mazda dealer didn't have any... and he couldn't get
any from the PDR until too late to make the trip.  So I emailed everyone
and canceled.

The seals finally came in, so I set things up again.  The guy in
Memphis wasn't going to be done with the heads, so I didn't have to stop
there, and David DeHaven decided he could meet me in Springfield, which
would shave about 12 hours off my travel time.  I planned to leave early
Saturday.  Friday morning I backed the truck into the shop to change the
passenger side bearing.  As usual, things turned to crap... I broke off
the bleeder screw on the rear wheel cylinder through stupidity.  Okay,
no problem, I'll just go down and buy another one.  Nope.  NAPA could
get me one, but it would be Monday.  I checked around for a rebuilt
wheel cylinder... not in stock, have it Monday.  The Mazda wheel
cylinder doesn't use a tapered screw, it uses a ball bearing to make the
actual seal.  I said to hell with it and ran an appropriately-threaded
metric screw in to seal the port, which made it a bitch to bleed, but
what the hell.

Change the oil, change the fuel filter (#6, still picking up mud from
the tank), checked the tire pressure, rear end and trans levels OK,
cleaned the windows, loaded everything up, crashed about 6 PM.

Wake up at midnight, leisurely get the rest of my stuff together, print
out triptiks from MapQuest, roll out right around 4 AM.  About an hour
and a half later I realized I'd made my first mistake... I'd gotten lost
barely three miles from home, when I took 67N instead of 65N.  Well,
damn.  I'm not a number guy... and 67N has a huge sign that says "St.
Louis 365 Miles," which short-circuited the critical faculties.  I began
to guide left through some of the little two-lane roads until I decided
the better part of valor would be to stop and buy a map.  I hated to
spend $4 for a map when I had about six of them at home (anyone want an
Arkansas map?).  I'd brought a Missouri map, but I didn't expect to get
lost right next to home...

I got to explore little hamlets like scenic Oil Trough, Arkansas for
the next couple of hours, zigzagging west until I finally picked up 65N.
After that it was a nearly straight shot to the Denny's in Springfield.
I made it there half an hour early despite the detour.  Everything was
fine...

Except the Denny's wasn't there.

MapQuest had assured me there was only one Denny's in Springfield, but
the map resolutely led me to a Waffle House.  I thought about it for a
while, then went across to the south side of the freeway just in case it
was on the other side.  Nope.  Turned around... there it was, I'd driven
right past it.  All the signs were turned so that you couldn't see them
while westbound on I44 or southbound on the local road.  Weird.

I waited about ten minutes in the parking lot, then realized that
DeHaven was the one who'd sent me the MapQuest link and suggested the
meeting place... so he might be sitting at the Waffle House instead of
Denny's.  So I looped back over, scouted the parking lot of the Waffle
House for a Dodge pickup, then back over the overpass to Denny's.
Dehaven was just getting out of his truck.  He'd seen the Denny's sign
on the wrong side of the freeway while heading eastbound, so he went to
the sign instead of following the triptik.

We had lunch, grunted and strained to shift the 375 stroker from my
truck to his, moved the two Honda engines and spare bits over, and he
gave me the controller and stepper motor for the cam checking fixture
we'd dreamed up.  Then we both took off; him back to Wichita, me on to
St. Louis.

It wasn't quite dark when I rolled into St. Louis.  It's not hard to
find Dan's place.  I knew I had the right spot when I saw his '56 pickup
in the driveway.

Dan turned out to be a really nice guy and a genial host.  I admired
the Pantera and his '66, then got a tour of Chez Jones.  There's a large
wicker shelf in his living room filled with exotic Cleveland intake
manifolds.  His study is filled with exotic aluminum Cleveland heads,
titanium valves, and other goodies.  It's the Dan Jones Exotic Ford
Museum.  We talked into the early morning, then crashed.

The Pantera is perfect.  And it's RED.  It's so red that I could see
it.  It's so red it's almost orange.  It's so red I was confused when
Dan mentioned his '66 Mustang coupe was red; the one parked next to the
Pantera was obviously brown, at least to me, but if it pleases him to
think of it as "red", that's okay with me.

The next morning I'd hoped to get a ride in the Pantera, but the sleet

<<<>>>

idea.  Dan called up a guy he had met at a local car club meeting and we
arranged to go over and look at some parts he had.  We spent half the
day there, getting the tour of the guy's street rod projects and Ford
parts collections.  He has a 302 with a complete Gurney-Weslake
conversion kit, including something I'd never even seen a picture of
before - a Weslake four barrel intake to go on top.  The engine was from
his '29 roadster pickup, which was apart being freshened up.  The Eagle
bits were sweeeeeeet.  The combustion chambers were interesting... they
looked much like the latest-design high-swirl NASCAR bits.  Or perhaps
vice versa.

The weather continued to look ominous.  We zipped back to Dan's,
unloaded his posi bits from the back of the truck, and loaded up various
Cleveland and aluminum Buick bits.  Yes, Dan really can pick up a Buick
short block with one hand...

I'll get a ride in the Pantera next time.

The trip back was uneventful, just a single 8-hour jaunt.  It was
misting rain, so I unloaded the truck before I went in, just before
midnight.  I'd listened to about 18 hours of audiobooks, Robin Cook's
"Contagion", Patricia Cornwell's "Body of Evidence", and something else
I forget the title of.

I've had more active weekends, but not for a long time.

- Dave "Road Warrior" Williams




Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 07:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bruce
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> ANY sexual comment is now harassing.

I had to go to one of those "informational meetings" at a previous
employer.  Rather than being arranged to show what might be
interpretable as sexual harassment and things not to do any more, the
entire session was arranged as "how you can claim you are being sexually
harassed."  The whole session was, in my opinion, designed to cause
trouble instead of prevent it.

I talked to several of the people I'd gone to the class with, to see if
they had noticed, but all I got was blank looks.  As usual.



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 08:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The number pad at the far right side.  I always keep the num lock on.
-> I use the upside down T arrow keys.

Then you have to stretch for the home, end, and page keys.  The
inverted-T thing is insane; E.T. might be able to use it, but it cramps
my hand almost instantly when I try to use one.



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: telephone
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Mike  (Residing in an ultra high density telemarketing target!)
-> _________________________________________________________________

Damark used to sell a $75 box that plugged into your phone line.  It
picked up an incoming call and a voder chip said "please enter access
code" (or "extension number") and waited for the correct three digit
number, either pulses or tones.  If the caller entered the proper code,
the phone would ring.  Otherwise, the box would hang up after an
interval.

The trick to the box was, the phone would not ring at all unless it was
someone with the proper code.  And if the code got spread too widely,
you could change it and let people know.

Damark doesn't sell the thing any more, and when I ask around, people
don't seem to understand what I'm talking about, and point me to caller
ID boxes or answering machines.  No, I don't want to look at mystery
numbers or get crap on a machine; I don't want the fucking phone to ring
at all unless it's someone with the code.  It seems like such a simple
and logical thing to me.  



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 09:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: Engineers.....
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The civs are the guys that designed roads and things in The Valley of
-> The Sun so that they flood with a rain that would be only 'light' in
-> Washington?

Eisenhower was a flake, but he was one of the few who thoroughly
understood the role of civil engineers in wartime.  In "Crusade In
Europe" he lists the three major tools of the war as "The Jeep, the
bulldozer, and the C-47," and even talks about the role of 'dozers in
some of the amphibious assaults in the Pacific theater.

Modern, high-mobility military forces *must* have roads and bridges;
the engineering corps guys move at the front, with their
almost-unprotected asses hung out as targets for the enemy.

Hitler, and to a lesser degree the General Staff, never quite
understood about the engineer corps.  More than one German assault
turned into a rout when the Panzers were unable to make it to the front
lines, and there were several cases of "new, improved" armor that simply
could not be brought to the front at all; Speer talked about an entire
brigade of the last-generation tanks that sank irretreivably into bogs
that the older tanks had moved across without dramatic difficulty.  The
tankers' orders were "advance or be shot."

Churchill's 6-volume history of WWII is divided almost equally between
politics and logistics.  The actual battles were almost incidental.
First came the political decision of when, where, and who to fight.
Then came the logistics of getting the men and materiel there.  After
that, it was like the old US Civil War general said; it depended on who
got there "firstest with the mostest."



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 16:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bruce
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> > entire session was arranged as "how you can claim you are being
-> sexually > harassed."
...
-> Kidding,  right?,  please say your joking! !.

Nope.  They have similar classes now for identifying possible actional
racial and ethnic comments.

I'm always amazed at the psychology of the people who arrange and pay
for these classes.  Why stop there?  Why not a "how to steal from your
employer" class, or "how to screw the boss", or "how to goof off at
work?"  They'd almost certainly be less self-destructive than the
"sensitivity" classes.



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 18:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: California Adopts Plan for Electric Cars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Anybody else got any questions about how this power shortage could
-> happen?  This is government of the loons, by the loons for the
-> loons..

Nah.  They'll "make" more electricity by passing legislation.

Reality and government have only nodding acquaintance with one another.



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 18:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: book and turbocharging
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I'm not familiar with the term. WOuld you elaborate??

A "kula chain" was the transfer of historic items, fetishes, and
trophies between tribes and islands in Polynesia.  Each tribe had one or
more items, each with its own oral history, some of which were quite
extensive.  During trading times, the kulas and their stories were
exchanged.  Eventually they would make the entire trading circuit and
wind up at their point of origin, sometimes with new stories.  It was a
means of cultural bonding.

In modern times we do similar things, like when museums create and
exchange traveling exhibits.  Egyptian mummies and lots of items from
their tombs resided at the stainless steel Pyramid in Memphis for quite
some time, for example.



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 17:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: what is your problem
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The tactical shoot stuff is gone.  But, plinking is always fun. What
-> am I saying?.  Just need to get doing it.

Like H. Beam Piper said (probably quoting someone else)

"No aimed round is ever wasted."



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 20:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: George
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> eyes on the video, thoughts on something important - the inverted
-> "T", and the two rows of three  Up> quite masterfully.  Years of programming,

I can stick my right pinky over and operate the cursor pad just fine
without losing track of the home row when typing.  The inverted-T thing
puts the cursor keys too low to reach without moving my whole forearm,
and the real cursor pad is way over there too far to reach without the
same problem.

The function keys on top wouldn't bother me much, even though they're
harder to reach than just sticking my left pinky out.  But... why move
them a row and a half up above the number keys, *and* cant them at a
bizarre angle almost 90 degrees from optimal?  A truly ergonomic
keyboard would be curved *down*, not *up.*

Unfortunately, down is fixed by law in some countries via ISO and DIN
standards, which is why power switches are white nowadays and have
mysterious "I" and "O" markings, which mean absolutely zero to me.
There was already a perfectly good electrical symbol for switch, or they
could have standardized on English or Esperanto, but I and O?  That
suggests absolutely nothing about "power switch" to me.

And for you guys who don't like to sit your monitor up on a stack of
rickety boxes and pray to it, the DIN has decided the center of the
monitor should be up at eyeball height while you're sitting at
attention.  Me, I'd like to sink mine into the desk so the bottom of the
displayed area is level with the desktop.  My keyboard, docs, and stuff
are *down*; why should I have to keep looking up and down between the
screen and the docs?  Fucking morons.



Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 19:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Political Correctness (Was: Bruce)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> > I have no idea whether any of my employers claimed me as a minority
-> -- I > never fill in those forms.

I couldn't enroll at the local state university without declaring
religion, race, and ethnic background.  I checked "Native American -
Eskimo" and "Orthodox Jewish."



Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 16:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Almost Humorous Fly-by-Wire Glitch
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> others.  But it bothers me to think that a programming or electronic
-> problem could make me lose control of my vehicle!  Statistically I'm

GM still doesn't even make an ABS worth a damn, but they're marketing
their "stability control" systems.  Brr...

The question that comes to my mind first, being a modern American, is
product liability.  Airbus Industrie is partially owned by the French
government, and they simply declared all Airbus problems to be pilot
error.  The pilot is just flying a simulator, and in the case of
disagreement between the pilot and the computer, the computer has the
final say.  A whole lot of Airbuses have gone down due to "pilot error."

I won't let AB fly in one.

As for cars... the thought that some pencil-necked geek in Detroit
decided to override my control input when I'm trying to avoid a
collision would make me very angry.  If I survived and was ambulatory,
I'd seriously consider blowing his brains all over the wall, then
working my way through the corporate heirarchy.

I have to put up with morons on the road already; I don't need other
morons second-guessing my driving too.



Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Political Correctness (Was: Bruce)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> What do we call native americans... Indians!

I'm going to invent a new hyphenate and call myself an
American-American.  Ought to confuse a lot of the Politically Correct...



Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 22:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Silly Turbo
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Moving the MAF was more folks going never work, if it does it
-> shouldn't

I'm rereading Arthur C. Clarke's "Profiles of the Future", circa early
'60s, and he was bitching about the same thing.  The nay-sayer mentality
seems to be particularly prevalent among the 'net guys, for some reason.




Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Political Correctness (Was: Bruce)
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> >I'm going to invent a new hyphenate and call myself an
-> >American-American.

-> I hope that you won't mind, but I will make it my own;

Maybe I should charge licensing fees?    Take it and may the
Farce be with you.


-> What the Hell is 'caucasian', anyway?  I am most certainly _not_
-> 'caucasian', whatever some idoit says.

Caucasians are Russians, which amused me to no end during the days of
the Soviet Union.


-> (what a joke - I'm pink, not white!).

I've seen pink people, but they were albinos.  To me, most "white"
people are a sort of off-tan color.


-> What about the hard feelings that this country causes to Indians?
-> (You know, _Indians_, the guys from, uh, India?)

I've also found it amusing that many India-Indians have *much* darker
skin than African-negroid types, but they're not "black."


I think it was Donald Hamilton who said something like, "English used
to be a tool of precise meaning.  Now it is a club to hammer the
unwary."

- Dave "not of the Body" Williams




Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 05:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: $2001 Challenge trip report
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Sean, I am still just completely in denial - how did that Vega engine
-> fit in the Midget?

There was a fairly successful SCCA Solo competitor a few years ago who
ran his "Dyna-Sprite"; an early Spridget with a 289 Ford.

I rebuilt the engine in a Sprite once.  It was so long ago I don't
remember how tight the engine fit, just that the engine compartment was
full of jagged sheet metal edges.  Shortly afterward I contracted
pneumonia and (this is absolutely true) had vivid hallucinations about
swapping a 400 Pontiac into a Sprite by cutting the crossmember and
spreading the front frame rails, and the fenders and hood had large gaps
because of it.  Dream?  Nightmare?  It was probably 25 years ago and I
still remember it.



Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 20:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Electric cars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> HOV lanes ans EV lanes are socialist nonsense. Sure it's an
-> incentive. An artificial, assinine incentive.

I want a rebate on the road taxes I pay for the lanes I don't get to
drive in.

I don't understand how the city of Memphis can "reserve" 1/3 of
Interstate 40's width for HOVs; it's a friggin' FEDERAL highway.  Those
toll roads in Kansas with Federal Interstate signs on them make me angry
too.  A few months ago I traveled via them to Salina with a friend; it
cost over $20 in tolls.  I noticed most of the tollbooths had two or
even three marked police cars attending; apparently other people get the
urge to blow past the tollbooths with their middle finger extended...



Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 16:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Electric cars
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I remember driving across Florida one time.  There were actually
-> tollbooths that charged $.10-.25.

You should've driven through Richmond, Virginia, back when the
tollbooths were up.  In *downtown*.  Actually, all over town; they were
strategically positioned on major arteries so you were unlikely to be
able to move from home to work or to the store without having to pass at
least a couple of them.  Most were in the ten or fifteen cent range if I
remember right.  It was a de facto travel tax.



Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 16:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Sleep disorders
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> night.  If a fully rested person lays down during the day,
-> closes their eyes, and is still, it will take at least 20 minutes.
-> My friend was clinically asleep in 20 seconds.

It seldom takes me more than a minute.  I read until I'm sleepy, insert
the bookmark, and whammo, I'm out.

I used to lay awake for hours trying to get to sleep, until I realized
I might as well do something constructive while I'm waiting...


-> > with paranoia,

Possibly.  But I'm very well adjusted.

What made you mention that, anyway?




Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 16:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Bush also said his push for an education plan that would allow
-> federal education dollars to flow to private schools may end
-> with nothing more than a pilot program in Washington schools.

Good!

Keep the fuckin' Fed *out* of the schools.  Schools are a local
concern; the Fed has no business trying to buy their way into
controlling them with my money.

What do we need states for if the Fed is going to take over
*everything*?

You Brits watch closely; in 225 years, the EU will come to this...



Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 17:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> If you support teaching religion in the school, would you settle for
-> Muslim?

How about Branch Davidian Christians?  And the Wiccans are gaining
ground among the New Agers, too.

A whole lot of people are going to be surprised if Papa Legba or
Quetzalcoatl turn out to be the Real Thing(tm) in the end.



Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 17:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> *my* edu tax dollars on. It's *my* kid, man, not the fucking
-> government's kid.

Have some prankster call Children's Services with a complaint about
your parenting skills and you'll find the State has the idea that *they*
have the final say in just about everything to do with child-raising.

It's happened to a couple of my friends, and to my brother.  You're
automatically guilty, and they have the legal power to do pretty much as
they please.

The State already won that game, took the ball, and went home.



Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 17:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Next comment: Please don't tell me religion doesn't belong in school,
-> any school. That's myopic. How do you teach the the Greek Pantheon?
-> Tribal law of aboriginal peoples? About the pharoahs? About
-> Arab-Israeli conflict? About the Crusades? About the Reformation in
-> Germany? About Henry VIII? About the Inquisition? About Galileo?
-> About art? About the Maya? About easter Is.? About Stonehenge? About
-> Roman Empire? About civil rights struggle in the South? C'mon, get
-> real. Religion is part and parcel of the human condition.

Uh... in the half-dozen school systems I was incarcerated in, we never
learned anything about any of the subjects you listed there.  Not one.


-> Deal with it. Just like Math or Geography.

Never had geography either.  Wasn't even offered, as far as I know.
A couple of schools offered something called "Social Studies", a course
so devoid of content I can't remember a single thing about that year
other than that I once took a course with that name.


Had plenty of religion, though.  Babdeez crammed right down my throat.
Spit it right back up, to the anger and annoyance of the Babdeez.  And
you'd *better* fucking know their goddamned prayers; everyone is *born*
knowing them, dammit!



Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 19:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject:
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Just heard a story on the radio that a student was suspended from
-> school for a few days for pointing a breaded chicken finger at a
-> teacher and saying "pow pow pow".

What's the muzzle velocity of a breaded chicken finger?



Seems like "gun" is a curiously flexible word...




Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 20:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re:
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> It was in the paper tonight, too.  It qualified under the policy
-> because they look at the thought behind the action, not what is in
-> the hand, according to the school.

"Thought crime!"  "Thought crime!"



"The Dream Police
they're inside of my head
the Dream Police
they come to me in my bed
the Dream Police
won't let me alone, oh, nooo..."



Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 08:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Not even close - they are doing it now.  There is a popular notion
-> going that we should form an English speaking leauge, as one person

It's a trick!  It's a trick!

An English speaking league would consist of, what, England and the Isle
of Man?  The Irish and Welsh are as bad as those Frenchmen who pretend
not to understand anything that's not proper Parisian French, and you
can't seriously claim what they speak in Scotland is "English..."

I always thought it would be a particularly dirty trick for England to
somehow fob the Irish off on the French.  Let *them* put up with them
for a while.  (whichever "them" you prefer...)


"they took away our native tongue
taught their English to our sons..."



Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 13:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The problem with public schools is.. they're public. That means you
-> can't turn anyone away. Even very high cost people with disabilities.
-> Or behavior problem people. It costs a lot to put in the cameras and
-> security people in an alternative school. The private schools send
-> these people back to us. We can't refuse them. How about we look at
-> that?

There were no "honors" courses when I was in public school 25 years
ago.  There had been, but they had been banned as discriminatory before
I ever got near one.

25 years ago, if a student was a troublemaker he was sent home and a
world of crap fell on his parents.  I saw several of them go and never
come back.

We didn't have gangs, video cameras, security guards, or cops in
school.  We didn't have TVs in the classroom, or "the internet".  We
didn't have school authorities practicing medicine without a license and
drugging "problem" children with Ritalin and the drug of the week.  We
didn't have to go through metal detectors.

It sucked plenty, but by modern standards it looks better than it was.


The students haven't changed.  They're still being bred in vast
quantities, fresh for the propaganda and indoctrination system.  It's
nutball "educational theories" and half-ass teachers that have turned it
into the kind of place where both students and "educators" worry about
getting knifed or shot.

The system has broken down, but more security systems and high speed
web access sure as hell aren't going to fix it.




Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 13:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> up there was: they have good public schools. Good public schools are
-> good for business.

What makes a "good public school?"

According to the teacher union propaganda here, you would get the
impression that a school's goodness is directly related to teacher
salaries.

Excuse me.  They get really nasty at the T-word.  They're "educators"
now, and they're outright pushy about it.



Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2001 15:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Some people argue standardized tests don't capture higher order
-> thinking skills.

Well, no, by the time the kids are old enough for much in the way of
testing the system has all the higher order thinkers pretty well slapped
down.  Not much use in testing for it then.



Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 11:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Bush private meeting - oops
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> selling candy) about once every 2 months?  They also required the
-> students to sell a minimum amount of certain things,

Heck, I've been to several public schools that did that!

The money was supposedly always for the band to get new uniforms, or
for the feetball players to party with, or some other useless damned
thing.  Since I wasn't in the band and didn't play feetball (probably
less than 5% of the students were in either) I didn't co-operate.  More
school hassle resulted, as usual...  only that was one of the very few
times my parents ever backed me up.



Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 06:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> If I had an engineering degree, maybe I would understand just why
-> Ampere and Volt(a) and Watt are good enough for the World, but HP
-> isn't  (still a James Watt thing, no?).

I grew up with metric, but the ISO freakazoids have fucked it up beyond
belief.  I'm now a solid cubits/furlongs/fortnights advocate.  The US
Customary system is no less arbitrary than what "metric" is swiftly
turning into, and at least the units have a *reason* for being the way
they are, other than divide-by-10 and kissing up to political groups.

"Metric" horsepower is defined in kilowatts.  Was, anyway.  Now we have
Pfserdestarke, which you can't even pronounce... and you're supposed to
use it instead of Kw when talking about IC engines, but electric motors
are still in Kw?  Pretty soon it'll be like the ancient Britons, who had
a separate name for each group of different types of animal.

I used to check my tire pressure with a gauge rated in kg/cm^3.  It was
an ugly unit, but it was pressure-per-area, just like "pounds per square
inch"; self-defining.  Now I'm supposed to use kiloPascals.  What the
hell is a Pascal, and why do I need thousands of them to check my tire
pressure?  "Pascal" doesn't mean jack to me.

I used to torque bolts in Kg/M, which was force-by-leverage, just like
"foot-pounds."  Now I'm supposed to use Fig Newtons or some damned
thing?  What is a Fig Newton?  Whatever the torque wrench is rated in, I
guess.  There's no real-world feedback here.

Degrees Fahrenheit used a convenient range.  0F was friggin' cold, 100F
was friggin' hot.  Metric used centigrade, which was, for ordinary use,
less convenient and more arbitrary, but at least made sense.  Now we
have "Celsius", which isn't *quite* the same as Centrigrade, so if
you're doing anything precise you have to guess whether your reference
data's "C" used one or the other.  If they were going to change from
centigrade, it would have made a hell of a lot more sense to to go
Kelvin; just as arbitrary, but at least it has a fixed starting point
and no end point.

Metric threads are a mess.  It's "metric" if you call it metric; there
is almost no standardization of thread pitches.  German metric bolts
won't take Japanese metric nuts, etc.  The Unified National system was
designed by engineers, with pitches and diameters selected with regard
to common use and materials, tool wear, and reasonable tolerancing.  I
have a whole canister full of 6.35mm bolts; what bozo thought 6.35mm was
a good idea?  Why not 6 or 7?  Or even 6.5?  It's not even particularly
close to an inch size.  But it's *metric*...  If I can't thread a
"metric" French bolt into a "metric" Korean nut, then what exactly is
the advantage of "metric"?  Ivory-tower units-definers have no
conception of what make screw threads work...

Metric machinists make fun of US Standard drill sets, with fractional,
letter, and number drills.  Sure, but there are reasons why USS sets are
that way - you have normal working sizes, smaller sizes for tap drills,
and larger sizes for clearance holes, for example.  Metric guys have
racks of weird-shit "5.37mm" (it's metric!") for tap drills.
Remembering 5.37mm is no easier than remembering "F" for a 5/16-18
tapped hole...

You used to use "cycles per second", or cps, to measure frequency.
You've probably seen old radio equipment rated in kilocycles.  Another
self-defining term.  Now we're supposed to use "Hertz."  Another named
unit, inherently obfuscatory.  It's the *SAME* unit, except by giving it
a stupid name it's "metric."

I'm on a motorcycle list, full of Euros and 'strine.  We've had metric
wars there.  Lately I'm seeing posts about "I weighed so-and-so, it was
39.2 kgf."  Say what?  kilograms-force and kilograms-mass were one of
the uglier aspects of the old metric system; the kind of problem that
made US aero engineers use units like "slugs".  But you wouldn't weigh
something and report its mass in kilograms-force.  Is this the New
Metric way?  I'm both afraid to ask and too indifferent to care much.

The metric system as I learned and grew up with it no longer exists;
fewer people use those units than use US Customary units.  The goobers
have screwed up the metric system until it's a mess, and I'm not going
to play.

- Dave "was that a Galilee cubit or a Canaan cubit?" Williams



Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 06:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: black flopters
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> SPM, the TLA for "Saint Pierre and Mequelon;  the ISO three-letter
-> country-code is 666  (yes, ISO call them "letters").

ISO...

I used to have a copy of an old PJ O'Rourke article defining "Metric
Humor Equivalents" in risibles, merdes, and so forth.  If there's still
a photocopy floating around here and I find it again (the article was
circa 1975-ish) I'll key it in.

- Dave "13.4 decirisibles" Williams



Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 17:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Surprised you're not fossil enough to have gone off about the
-> stupidity of stating thread pitch in units of length per thread
-> (metric practice), instead of threads per unit of length (ANSI
-> practice)!!!

"ANSI practice?"  20-1/4?

All the threads I've ever seen, in any of my handbooks (dating back to
1880) are diameter-pitch.  I've never seen pitch-diameter used anywhere
that I can recall.

Sounds like another case of metric unrelation to the real world.


-> Haven't you ever used a lathe where you had to change
-> the head stock gears to get the right thread pitch??

Uh, yeah... but that's just to interpolate more pitches than are
included in the change gears.



Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 16:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> hexadecimal be better to improve our communication with computers?

Says who?  Hexadecimal is just a convenience for humans.  My computers
all run on binary,

- Dave "octal, anyone?" Williams



Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 22:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> How about the 360 degree compass, same deal?

Yep.

Of course, in ISO metric you're supposed to use radians for angular
measurement and "radians per second" instead of "revolutions per
minute."

I expect the only reason they haven't proposed metric clocks is they
still remember the riots over Daylight Savings Time (bad, BAD idea) in
1942.

Joan Vinge's "Outcasts of the Heaven Belt" described a society which,
among other things, used the second as their basis of time.  Kilosecs,
megasecs, gigasecs... of course, in a spaceborne society with no tie to
planetary time, why stay with years/months/weeks/days/hours/minutes?

- Dave "one Jefferson decimal inch" Williams



Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 11:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> > A PS is a little bit bigger than a HP
->
-> You mean a PS is a little bit *smaller* than an HP.

Of course, there are only about a dozen different "horsepower" used
just for automobiles - SAE, JIS, DIN, CV, and the variants the different
manufacturers use to lie about their power outputs.  Japanese Imperial
Standard and Italian horses were particularly puny, it takes a lot of
them to equal one metric Kw.  (we don' do no steenkeeng Pferdestarke
here!)  (and how did the Krauts get the ISO to use a name the Bosch
Handbook says "OBSOLETE-PROHIBITED" from the old pre-metric German
Empire, instead of calling it after some dead French guy?)



Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 10:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The $#%^^&* metrics do it "mm. per thread" tho.

Oh, I see.  I'd never paid any attention; metric threads are so stupid
anyway.  I have all my 8mm bolts in one container; there's no reason to
sort them farther, since I've identified at *least* six different,
non-interchangeable thread pitches on them.



Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 14:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> autonetics group in Georgia (formerly from Ohio).  We're teamed with
-> a British
-> company and have to communicate with their seeker.

This still sounds like a project-management problem to me.

One problem with converting units is you can wind up converting the
same figure more than once; your Hardcastle Rover book lists the weight
of a 3.5 crankshaft as 36kg (79 pounds).  A perfect example; the crank
is 36 pounds, not kg...  (that's kg-m, the way I learned it...)

You could leave everything in the original units and let macros do the
translation at compile time, or assign someone as a documents manager to
handle every single document and convert units to inches, meters, or
cubits, as required, and never let any of the programming team even see
an unfiltered, uncorrected document.

Hey, just think how much fun it would have been back in Revolutionary
times, when each state had its own weights and measures, and a New York
inch and a Virginia inch weren't the same... there was good reason why
the Founding Fathers wrote a Bureau of Weights and Measures into the
Constitution.



Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 22:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Old Yeller
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

Back when I was in junior high the city library had a book on hot rods.
I remember I checked it out several times over a period of years, just
looking through it.  I don't remember the title, but it had to have been
from the early '60s.  It's the same book that had the "Chimp"
articulated-chassis car I mentioned a few months ago.

Cars were cool to a junior high kid, but the main reason I kept
checking the book out was the couple of pages on Max Balchowsky's "Old
Yeller" sports car.  Looking back, it was probably there when I got the
bug; the idea one guy could build a car from the ground up and race it
competitively.

Dan Jones loaned me some of his Buick stuff, which I've been scanning
into FangleBase.  In there, a 1963 "Hot Rodding The Buick" pamphlet.
Near the back, a couple of pages on Balchowsky and his Old Yeller cars.
All these years... I'd never quite forgotten, but I don't think this is
the same article I saw in the other book.  It has some nice chassis
shots, and a picture of one of the cars at speed.  The caption:

"Old Yeller Mark II was driven by such top aces as Dan Gurney, Carroll
Shelby, Bob Drake..."

Hot *DAMN*.  And guess what Shelby did just a year later, and who Dan
Gurney drove for then?

In Carroll Shelby's own "The Cobra Story", he mentions the first choice
he and Dean Moon picked for the Cobra was... a Buick V8.  Not
Balchowski's thundering 401 nailheads, but the newer 215 aluminum
engine.  They settled on the 221 Ford when they found out the 215 was
going out of production.

Shelby doesn't mention Balchowsky or the Old Yellers anywhere in his
book, as far as I remember.  Funny, the AC Aceca looked an *awful* lot
like Old Yeller Mark II...  Old Yeller wasn't the progenitor of the
Cobras, but as far as I'm concerned, the Cobras were more of the same.



Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 11:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> That would be a rational thing to do but it won't happen until a
->     crashes.  Until then, it's head in the sand.

Sure.  Once they have a crash, they can be seen Doing Something about
the terrible problem, while shifting the blame to whoever is on their
fecal list.

If everything worked with no problems, nobody would be able to tell
what great managers they were.


  It's sort of like when the media were angry because the world
didn't come to an end at Y2K.  All those programmers who busted their
butts fixing things wound up getting blamed because they succeeded...



Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 11:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Handy Conversion tables was German PS converted to HP
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Oh, and 1 bar is exactly 100 kilopascals.

And then there's "atu" and "torr" and...


- Dave "kgm/cm^3" Williams



Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 11:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Kylix!  With 'Real Froot'(tm)!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

I got a little flyer in the mail from Borland.  On the front is...

"Delphi(tm) for Linux(R) is here and it is called... Kylix(tm)"

Linux(R)?  I thought that Linux trade name registration thing got
beat down in court years ago?

Uh... Delphi for the AS/400 is called "Delphi For AS/400"...
what marketing bozoid thought up "Kylix?"  Sounds like a breakfast
cereal.  Really makes me think "Delphi" when I read "Kylix."

No.

There are some color screen shots.  Hm, looks a whole lot more
like Visual BASIC than Delphi-as-we-know-it, but that's a nitpick.

The major thing is, there's almost nothing in the flyer about
what "Kylix" requires to run on - any distribution with X?  How much
RAM and disk space?  It tells us it talks to Oracle, InterBase, DB2, and
mSQL...  (apparently with the deluxe version only) but there's no
mention of OBDC, or any of the database definition tools the Windows
versions come with, or code compatibility with the Windows version.

Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.

You guessed it - this ad flyer is almost information-free.

Kylix is not free.  It's not cheap.  It's not reasonably priced.
It's not even expensive.  It's - $999 for the "Desktop Developer"
version, $1999 for the "Server Developer" version.

Maybe they want your credit card number before they'll tell you
what they're trying to sell.  It's be an Inprise-type thing to do.

Dorkwads.  



Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 10:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Hey I'm here/cleveland
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Hey a radio station in virginia is "All Elvis All the Time". Really.

I could live with that.  Surely it'd be better than whining-country,
bubblegum pop, and gospel, which seem to be the main selections out
east... at least when you're away from major metro areas.



Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 14:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Elmer Kogen?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> The scary part is, the funny portrayal of boring and inefficient
-> meetings seemed very familiar from my office.  Kind of like
-> Dilbert...

One game I started at a previous employer was "send the flunky."
Anyone who wasn't otherwise productively working was detailed to attend
the meeting in place of the team leader or department head.  In their
Imperious Leader's place, they'd just sit there and make notes; if asked
any questions, they'd answer if they knew, or write them down and tell
them the Imperious Leader would reply by email.

I thought it was quite an efficient and practical way to handle
meetings.  The flunkies got free doughnuts and the chance to sleep on
the job if they wanted; team leaders got out of a nasty chore.  They
were still using the system when I left, though some people were very
annoyed...



Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 18:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Stoopid Virus
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> configuration. Point and click hell, here I come.
-> k.porter

That's the kind of thing that drives me to shrieking fits of
frustration with Windows 95.  Hmm, there was a menu to do so-and-so...
somewhere.  The Control Panel thing is a mess; you go from windows to
applets to tab bars to submenus... oops, no prize in this box, back up
and try again...

Back in ancient times, RBBS BBS software had well over a thousand setup
options.  They were arranged in groups as a flat file; you could just
scroll down until you saw what you were looking for, instead of clicking
about like a rat in a maze.  Lots of people thought it was tacky; I
thought it was a marvel of simplicity and ease-of-use.  Win3's .INI
files were obscure and uncommented, but worked on the same principle.
The Registry, though...

- Dave "just say cheese" Williams



Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 09:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: impulse neutralizer?
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> first time it said it was installing drivers for the "USB Human
-> Interface Device".  Doesn't this also describe the mouse?  They used
-> more words and sylables to be less descriptive.

IBM calls it a "pointing device."  PR-decontented techspeak; it could
also refer to a light pen, touch screen, graphic tablet...

Of course, IBM is the one that bundled a Laplink-type cable with the
early PS/2s and called it a "Data Migration Facility."  Not quite one of
my definitions of "Facility..."

- Dave "facilitator" Williams



Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 09:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chrysler facing lawsuit
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Don't forget to wire the power windows to the battery so you can use
-> them with the car off.

The power window lockout thing was supposedly so negligent parents
could let their children play in the car without danger of them rolling
the windows up on their necks.  Always seemed like a particularly stupid
thing to me.  Of course, now lots of cars automatically lock the doors
in motion so the little bastards don't jump out on the freeway.

*My* power window scenario would be to have some window motors powerful
enough that, if someone tried to carjack me, I could roll the window up,
sever their arm, and I'd have their gun and some free dog food, as well
as a little Arab-style justice.



Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 20:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Harriers not Osprey
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Truth be told I think everything we have has been in russian air
-> space. 29s, 36s, 47s, U2s, TR3s, SRs,  and I'd like a nickel for
-> every 58 that passed thru.

Heck, up around the Bering Sea the airspaces tended to be sort of
vague.  Soviet AWACS used to refuel at US bases in Alaska - the guy who
was telling me about that showed me a handful of photos he'd taken when
he was stationed there.



Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Swat Team goes after Zoning Violator
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I need some B batteries. . .

Back when I was a kid in the '60s, it seemed like all the "young
experimenter" type books based *every single f'ing project* on a B
battery and/or a round oatmeal box.

By 1969 asking for a B battery just got you a blank look at any store,
and all we knew about "oatmeal" was that it was something people in
Yankeeland reportedly ate.

I usually made do by soldering D cells together and rolling cardboard
tubes, but it seemed like there was always something an eight year old
couldn't seem to acquire to finish whatever the project was...



Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 21:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 100th Spacewalk
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> of less than 3 external forays per year. What a lousy job we (man)
-> have done in space since Apollo. No Hiltons. No Pan-Am shuttles. No

That's because NASA subsumed the entire space effort, then siphoned the
funding intended for hardware into "overhead" and payroll.  NASA is a
huge and sprawling organization, but they're not much interested in
space.  Judging from the contents of their web pages, they seem to be
mostly interested in wetlands, tree frogs, and rain forests; at least
they have a jaw-dropping number of papers online concerning those
subjects.

NASA is a festering cancer, and ought to be disbanded and its functions
turned back over to the US Air Force Space Command.  That single lonely
building at Peterson AFB would finally have some work.



Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 100th Spacewalk
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> I am personally somewhat disappointed we don't have oodles of fresh
-> water from ocean, bunches of geothermic powerplants, and huge
-> undersea farming operations.

The only reasons are political.  The technology has been around for
half a century or more.

Politics is the reason we don't have a permanent space station, a base
on the Moon, or the manned Mars shots that were supposed to have
happened back in the '80s.


-> I say, explore all of Earth first, before going off-planet.

I say, let's get the hell out of here before the whole shithouse goes
up in flames...  (misquoting Jim Morrison...)



Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Maclaren 1 Mercedes -2
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Oop, I got it. Right click on the URL, and then I can save.

Oh.  That's certainly logical and consistent with the "standard
Windows user interface."

If I wanted a puzzle game, I'd fire up my old copy of Zork...



Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: 100th Spacewalk
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Watched another show last nite about the hoax of man being onthe moon
-> too.
-> They make a very convincing argument....

One point that always bothered me was watching the clip of Armstrong
doing the bunny hop.  It looked like a *whole lot* less than 1/6 g to
me; I always wondered if they tweaked the video into slower motion
before releasing it to the press.



Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 100th Spacewalk
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> They have the money to do this; I think it is still a money-burning
-> proposition

The PDR has already diverted all the available water from Arizona and
Nevada for their own use; unless they build a pipeline to Oregon they're
going to be looking at some sort of rationing system or desalination
eventually.

Too many rats in that particular cage.  And they should stay there
until they clean their mess up.



Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 21:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Add inches to your Penis GAURANTEED!
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Yes, life probably would be different, walking around all day with a
-> 10 pound c block hanging from your genitalia.

My imagination seems to falter after "genital piercing" or "superglue."

How *would* you attach a cinderblock, anyway?



Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 22:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Like father like son
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> >Best part about it all, Bush didn't even tell the UN he was going to
-> do >it, let alone "ask permission". Then after it was all over, he

I don't know about the UN Charter, but our NATO treaty obligations come
very close to the Three Musketeers' "All for one, one for all," and
unilateral action is not prohibited.  1914 and 1939 were very much in
mind when NATO came into being.

The United Nations was crippled from the very beginning; it's just a
political circle jerk.  NATO is a military alliance with very sharp
teeth.  It, too suffers from politics, but to a much lesser degree than
any other alliance I'm aware of.



Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 22:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Like father like son
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Remember all the troops who would be "home by Thanksgiving"....

Kaiser Wilhelm said his army would be on their way back from conquering
Belgium and France by November of 1914...



Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 21:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Earnhardt past away
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Without safety regulations, the sport turns into a bloodbath, so THAT
-> won't work.  Obviously, we need SOME, the only question is where do

NASCAR has been around for half a frigging *CENTURY*.  The "bloodbath"
never seems to bother anyone until some big-name driver snuffs it right
on camera, then we get the "bloodbath" thing for a while.

NASCAR has nice smooth *safe* tracks and more mandated safety equipment
and regulations than any other sanctioning body I can think of.  The
whole car is a rolling crash cage, just to start with.

You play in traffic, sometimes you get hurt.  Looks like "shit happens"
crash, just like what happened to Senna a few years ago.


-> line, and for a responsible sanctioning body, that line must be drawn
-> where the drivers are kept as safe as possible (to do anything less
-> would be irresponsible,) while still allowing them to practice their
-> craft.

I thought the goal was to go fast and win.  For "as safe as possible" I
sure as hell wouldn't budge from my Barcalounger...



Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 19:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: [Fordnatics] Earnhardt passed away...
To: fordnatics@www.mustangworks.com

-> Today's Dallas Morning News has a list of in-track fatalities since
-> 1982:
-> NASCAR   10
-> CART      5
-> F1        4
-> IRL       1

Uh... not that I'd be caught dead defending NASCAR in any way, but
given the number of cars and tracks NASCAR runs, I'd lay even money one
NASCAR racing season racks up *at least* as many racing miles as all the
others together.  Wouldn't surprise me if it was several times as many
racing miles.



Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 21:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: [Fordnatics] NASCAR loses a hero
To: fordnatics@www.mustangworks.com

-> CART is requiring all its drivers to wear the HANS device at oval
-> tracks this season for the first time.

When I first heard people describe that thing I thought they were
joking.  Then I found out they were serious.  And probably a few cans
short of a six-pack.

It would drive me absolutely batshit to wear one of those things.  The
arm tethers some of the oval track associations push are just as bad.

Keep the bondage equipment on alt.sex.bondage, thank you...



Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 07:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Earnhardt passed away
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Yet now it seems that NASCAR's constant manipulation of the rules has
-> finally created racing that is somehow both boring and dangerous.

Yes.  Much like a commercial airline flight...

Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Luftwaffe Provides US Homeland Security
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> quotient, though.  It's a LOT more fun watching these morons beat on
-> the table (looking for commies underneath, maybe?) than it is

If they start using their shoes as gavels, you should shout "Da!" to
confuse them...


-> klinton years. Being forced to assemble a coalition in order to sally
-> forth with "foreign entanglements" is a good thing and maybe will
-> help control future presidents.

Also spreads the blame nicely, too, if properly managed.  It didn't
work in Vietnam because hardly anyone knew it was a United Nations
action, since 98% of the men and materials over there was American.
Even the frigging *Turks* were in Vietnam (on "our" side...), but nobody
ever hears about anyone but Americans shooting Vietnamese and the
occasional Chinese or Cambodian.

Right now most of NATO is anxious to grab a little credit; a successful
war is always a good political angle.  Which shows our allies still have
some confidence in the United States despite the cluster-fucks in Korea,
Cuba, Vietnam, and Iran.



Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Luftwaffe Provides US Homeland Security
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> the Hurtgen Forest battle...) The point is, we have let the military
-> atrophy to the point were *we* Americans cannot provide for our own

Chill, Norm.  It's just propaganda.

Any site worth targeting by an airliner hijacked outside the USA is
already smothered in radar; you don't *need* AWACS to see a 747.  Plus
we still have the orbital systems.  For that matter, we still have the
majority of the USAF, Navy, Coast Guard, 48 National Guard units, and
even the Civil Air Patrol still right here if we just want to put some
planes up orbiting to look like they're "doing something."

Using NATO AWACS (which *we* developed, and paid for the vast majority
of) is just a political feel-good for NATO, at least for the nations
that aren't real thrilled to be the tail on the end of the big American
military dog.


-> transit, etc, when we cannot frickin' defend our own skies in a TWO
-> theater conflict. Our priorities have been so far off the mark for

Defend ourselves against *what*?  There's a hell of a big difference
between gathering electronic intelligence and trying to monitor every
civilian flight in or out of the nation.  That's not AWACS, that's the
imaginary border control system the DEA has been slavering for since the
'80s.


-> to America to patrol our skies against incursions. That's how low
-> we've sunk. Pathetic. Norm

It's the way of the world; we squandered away our time as the big frog
in the pond, now we're on the slide back to something more normal.  Our
major protection will become the same one the Canadians and Mexicans
have - our immediate neighbors are more interested in maintaining the
status quo than expansion, and anyone else is too far away to be a real
threat.

Hell, imagine how the English feel.  No wonder they don't teach much
history in public schools over there nowadays.



Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Luftwaffe Provides US Homeland Security
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I'll bet he'd say, "Hell, we waited long enough for Milosovich
-> to damn near perfect his ethnic cleansing, almost as well as Hitler
-> completed his goals of a Jew-free Germany. I'd say our 'Victory' in
-> Kosovo was a bit late for all the people in the mass graves."

I don't think anyone even *bothered* to do anything about Pol Pot's
"cleansing" of Cambodia, which made the Italians' actions in Ethiopia
and the Nazi Final Solution look like kid stuff.  Or some of the various
similar (though not nearly as effective) scenarios in various parts of
Africa.

Help them all, or let them all go to hell, same to me either way.  But
I can't figure out how some nations qualify and some don't.  Cambodia
was once a hell of a lot nicer place than Slovenia or Rhodesia ever
were.



Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 09:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Luftwaffe Provides US Homeland Security
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> ping-pong back and forth from zero trust/hate of the government to
-> totally checking the brain at the door? Don't get it. You trust
-> "experts" at the government now? Norm

God DAMN it!  I was going to microwave some popcorn to enjoy while
reading this, and it seems we're out...  don't go away guys, I gotta
make a run down to Safeway.



Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 10:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 8mm Exabyte
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I have two 8mm tapes my new (to me...) Exabyte tape drive refuses to
work with.  It won't even format them.  The software (either Seagate
Backup Exec or BACKUP.EXE from Win98) just gums the tape for a while,
then spits it back out with "Please insert another media."  After the
flash of irritation from the moronic referring to a plural noun as
singular, I stick the tape back in, whereupon it is promptly spit right
back out.

Yeah, I know 8mm tapes are cheap enough nowadays, but they *ought* to
be compatible; they say "EXAbyte" molded right into the housings.


PS: AAARGH!  I was checking again to see if the tapes were knotted up
or wound so as to need retensioning... the tapes are white.  Hmm.  I
look at one of the "good" tapes.  Dark.  Hmm.  The white tapes have a
definite textured surface.  Goddamn, they're *cleaning* tapes.  WTF?
They have *exactly* the same housings and embossed part number (12C) as
the regular tapes.

Wow.  "Please insert another media" didn't tell me jack shit; even
"read error" or "write error" would have made more sense.

I just love touchy-feely-GUI error messages.  The QICstream software
for my old Archive drive used to report error numbers, which didn't
match any of the half-dozen in the appendix in the documentation.
Calling Archive (they were still in business then) was no help; though
they wouldn't admit it, I'm certain they had someone else write the
software and weren't on good terms with him any more, or else they'd've
been able to find out what intermittent "error 132" or "error 78" was.



Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 15:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Passenger Rushes Cockpit
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> need to dig out an old article I wrote on making a carbon fiber knife
-> that will fit under the sole of your shoe.

Heck, just go an an antique store and look around for a glass "fruit
knife."  Glass knives are sharp as hell and impervious to the acid in
tomatos and citrus fruits, which will even etch 440 stainless steel.

Did I mention sharp?  Glass-bladed scalpels are used by some eye and
heart surgeons.



Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 08:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 8mm Exabyte
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> coder to build a little speed into this thing via command line
-> interface as opposed to a GUI.  I keep getting blank stares and head
-> scratching.

It's not really so much GUI vs. command, just crappy programming in
general.  If you print an error message, either make it meaningful and
relevant, or at least document any codes in the man pages, readme file,
online help, or dead trees.

A mysterious "error 37" or "[register dump] in module (main)" or
"unknown error" sends me into quivers of rage.  Dammit, if you check for
an error and pass it on to the user, at least say what happened.  It's
not like a few lines of text is going to be a big deal in modern
bloatware.
Error checking is way down there in the list of "fun programming things
to do", so even major commercial software gets shortchanged.  Backup
Exec is at least ten years old; there's no excuse.  And then there was
IBM OS/2 2.0, whose lonely cry of agony was "can't find COUNTRY.SYS"
whenever something went awry.  *Wrong* error messages are even worse
than no messages at all!

"Don't check for an error condition you don't know how to handle" was
*supposed* to be a joke... 

My mailer project consists of loosely-coupled modules (many are
independent executables) for DOS, Windows, and Unix, strung together
with a script language (TCL), and distributed over multiple machines,
which can run different operating systems and database servers.  Fully a
third of the code will be error checking by the time I'm done.



Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 12:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: The craziness continues
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Its all jingoistic dogma from Liberals and PC facists, who are all
-> beginning to say that the bombing is a little bit much now and that
-> it should stop.  If it does stop it should be a brief pause to bomb
-> the shit out of the nay sayers.

These are the same kind of people as the Londoners who protested
against Harris bombing Berlin... during the Blitz!  Both Blitzes, in
fact.  And in between too.

They were exercising their privilege (not a right in the UK, and
further limited during wartime) of free speech.  And the papers were
printing that crap, and some of their representative in Parliament made
noises along that line, usually booed and whistled at.  But the very
fact that people can think like that makes me wonder if the Nazis'
program of weeding out the defectives might have been a good idea after
all...


-> How much of this crap do we have to swallow though?

All of it.  Forever.  At least as long as the defectives control the
media.


-> on their side if push came to shove.  Well why the fuck are they
-> still putting up with my green and plesant land?

Because it's a fine thing to sit warm and comfortable in Merrie Aulde
Englande watching the action on BBC, with a job, a flat, and probably
even a car, under the protection of Her Majesty's law and military, and
even a say in how things are run via their representatives in
Parliament and their local councils.

Whereas most of their relatives in the homeland are dirt poor, do
without medical care, have trouble identifying bandits from police, and
have no real hope of ever improving their situation.

They'll talk endlessly about how great Karachi is, but they have no
intention of ever doing more than visiting there to lord it over the
ones without British visas.



Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 18:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fw: Passenger Rushes Cockpit
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> This is the important part to realize.  We respond in a crisis
-> according to our training.  I long ago discovered that I could train

Massad Ayoob mentioned the same thing in "In Gravest Extreme", relating
an anecdote about a policeman who emptied his revolver in a firefight,
reloaded with the speed loader, then starting looking at the ground for
the bucket to dump his empties into.

At the police range, of course, they were supposed to put their fired
brass in a bucket so it could be reloaded.  That's how they were
trained, so that's what he did...



Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 13:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: BEFORE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> In other words, if you can't protect it, it ain't yours.

Intuitively obvious.  Except to liberal tree-hugging bed-wetters, who
think everything will be fine as long as everyone plays nice.

The losers who talk about "waging peace" forget it only takes one to
wage war...



Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 06:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: BEFORE POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Wow, go for it. Beats heads on a stick, always my favorite for
-> future deterrents.

The gate arches to the old London Bridge, circa the 13th century, had
spikes where the heads of criminals and the politically incorrect were
mounted.  Lots of traffic via the bridge over the Thames; the King
wanted to make sure the maximum number of his citizenry saw them.  When
the bridge was rebuilt later the spikes were dispensed with, though
heads were still displayed near the Tower of London from time to time.

This was, by the way, back in the days when justice was served by the
shire reeves, magistrates, and lords.  England had no police until the
1800s, when Scotland Yard was formed as London's municipal police.
There had been considerable political resistance to the formation of
such a thing; everyone was sure they would become a tool of one of the
political parties.  That's why English police didn't carry guns in the
old days - they weren't trusted to have them.



Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 16:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Morse vs. Morris
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I am greatly vexed by people who call Morse Code, "Morris Code".

People who use the word "emails" as a noun annoy me.  Just when I
thought it couldn't get any worse, a new bastardization appeared a year
or so ago:  "What is your email?"

My answer is always, "ASCII."



Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 15:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Airport Hacker
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> tell each other scary stories of things that go bump in the night had
-> to be of below-average intelligence and this little tidbit
-> confirms it.  I've noticed that on each of these regurgitated
-> messages, someone recites some petty horror story, which is a bad

The other messages in that particular thread might have been more
helpful, except I forgot what I named that file and didn't feel like
grepping the whole directory to look for it.  The scrambled/coded
transmission stuff is crap, of course, but it turned out that there were
reports of bogus ATC broadcasts about once every couple of years.

The self-important members of comp.risks immediately jumped on the
technology issue.  What I considered more important was, "why the fuck
didn't the controllers notice someone talking on their frequency?"  If
they're off wanking in the bathroom or smoking a doobie in the hall, fix
*that* problem.  A more likely issue would be they talk to the planes on
one frequency and the planes talk back on another, and they only listen
to, or maybe are only able to listen to, the return chatter.  That could
be fixed by upgrading a zillion-dollar ATC comm center, or possibly by
tossing a $159 Radio Schlock scanner on top of the console.

On the other hand, you won't lack for lots of "the sky is falling!"
messages from that group...

- Dave "Master of the Bleeding Obvious" Williams



Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 06:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: But the computer person said it was OK!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> instead of conceived. At least he had to type that out, allowing him
-> a glimmer of an opportunity to edit his gibber. When it's all talk,

What's worse is, though most peoples' mouths flap incessantly, most
people don't seem to be able to *speak*, at least in the sense of
articulating words properly.  They sort of grunt and yack pieces of
words out, and apparently their audiences are either paying them no
attention anyway (likely) or try to infer what they mean from context
("Seh wuht?")

No wonder voice recognition software is such a bitch.  First the user
must speak properly in the first place...



Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 05:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: National Proletariat Radio reveals spec ops
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> on here. I can't tell news from leaks from propaganda these days.

That's okay; I became unable to differentiate "news" from
"entertainment" fifteen years ago.



Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 06:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: National Proletariat Radio reveals spec ops
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> That because the news IS propaganda, always has been, always will, it
-> beats religion for control of the masses.

Why is it you can say that and get away with it, but if I say it,
people tell me I'm paranoid?

- Dave "they really *are* all out to get me!" Williams



Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 06:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Morse vs. Morris
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

> When eventually I cease power I shall be casting a very careful eye
> over the list of offences and meter out punishment accordingly.
>
> Marketing types will be the first against the wall.

Up against the wall with the rest of the scum!

Detroit's barking heads have taken to referring to car models as proper
names.  "This year, Mustang has more chrome..."  No, asshole, "Mustang"
is a singular name.  For a car line, you say "Mustangs have."



Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 09:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Morse vs. Morris
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Because a corporation is simply an organized group of individuals.

A corporation is legally a single entity, therefore singular.

And oddly enough, it's part of the English Common Law the USA started
off with, from not all that long before the American Revolution.  The
first English corporation was Lloyd's, formed to spread financial risk
of trading voyages.  Somehow that got tied up with royal charters, which
were officially recognized companies (as in "bunches of people" in the
military sense).

Of course, the Brits twist English into other odd strangenesses, like
pronouncing "sch" differently between "school" and "schedule."



Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 18:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Unintended Consequences: The Possible Price of
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Yeah. My wife and I are Ok. We were immunized for it way back when
-> but our kids are too young. So much for the BS that the ONLY viable

I got them all, but they're not immunizing for polio and smallpox any
more either, and I've read that there have been a handful of cases in
the USA in the last few years, long after the diseases were declared
officially defunct.

Most states required a "blood test" when getting married; this was
a test for veneral disease, which was evidently a major issue in the
pre-antibiotic years when those laws were passed.  Arkansas, among other
states, dropped the blood tests twenty years ago, just before herpes and
AIDS replaced syphilis and gonorrhea.

Yeah, I can see where the Center for Disease Control might start
earning its funding in the relatively near future...



Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 23:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: New Army Rifle
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The TV morons were showing an HK MP-4 as the M4. Is this right? I
-> have heard rumors of the special forces having 10mm submachine
-> guns......

It must be a journalistic thing with guns.  I'm reading a book called
"Spooks" now, about private intelligence outfits and mercenaries.  The
first few chapters were about the Ingram machine pistols.  Apparently
some bozo named Mitch WerBell fed the author an amazing line of crap,
which he accepted without checking.  The rest of the book is typical
liberal alarmism, and given the factual errors in the beginning, I've
discounted it all down to "entertainment."  The part where Richard Nixon
was secretly heading a multibillion dollar international conglomerate as
a front for both the CIA and the Mob was particularly amusing.

The book is presented as "investigative journalism."  



Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 07:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: LFB on 27th?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Must be a yankee thing.  No wait, I have one that's worse.  Every
-> time Ladaman takes a trip with me I find my 'fridge contaminated with
-> toxic waste, er Pepsi One.  That stuff even makes the ammonia in the
-> 'fridge choke!

I guess that makes you a more hospitable host than I am; I'd make them
keep their toxic waste in a cooler on the back porch!

No local eatery has a choice between Coke and Pepsi.  It's one or the
other.  The Pepsi guys seem to be ahead in the marketing wars.  When I
ask for Coke, I get the "we have Pepsi!" robo-response.  Lemonade?  No.
Iced tea is a gamble at a strange place.  Water, then.  They always hate
losing that dollar or so of high-profit soda sale...



Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 12:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: LFB on 27th?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> My experience is when I order Coke, I get whatever they have, real
-> Coke, pepsi, or worse.  I am particularly pissed at places that have
-> Coke signs, but serve some off brand pisswater.

Legend has it at one time the Coke and Pepsi bottlers would send people
around to order a Coke (or Pepsi) and fuss if they didn't get the exact
product they asked for.  Supposedly it was to prevent the kind of loss
of trade mark that happened to Xerox, Kleenex, etc.

What you may have run into, though, is a quality control problem at the
local bottler.  I used to laugh at the wine snobs who claimed they could
tell different vintages of the same wine, but I can often tell the



Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 13:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Oswald
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

This goofy spy book I'm reading now says that Lee Harvey Oswald was
never formally accused of shooting JFK, that his arrest by the Dallas PD
was "on a charge relating to the murder of Patrolman J. D. Tippit."
(whatever that specifically means...)

Apparently nobody got around to filing any other paperwork before Ruby
blew him away, and after that there was no point in it.

You know, that one is goofy enough, I could believe it.



Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 16:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Oswald
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I've read and heard that same statement.
-> At most he was a  material witness, and that's reference Tippit.

Yeah.  Blow away the President, get a Coke while the cops rush into the
building, catch the bus home, teleport downtown to blow away a cop for
no particular reason, go to the movies, and have an "anonymous tip" lead
the cops to you before you get started on your popcorn.

  Well... um... the Warren Commission apparently
didn't see anything peculiar about the sequence of events.



Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 07:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: re Re: re Re: Maserati V6 swirl
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The theory of Post Modernism is tha there is nothing new under the
-> sun, simply existing ideas put together in new ways.

A lot of stuff is dependent on other stuff.  Niklaus Otto's first
combustion engine worked exactly the same way as the engine in my truck
- piston, rod, crank, cam, pushrods, rockers, valves.  Nothing new.
There were OHC engines in 1899, fuel injection around the same time,
etc.

The *real* work is what you don't see - machining processes, alloys,
heat treatment.  Technique.  *Inventing* something isn't that hard.
Making it *work* is hard.  Even 30 years ago a car engine was considered
used up at 75,000 miles.  Now people are pissed if they don't make twice
that.  Still works the same way.  Of course, part of it is money - 30
years ago cars were a hell of a lot cheaper, relatively, than they are
now.  So there's budget room to do things a bit better.


-> The technology to make jet engines was around in China and Japan
-> since before the new calandar started, but it took Frank Wittle to

Ballocks.  I see that a lot, but it's untrue.  The *concept* was there,
but nothing the Chinese or Japanese could have actually *built* would
have worked.  Not out of wrought iron, wood, ivory, and silk.

Likewise, the engines built by Whittle, Caproni, and even the ones the
Germans put in the Me262 only ran for a few hours before
self-disassembling.  By comparison, military piston engines were
certification tested for one thousand hours at full load; they were
expected to last much longer in service.  No jet engine ran that long
until well after WWII.

Your hypothetical Chinese would have immediately understood that his
sky rocket and and Apollo 12 worked on the same principle, but actually
*building* one required several thousand more years; of which 99% of the
necessary progress as made after 1900 AD.

- Dave "technophile" Williams



Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 11:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Disk on a chip!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Hiding the antenna is one thing, but you can't hide the signal.  I'm
-> assuming that licenses are out of the question.

As the story is told, the FCC only allocates a handful of licenses per
area, and those are already owned and not for sale.


-> Though, if you want to host your own radio station, you can through
-> the internet for free.

I don't want to be a broadcaster; I want something to *listen* to on
the radio.  Over the last year, the radio stations have actually passed
the TV stations as far as ad/program ratio - almost 75% ads in prime
time, and of course the barking heads howling and slobbering all over
everything.  If I could get a decent ad/program ratio - and ads that
weren't cranked up until the speakers rattled - I'd even listen to that
elevator music John listens to.

I can turn the radio on and drive from here to Little Rock (20 minutes)
without ever hearing anything but barking heads and screeching
advertising.

The odd thing is, one of the worst barking head stations started off a
few years ago just playing music, with a commercial break every hour.
It was wildly successful, which led to more commercials, then some
"radio personality" barking heads in the morning, more commercials,
barking heads at noon and afternoon, then got bought out by "Clear
Channel Communications" which owns everything else around here.

I think you could dispense with the barking heads and their salaries,
run fewer ads (and charge more for them), and attract a demographic
listener base that'd give your salesmen a reasonable approach to explain
to a potential customer why they should advertise with your station
instead of one of the others.  I think it's possible to do a station
that people would like to listen to that's still profitable to operate.

Since there's no chance of getting a broadcast license (other than
throwing money at Clear Channel until they gave in), I keep thinking
about short range transmitters in the more populous zones.  But the FCC
would probably have bleeding hemorrhoids at the thought of it.



Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 23:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Oswald
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Could be argued the Oswald alledgedly shot Tippit.  It was only a
-> vague discription they were working on.   We'll never know if he
-> would have been picked out of a line up or not.

Oswald had no *reason* to shoot Tippit that anyone has ever made a
credible case for.  If he was guilty of shooting the President, blowing
away a cop for no apparent reason certainly wouldn't be as big of a
thrill.



Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 23:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Fw: Food for thought
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an
-> asylum for the verbally insane.

English is, by comparison to almost anything else, a *flexible*
language.  That, more than anything else, has made it the language of
science and engineering.



Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 08:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: As the restaurant turns
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> thing is, not only is the pit right outside my apartment but I also
-> had it lit up with a portable 1500 watt metal halide light so that I
-> could see to work.  It was like daylight out there.

I've come to the conclusion that lighting an area just makes it more
convenient for thieves.



Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 10:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Warning non-pc statement!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I wouldn't say that to a kilted Scotsman if I were you... ;)

Yeah.  The Highlanders have artillery now, you know.  And air support.


Back during the Falkland war I saw an interview with one of the Brit
troops, right at the beginning.  He was some sort of higher-rank
enlisted guy.  The barking head asked what they planned to do, and he
said something like, "We'll attack and take the town, kill any
opposition, secure the perimeter, and move on to the next area."

The barking head asked something like, "Well, do you have to kill
them?"

The Tommy got this pained expression.  "Look, lady.  We're the Army.
It's what we *do*."

They're probably all non-violent and politically correct by now,
though.



Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 10:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Warning non-pc statement!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Why would I be discouraged from waving an American flag in my own
-> country?

Because the primary American right, as defined by the courts, seems to
be the right to be offended, and to receive "compensation" for being
offended.  So a couple of states have had to change their flags recently
because people were "offended", and so forth.

The secondary American right is to be a complete fucking moron, and to
receive compensation for it.  Like sticking your hand down the garbage
disposal to retreive a spoon, then turning it on to see what will happen
when your hand is in there.  If you have a good lawyer, you might get
enough compensation to buy a motorhome.

The tertiary American right is to breed like a rabbit, and then turn
your spawn out to run loose, or sort of hope the State might take care
of them and teach them something, because you're too busy stuck to the
Tube to do anything about them.  If you breed enough, you can get
compensation by tax breaks, free food and medical care, subsidized rent,
and other benefits.


That "Bill of Rights" thing is "just a piece of paper", as lots of
people like to refer to contracts they don't particularly care to honor;
it means nothing in the Real World(tm).  If you try to claim those
rights as defined by that document, you'll probably go to jail.



Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 10:18:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Need SAE paper ASAP
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I'm starting to get a little irritated with these guys. First it's a
-> "RUSH" job

What that means is, they've allocated four to six weeks for the
project.  They've ordered stuff that won't show up for at least four to
five weeks.  At four weeks, they will be asking if it's done yet.  At
five weeks, when you actually receive the documentation, it's your fault
you're late.  And when you actually get six weeks worth of work done in
one, you'll find out six months later they just roundfiled your work and
went with something else (about the third week...) and never bothered to
tell you.

- Dave "the T-shirt didn't fit, either" Williams



Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 07:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: it's heeeere!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Keep the population, dumb and unarmed, is what America's turning too
-> Bruce

You don't need to de-fund the libraries for that.  Most of the proles
won't go near one voluntarily anyway.  Comes from the schools passing
out "library assignments" as punishment.  Like "reading assignments" as
punishment.  Get the negative reinforcement in early, don'cha know.

Not that there's anything worthwhile in any of the local libraries
anyway.  Encyclopedias, children's books, cookbooks, NYT Top 20, travel
books, that's about it.  Science or engineering: zero.  As in, nothing.
Nada.  Zip.  They even got rid of the Chilton manuals ten years ago.



Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 17:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Electron Beam Mail Cleansing
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The president of that Limo, OH company that is zapping the DC
-> mail, says electronic stuff should not be run through their
-> sterilization process.  Not sure of specifics though.

My allergist mails my vials of stuff to me in padded envelopes.  Lots
of people get insulin or ordinary meds by mail order.  Rural doctors
mail bio samples to testing labs.

I'm not real thrilled with the idea of shooting up with stuff that's
been zapped with unknown amounts of high energy particles.



Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 17:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: More on the New Gestapo
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> agree with, with, with.... J-J-J-J...  John! Seriously, what about
-> the archives? Fully preserved for complete perusal. Everything we say

No problem; anything you want fixed, I can come up with "official"
archives showing you never said any such thing.  And others can do the
same.

The credulous will accept any old sort of mud slinging, but anything
digital can be tweaked after the fact to say anything you want.

Back when I had a Real Job(tm) I sent periodic snapshots of various
datasets (DAT tape) to the accounting department, who locked them away
and were prepared to swear they were true, unaltered copies.  Not that I
couldn't have cooked them before handing them over, but it provided a
legally admissible chain of evidence should anything ever come to court.



Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2001 19:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Nissan Maxima
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> In a nutshell, stop right there! Think Altima 3.5 SE. You'd be far
-> ahead money-wise, technology-wise, performance-wise, design-wise, and

Most of the Voices recommend an old used Buick, in T-Type or Grand
National trim.  The remaining Voices seem divided between the
Syclone/Typhoon and the SS454 half-ton pickup truck.  One holdout for
the Mitsubishi Galant VR-4.

- Dave "50,000 Voices can't be wrong!" Williams



Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2001 14:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Halloween
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> We had a lighter turnout of Trick-or-Treaters than usual too.  But
-> surprisingly, we had the usual number of young ones early in the
-> evening, it was the older ones who didn't come out this year.

The terrorists at ABC, NBC, and CBS were working "anthrax" like a
chainsaw hitting a railroad spike all over the east coast last week.
That's all I got on the radio, and there were "news flashes"
periodically when I was around one of the boob toobs.

al Queda is saving a lot of bucks with the US media doing so much of
their work for them.



Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 10:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: PGP (Was:Re: More on the New Gestapo)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Only option is to overthrow the government

Sorry, they passed laws against that during the first Red Scares in the
1930s.  As I interpreted it, even *legal* activities related to changing
the form of the Federal government are now classified as treason.


-> I very much doubt that the new one would have much to do with the
-> Constitution.

There was a small push for a new constitutional convention about ten
years ago.  I was strongly opposed; as far as I'm concerned, no such
thing would even occur unless the fix was already in, and the
suggestions of "improvements" I was hearing at the time sounded a lot
more like Nazi Germany than "America."



Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2001 06:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: PGP (Was:Re: More on the New Gestapo)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The First amendment is supposed to protect our Right to say anything
-> at anytime.

The media certainly make the most of it.  They can libel any-damn-body,
and they can say things that'd put your ass in jail because they are, de
facto, exempt from any responsibility for the crap they print.

Since they're all a bunch of pathological liars anyway, I'd just as
soon let the TV and papers lose their "right to free speech".



Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 04:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Infocom
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I always have felt weak and worthless for not making it through
-> Hitchhikers Guide.

How do you think *I* felt, when I couldn't figure out what to do with
a length of plastic tubing, a bottle of lubricant, and a yak, when
playing "Leather Goddesses of Phobos"?

- Dave "not as perverted as he thought" Williams



Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 21:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Plane Crash
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Other reports claim it was an Airbus A300.  CNN.com reports that it
-> was a Boeing Airbus A300 which makes no sense.

Sure it does.  All airplanes are probably "Boeing" to them, like all
rifles are "high power rifles" or all autoloading pistols are
"semi-automatic handguns."



Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 18:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Saturn engines
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Its the non-contentious version of Aluminium, or aluminum as you
-> fellas call it.

I guess the ISO is going to make us all say "goldium," "silverium,"
"leadium," and "platinumium" soon enough...

Are you Britons, free to do as you damned well please (or not, history
having shown Britons in general are only slightly less stubborn than a
bull moose in rut), or are you pathetic snivelling losers sucking up to
your Euro overlords?  English for Englanders!  Take the English language
back before the Euros pervert it into meaningless blather!  If Sir
Humphrey Davy had wanted to call his discovery "oxygenium", he would
have said so in the first place, right?

- Dave "earth, air, fire, water" Williams



Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 18:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: RE: [DeTomaso] DOT certified? I don't think so...
Sender: detomaso-admin@realbig.com
To: detomaso@realbig.com

-> Other than their lack of fire protection, you really can't go wrong
-> with either type IMHO....

Try applying flame to any helmet with a fiberglass shell.  The resin is
quite flammable.  Given that, the liner, which is inside next to your
hair (which is also flammable) doesn't seem like such a big issue.

- Dave "helmets of fire" Williams



Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 14:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: The Zimmermann Telegram
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I finally found a copy of Barbara Tuchman's "The Zimmermann Telegram".
For such a famous book, it's not very common - I've probably seen twenty
copies of "The Guns of August" out there, but this was the first
Zimmermann.

Now I know why it gets a fishy eye from the historian types.  There's
enough *stuff* there to have easily filled a book the size of "The Guns
of August" without slowing things down noticeably, but for some reason
(popular press page count limits?) Zimmermann is a fairly short book.
The shortness made Tuchman skip along the high points - I found a *whole
lot* of stuff I'd never had a clue about in there - but I'm halfway
through and frustrated.  She'll bring something really interesting up,
give it a few lines or a paragraph, and dispense with it.  I'm going,
"Hey, wait just a minute..."  The US invasion of Vera Cruz?  The Kaiser
trying to purchase Baja California as his own personal feoff?  Woodrow
Wilson's psychopathic prejudices and changes of mind?  Carranza and
Wilhelm trying to foment another Civil War in the United States by
promising the creation of a Negro-and-Indian-only homeland out of any
bits of the US Southwest that would secede?  All that, and the various
passages where she begins, "if this were fiction, the following would
call for the willing suspension of disbelief..."

The thing reads like Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator", mixed with
a couple of those old Danny Kaye movies, crossed with every really,
really bad spy novel you ever read, and a liberal dash of "Apocalypse
Now."  Yow!

Is there another book out there on the Zimmermann Telegram, or just the
German and Japanese antics in Mexico prior to WWI?  I feel a need to
fill in some blanks.



Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 15:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Anita Blake
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

If there are any other Anita Blake fans out there, Laurell K. Hamilton
has written another "last" volume after "Obsidian Butterfly."  I found
it in hardback in a book store in Richmond, entitled "Narcissus in
Chains."  Publication date was October 2001.

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, it's a weird hybrid
between horror and science fiction, written by someone who has obviously
read everything Robert Parker and Donald Hamilton ever wrote and liked
it a lot.  Most of them take place in an alternate St. Louis, where
things that go bump in the night are usually real, and the Supreme Court
just decided vampires are people.  Anita has a rather serious attitude
problem and an itchy trigger finger.  Vampires?  Blow them away.
Ghouls?  Blow them away.  Muggers?  Blow them away.  People who talk too
loud on their cellular phone in a quiet restaurant?  Think seriously
about blowing them away...



Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 20:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Terror
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> > Only in Danworld (TM), where all the women are beautiful
-> > and all the men are me.
>
> "On Earth I'm nobody, but here I'm Den [Dan]."

"Welcome to DanWorld, where nothing can go wrong... go wrong..."



- Dave "Bring on the drill thralls!" Williams
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 14:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: YIKES! $4,000 SBF heads
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Until Porsche got there with some budget.
->
-> I'll see your pushrods, and raise you two cams and a turbo.

It wasn't overhead cams that gave the 917s the edge.  The were
cost-no-object racing cars, every single one factory subsidized by more
money than most Can Am teams *had*, and Porsche was running them
*everywhere*, which meant a lot of people knew how to set them up, and
you could get replacement parts out of inventory.  While everyone else
was doing their usual new-car-every-year tail-chasing, Porsche was
putting their efforts into refining what they had.

The Chevys could make just as much power as the Porsches.  But the
Porsche short block was designed to be able to take it, while the Chevys
became Dixie Cups.

A winning combination is a whole lot more than cams and turbos.



Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 20:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Baltimore to DC in 15 minutes?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> a crack in the hole.  Plus they'd never get a chance to plant a bomb
-> with all the illegals running through day and night...

One of the (many) tunnel attempts got aborted in 1914.  The French had
already been dragging their feet, fearful of an English invasion of
France via the tunnel, and then the Brits didn't like the idea of the
Kaiser's army coming through after WWI started.

I never quite understood all the rhetoric; it looked like a tunnel
would be *very* defensible.  Just set up a couple of machine gun nests,
or vent some poison gas, or just flood the damned thing.  Lots simpler
than trying to defend hundreds of miles of coastline.  And it would have
helped one hell of a lot to get supplies to the BEF.  But nooo....

The major reason all the previous tunnels failed was, nobody really
wanted them, at least not politically.  Various crazies wanted to do it
because they thought they could, others thought they'd get rich, but
Parliament (both of them...) somehow viewed the idea as a threat to the
status quo.



Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 12:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Screw It, Let's Federalize Everything
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Also heard one netwreck reporter saying the change would add @ $5 to
-> the average ticket price. Yeah right.

My basic consulting rate is $75/hr, so their mandatory two-hour
pre-boarding wait would already be adding $150 to the fare, assuming I
was stupid enough to climb on to one of those contraptions in the first
place.




Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 09:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Declaration of War
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> terrorists (instead of doing a Johnny Cockroach-OJ circus). Ashcroft
-> said, well FDR did it. Brokaw shot back, but this is not a declared
-> war. Here we go. If I was Bush, I'd go right back to Congress right

It's just barking heads filling their timeslots.  Nothing to worry
about.

The precedent set by Nuremberg (which was almost entirely due to the
efforts of Churchill) is that there are some actions that simply aren't
permitted by civilized nations, whether done by nations or individuals,
in peace or at war.  Terrorism is specifically one of those actions.



Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 13:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Fun anti-Honda site, especially for Blitz/Norm
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> If the IRA fought like men rather than the spineless cowards that
-> they were then I'd worry about their memory.

Ireland was the soft underbelly of Britain during WWII.  Half of it was
in the war on the Allied side, half of it was "neutral", letting German
ships in their ports and that sort of thing.

As far as I know nothing much happened in neutral Ireland during the
war, but I'm sure a bunch of people worried about it.  Well, up until
about a zillion American and Canadian troops set up camp just over the
border, waiting for D-Day...



Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 18:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Declaration of War
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> involved.  Could you imagine bin laden or his henchmen in a public
-> trial using it as a platform to urge jihad against the US?

I wouldn't be worried about that, so much as another OJ Simpson court
spectacular resulting in Bin Laden and his buddies walking off
scott-free and giving the finger as they climb on a plane back to
Afghanistan.

American jurors appear to have the collective IQ of annelid worms.



Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 21:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Declaration of War
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> accused was NOT the man she saw commit the murder, but the accused
-> was found guilty anyway.

Sacco and Vanzetti went much the same way.  We actually had several
days about that case in school, but it was presented as "WASPS
Oppressing Italian Immigrants."  It wasn't until many years later I
found out the judge had publicly stated things like "all wops are
guilty" and "I'm going to hang them," while permitting the prosecution
to do much as it pleased and slapping the defense down any time they
said anything.

It wasn't WASPS against wops, it was a complete breakdown of the whole
judicial system, right there in public, spattered on the front pages all
across the country.  But after "interpretation" in our State-approved
history books, it wasn't the same thing at all...

"Halfpenny twopenny, what do you say?
Money for justice, it's the American Way..."
- Styx



Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 11:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: CourtArena
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

Frank Herbert wrote several short stories, as well as the novels
"Whipping Star" and "The Dosadi Experiment", which all took place within
a relatively short span of one of his future timelines.  The Gowachin
were a group of aliens with a very unusual legal system, which got a lot
of attention in 'Dosadi', which was the last of the stories, as far as I
know.

The Gowachin legal system was never fully explained, but what Herbert
showed looked like a combination of ancient English trial-by-combat,
Divorce Court, and the Roman Coliseum.  *Anything* went, up to and
including murder; actions in the CourtArena were not bound by law
outside the Arena.

At the conclusion of the trial, the victor was ceremonially torn to
pieces by the jury and spectators.

I think that would reduce the incidence of nuisance litigation...


AB has been off work for a few weeks on medical leave, and has taken to
watching those junk "true court" shows on the Toob.  For some reason
they make me think of Herbert's Gowachin.

It did lead to an interesting idea, though.  Lots of states allow
pari-mutuel betting.  I wonder how hard it would be to amend legislation
to allow betting on trials?  Just think!  We could do it 'for the
children'!  Ten times more entertaining than buying a lottery ticket!


Someone recently asked me, given modern special effects, what SF novel
I'd like to see turned into a movie.  I'd have to give the nod to Walter
Jon Williams' "Hard Wired", but Frank Herbert's "Whipping Star" would be
a close second.  And if it had to fit in the normal two-hour length
instead of the three or four hour mega-movie length, it'd be the first,
because I don't think you could collapse "Hard Wired" down to two hours
without butchering it too much to be worth it.



Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 20:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Powder coating oven
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> immediately, wearing long sleeve shirt and gloves, but don't touch
-> anything without gloves.  After about a minute the oven is down to
-> 300-ish and they

Somewhere around here I have an old steam book that talks about stokers
in Civil-War-era ships.  At full steam, the boiler room temperature was
over 200F!  The stokers worked in half hour shifts, shoveling coal and
drinking water.

I would never have thought people could do heavy labor at that kind of
temperature.

I don't think OSHA would approve of that nowadays...



Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 16:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: TV
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> What you've gone PC on us?.
-> how about Sharpton, Jackson, Dersewitse (HAHAHHA, I can't beleive I
-> can't do better then that, the little guy on OJs dream team),
-> Cochran, and R King.

Well, it's sort of like Matt Helm's boss told him, "We can't go around
killing people just because they're assholes, because it'd be hard to
know when to stop."



Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 11:27:33 -0800
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: COMPUTER DESIGN (was : cool 'prilly)
Sender: mc-chassis-design@micapeak.com
To: MC-CHASSIS-DESIGN Mailing List 

-> like they could have used a bit more computer-time. Some
-> computers would have done wonders for engine work and

From my perspective, I see way too much stuff where the designer should
have let go of the pointing device, folded his hands, and just *looked*
at whatever it was he was drawing.

No amount of computer power is going to compensate for poor design
work.

At least with a track drafter and paper, you had to *think* a little
bit before drawing a line, because you couldn't just click on "undo".
Not that it was perfect, but at least when GM used paper, they weren't
making cars where you had to unbolt the motor and lift it up in order
to get the alternator off, with their new design alternators having an
average life of 75,000 miles before the magic smoke comes out, which is
another design problem altogether.


Personally, I think any new automotive or motorcycle engineer ought to
be required to spend a year in some dealership's service department
before they're allowed to touch a pencil or a tablet...



Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 07:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Perfect Power site
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I wonder if a similar angle could be taken on all the phone-home
-> programs -- maybe charge 'em under RICO for each count of

Probably not, given Microsoft's ability to whipsaw the DOJ.

The "automatic update" and "automatic registration" ideas go *way*
back, back before the IBM PC, anyway.  I guess it sounds like a great
idea to a certain type of mind.

Any network I'm responsible for will never have any software on it that
tries that kind of crap; if it's politically ordained that it be so,
I'll make sure I'll unload the "responsible" part onto someone else,
because I'm not going to have someone come crying to me when their word
processor upgraded itself behind their back and now it can't write files
that anyone else on the network can read...

I don't think I'm alone here.

Microsoft has already backed down on XP; the "corporate" version
doesn't call home to Redmond.



Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 06:56:54 -0800
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Metric is inevitable
Sender: mc-chassis-design@micapeak.com
To: MC-CHASSIS-DESIGN Mailing List 

-> Oh, and for the record, Joule was a Yorkeshireman, not a Frenchman,
-> so it's J-ow'l not jool.

Yeah, but it *looks* French.  We want Priestleys, Cavendishes,
Rutherfords, and Rayleighs!

In the spirit of political correctness, we also ought to have equal
representation of scientists with unpronounceable names, preferably in
non-Roman alphabets, weird glyphs, or chicken tracks...



Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 08:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: MS Windows Updates
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> My wife says smart people periodically go to MS's site and get the
-> free updates for W98 and Outlook, etc. (Thinking of CSlaw's post
-> about "BadTrans" worm...) Does anyone have a link to where to go to
-> do this?

www.microsoft.com, otherwise known as "404 Central."  Besides being
achingly slow, the site is full of broken links, most of which are where
I was trying to go...

"Free updates" frequently means "install *new* set of bugs and
glitches."

Experienced administrators view updates with suspicion and major
version changes with something close to alarm.

- Dave "beta tester days long behind me now" Williams



Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 08:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Ah what a beautiful morning
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Spent 1:45 stuck behind slow traffic (mostly rock haulers peppering
-> my car with pebbles,)

Around here the rock trucks have started putting "Not responsible for
broken windshields" signs on.  However, by our state law, they *are*,
though the Marshal of the Arkansas State Police personally told me "We
don't choose to enforce that."

Rock trucks also don't seem to need license plates or working lights,
and are apparently immune from speed laws, as I've never seen one doing
less than 10 over the limit.  I often get the urge to toss a few
200-grain .45 slugs through the cab just to show my displeasure...

- Dave "NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BULLETS THROUGH CAB" Williams



Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 10:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: FIL's Flatty
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> goals.   Seems like there are way the heck too many folks just
-> plodding around day to day.   I see it in some of the Nurses eyes.
-> Just a dull appearance to their eyes.   I now, don't trust or trust
-> to only a min level

The Zombie People.  That's most of humanity, as far as I can tell.
They might as well be crash test dummies, moving through the
preprogrammed motions of their lives.

They used to give me the heebies, until I understood that only a
fraction of us are actually *awake*.

"The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is almost funny once you realize
that.  Who'd notice if most of the teeming billions were replaced by
alien plant things?  Who'd care?  Things would go on just the same as
before...



Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 10:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Iron Pistons and crankcase compression.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Dave, you wrote a book?!  What was it called?

Hell, I have notes for a suspension and chassis book that's been
moldering on the hard disk for many years, and a more-recent outline for
an engine technology book, but I'll be damned if I'll do it for free.
Well, a $1000 and a dozen author copies is close enough for free,
considering the amount of work it takes.  You know all that 20 and 25
year old stuff still in print by HP Books, S-A Design, and the like?
The authors of those got even less.  And royalties are a joke...

The way the publishing business works, 5% of the writers get 95% of the
money.  All the rest get peanuts.  It's all "product" to the publishers,
and name recognition sells product, so they pick out a handful from
their stable and promote the hell out of them, while the rest are lucky
to get shelf space.



Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 12:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Ah what a beautiful morning
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Sounds like the garbage trucks around here.  In fact, many have
-> 'bumpers' that actually hide the taillights and brakelights - not
-> that they normally work.

Garbage trucks around here have flashers on top, presumably to ward off
motorists who "don't see" something the size (and smell) of a garbage
truck.

The adjoining town has strobes mounted on the back bumpers of their
trucks.  They will drive you out of your mind after about 3 seconds.



Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 09:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: laughter
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

From "Lightpaths" by Howard V. Hendrix:

"A laugh track dutifully cranked out a mixed stream of chuckles and
chortles from another place and time. ... But if it was such a funny
line, why did the viewing audience have to be told it was funny?  Or
was everybody just supposed to keep laughing along, herd-style, because
once upon a time anonymous people had been anonymously recorded in the
act of laughing?

That was the spooky part: much of the "source laughter" on the tracks
had been recorded fifty or sixty years ago, and many of those laughing
were now dead, gone to ashes or worms' meat.  When Jhana laughed along
with the tracks, she was laughing with the dead in one big happy haunted
human comedy..."



Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 11:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: double trouble
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I saw something interesting yesterday - a guy building a four door
Dodge pickup out of a pair of mid'70s(?) cabs.  However, unlike the one
Kemper's buddy is building out of Chevy bits down in V'burg, this guy
turned the second cab around backwards, so it has suicide doors on the
back.  I don't know what he plans to do about the firewall area, but it
looked pretty interesting all the same.

There was a Dodge Magnum around here back when I was in high school
that someone had done a *very* professional conversion on, using an El
Camino bed section to make a Magnum pickup.  And dual rear axles for six
wheels... the other day I saw a mini-truck in Little Rock with dual rear
axles.  Useless, I know, but it still looks nifty.



Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 11:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Read, absorb, understand...
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> As do I, in future I shall write a long and detailed email message
-> explaining what the details are - I have nothing to do (obviously)
-> apart from to save you money and time, its my calling in life.  I am
-> standing by waiting to help.

Thanks!  You British are so polite and civilized!  Anyone else would
have just said "so fuck off then."


-> And the rest of it aint like you...

Damned good thing, since I don't think I'd get along with me very well.



Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 12:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Road Rage for kids
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> We need the B-1 when the Russki's long range bomber is a turbo-prop?

Yeah, but it was the Tu-144 they were using to scare Congress with...


-> One of the greatest lies ever foisted on the american public is the
-> "= Powerful Soviet Military".

The Soviet military was plenty powerful, but they were never in our
class.  But they always looked bigger than they were, and they were
usually able to pull an H-bomb, Sputnik, ICBM, invasion of some nearby
nation, or supersonic bomber out of their ass regularly enough to give
the "The Russians are Coming" faction plenty of factlets to work with.

The Soviet resistance to the Nazi invasion is usually credited to
Stalin's relocation of their industrial centers east of the Urals and
good work by Zhukov and the other generals, but as far as I'm concerned,
that's not the case.  Like the Brits, they were too stubborn or stupid
to do the "reasonable" thing and capitulate like almost everyone else
did.  The Brits paid for their folly with the destruction of their
Empire; the Soviets merely paid in blood.  It wasn't T-34s coming out of
Kazakhstan that held the Nazis at bay, it was the willingness of some
kid or old lady to take on a Panzer with a bottle of paint thinner and a
flaming rag.  Military power is a concentrated force; it doesn't work
well against highly distributed populations that simply *won't give
up*, as the Soviets themselves learned later in Afghanistan; a lesson I
hope the Northern Alliance is keeping in mind right now...


-> e. Well the AK-47 was pretty good (for a super cheap rifle).

Kalashnikov did one *hell* of a piece of design work there.  It's
easy to design something like the M-16, made of precision machined
aluminum forgings, firing a precisely QC-controlled cartridge, and
gauranteed a certain minimum level of maintenance.  Designing something
to be built by chimpanzees with files, shooting Cousin Fred's Discount
Mystery Ammo, and dragged by the strap through mud and sand by savages
that will still work when the time comes, is an entirely different
thing.

When Lamborghini built the first Countaches, their primary business was
tractors and agrigultural equipment.  People used to laugh at that.  But
which is more important?  Not many people were likely to go bankrupt or
starve if their Countach broke.



Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 00:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: BeoPlayer
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I downloaded BeoPlayer 1.03 and installed it.  The user interface is...
I don't know what the hell it is; I couldn't figure it out.  Perhaps it
wasn't working right, since the help file said it required Java,
ActiveX, and Windows Active Scripting Host present and enabled, though
it didn't say why.  All the menus have loooooong time delays, and some
of the text is "hyper", though you can't tell unless you grab the
sanding block and wave the cursor over everything to see if it changes
the font, which appears to be the only way it indicates a link.

I never even managed to get it to find and play a file.  Uninstall,
reboot, root through the Registry to find any droppings... 

I realize I have conceptual problems with GUI apps, but this one made
even less sense than most.



Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 08:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Road Rage for kids
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> battle had the highest percentage of the populations as active
-> combatants of any modern battle. Something like 75% of the
-> population were fighting the Nazis.

I wouldn't doubt it.

Most nations, confronted with superior military force, either give up
and cut their losses, or make a token resistance, then give up and cut
their losses.  When everyone behaves reasonably, at least by the
concepts of Sun Tzu or Clauswitz, war is a fairly cut-and-dried affair.

It's when nations don't respond "reasonably" that conventional military
strategy falls down.  The Brits had been fighting much the same war in
Ireland, on a much smaller scale, for a long time.  The USA and some of
its SEATO allies got to do it again in Vietnam.

About the only thing you can go with an army vs. a resisting population
is what the Nazis did to the Ukraine, and kill them all, or as many as
you can find.  Which is fine if you were going to eliminate unwanted
indigenes anyway, but hard to square with "winning their hearts and
minds."



Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 14:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Road Rage for kids
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Sure, over land. Just like the Russians did, both before and after
-> the Nazis. The whole southern half of the Polish frontier abuts the
-> Ukraine. Norm

It's like the old George Carlin schtick about Euro politics.  "We want
your fucking LAND!  Form up teams now, you be the green, I'll be the
blue..."



Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 11:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Only in Florida
To: fanglers@

-> Florida banned it in 1989 amid intense lobbying from the advocacy
-> group Little People of America, which said the contests were
-> demeaning and encouraged people to treat dwarfs as objects.

That reminds me of my favorite Howard Stern episode.  Stern had a
"homeless" wino and some priggish help-the-poor type on the show.  He
kept making snide comments to the wino about sleeping in gutters,
rooting in trash, etc.

Finally the lady turned to the wino and said, "Don't you have any self
respect?  How can you allow this man to talk to you like this?!"

The wino said, "Mister Stern gave me fifty dollars to be on his show.
What have *you* done for the homeless lately?"

It was a setup, of course, but it was great...



Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2001 22:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Can't pull the trigger fast enough?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Can't say I blame you there. Use it once and it sits in an evidence
-> vault until it rusts.

In many jurisdictions they take photographs, get a firing pin imprint
and a fired bullet, and the guns are then destroyed by court order as
standard operating procedure.  Sometimes probably due to some anti-gun
"get them off the streets" idea, but more likely to reduce the incidence
of theft from the property rooms, which has been a major issue in some
areas.

There have been some defendants who were acquitted who were really
pissed to find out their gun had been destroyed long before they made it
to court.



Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 13:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Solutions! proactivity, and other crap
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> My company recently decided that 30 Megs were enough for everyones
-> mailbox. They periodically (after 30 days) delete old mail from your
-> box for you and have installed a cute little meg gage in lotus notes
-> for us.

It's not "real" unless it's on your local hard disk.

I once worked at a place where the mail was server-based and under
control of an opposing faction; notices to meetings, schedule changes,
and other things were wont to appear in my mailbox only after the fact.

In retaliation, I made a habit of printing the "inbox" thingie and any
important-looking mail on the department laser printer, punching holes,
initialing each page, and putting it in a collection of three-ring
binders.

Oddly enough, nobody laughed...



Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2001 21:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Cool Million
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

It happened sooner than I expected, no doubt due to the heavy spam
infeed the last few months.

My current message counter, since it was initialized in February 1992:


1,000,317


No pick-a-burger thread deletes; every single one got looked at.  You
wussies only *think* you get mail...  the stuff that doesn't get killed
as I read it gets stripped out of the mail spool every month or two, and
then I split it up with my editor to feed the DbFH, so I see about a
third of that stuff at least twice, too.

I've been running the same mail software since 1990; that's a pretty
good value for the $195 I spent for the PC-Board software...

- Dave "use it up, wear it out" Williams



Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2001 08:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Can't pull the trigger fast enough?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> > a situation where I need a
-> > "Big" gun and a lot of bullets I probably deserve what I get.

> Me thinks thou dost not value thy life as highly as thou should!!!

Proper self-defense starts *long* before you reach for the iron.

"The best gunfight is the one you didn't get into in the first place."



Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2001 17:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Pantera kit
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

Someone brought me a set of fender flares and a front bumper for a
Pantera GT5-S today.  Now all I need is a roof, hood, decklid, doors,
front fenders, left and right quarter panels...

- Dave "It's a '71-'72-'73-'74-'75..." Williams

Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 06:09:00 -0500


From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Can't pull the trigger fast enough?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> along the lines of "ending a confrontation just by drawing iron" I
-> think of that goofy Bruce Willis movie where he is this hired gun in
-> a small desert mob town.  I think drawing a pair of Colt .45's would
-> do the trick in many cases :)

I always think of the scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" where Harrison
Ford watches a ninja go through an elaborate manual-of-arms with his
katana, then proceeds to shoot him from a safe distance.

- Dave "the pistol is mightier than the sword" Williams



Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 17:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Aircraft Safety and the Case of the Plastic Tail
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> no faster than those 30 years ago. The V16 Auto Union F1 car (pre
-> WWII) really took a lot of balls to drive. 180 mph and no seat belt.

Trailing arms in front, swing axles in back, mid engined, supercharged
V16 burning a toluene and benzine mix.  600HP and more depending on the
configuration, and that's with a big, fat power curve from "adequate"
cubic inches, not a 1.5-liter buzz bomb.

No seat belt?  No helmets, fire suits, extinguisher, roll bars, crush
zone, window nets, arm restraints, fuel cells, or any of that pussy
"safety" bullshit modern racers use.

Pretty much like a modern motorcycle.

- Dave "man + machine" Williams



Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 21:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> keep trying to marginalize Arafat. Problem is, he is the most
-> credible leader of the greatest number of Palestinians.

Yeah.  Like Pol Pot was in Cambodia, or Papa Doc in Haiti, or ... ?

Murder enough people, and you're not a criminal any more?  I bet the
Jews tried to "marginalize" Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann too.
In Eichmann's case it was fatal, I believe.

Just because Israel's government is a collection of foaming psychopaths
doesn't mean the PLO is in any way anything other than a group of
murderers, terrorists, and other types of criminals.

"Marginalized."  Criminy.  That sounds like something one of PBS'
barkins heads would say on the Toob.



Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 13:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Have you heard Arafat say anything like that in the last decade?  He
-> his an exponent of peace its the hardline nutters - on both sides -
-> who are hell bent on each other's destruction.

Oh, he's reformed now, so he's okay?

So if Osama bin Laden manages to hide out for ten years or so he'll
become a statesman, and we'll let bygones be bygones?

- Dave "Springtime for Hitler" Williams



Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 14:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Most islamic countries live in poverty because their leadership
-> doesn't provide any real compassion or care for them.

Not really.  It's more of a cultural issue, and by no means confined to
the Islamic nations.  In the end, wealth comes from work, and to them,
persons of quality or status, or those who aspire to either, do not do
physical labor.  This was a common idea in classical Greece, in
upper-class Rome (and Italy until recent times), most of the modern
Latin countries, in India and England (though not as much nowadays),
etc.

This "work ethic" thing is a nice propaganda hack and not all that old,
either.

Hardline Islamic believers also have the same problem as the hardline
Christian believers - a religion that tells them to just put up with
things as they are and endure until they die, and it'll all be better in
the everafter.  So why go through all the effort to better yourself now?
It'll all come out the same in the end.  And both religions preach of
the virtues of poverty and against the accumulation of wealth.  Well,
for the laity anyway.

The Western world didn't see squat for material progress until after
the Reformation and the splintering of the Catholic Church.



Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 17:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Nowadays too many people believe that Isreal just popped up and
-> became a Nation from nowhere and nothing in 1948 thanks to the U.S.

I've seen some of that, which mostly proves that the average asshole
knows no more about the history of the region than the barking head that
fed it to them.

What are now known as Israel and Palestine were territories of the
British Empire, taken by conquest.  Balfour, Churchill, and Churchill's
successor, whose name I can never remember, carved off a chunk of the
Empire and traded it to the Jewish indigenes, first for their support of
British oil interests in the region, second as a bribe to support the
Allies instead of the Axis in WWII.

The United States of America had absolutely nothing to do with the
creation of Israel or Britain's partitioning of that part of the Middle
East; neither Roosevelt nor Truman gave a damn about the area, other
than seeing the remains of the French Third Republic dismantled in North
Africa.

You got problems with Israel, and Palestine go talk to Tony Blair and
the British Parliament.  Frankly, they could do worse than to just take
the whole thing back, boot everybody out, and turn it into a nature
park or something.



Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2001 19:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> war. A major difference. You don't see Vatican troops in NATO or the
-> Coalition, do you? Norm

No, but since the Vatican pretends it's a nation, and it's enjoying the
protection of nations who are paying money, men, and materials to NATO,
I think it ought to at least make a token contribution.

"How many divisions has the Pope?" - Josef Stalin

After all the arm-waving is done, the answer comes out to "none."



Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 22:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> After WW2, the Europeans huffed an puffed over the evil Germans, then
-> deported all the Jews they didn't want to assimilate to Pallestine,
-> and kept their land an stuff.

Jew-oppressing has been a fine Old World sport going back to the time
of the Pharaohs, at the very least.

Used to, most countries kept their Jews in segregated ghettos.  The
Brits made a major improvement to this haphazard plan by simply creating
a huge ghetto called Israel...



Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 22:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> So far, I hear Dave blaming Britain, Jim blaming Rome, and Brian
-> blaming the Euro-snobs post-WW2 for the plight of the Jews.

There's certainly plenty of blame to go around.


->  Why do the Palestinians deserve all this shit?

They were too stubborn to just go away, therefore they suffer.  Same
fate as lots of other peoples whose homeland becomes someone else's.
Hey, I'm not a Palestinian; I can see the Big Picture.


-> declare Jerusalem an Open City under the governance of an
-> international force for the next 100 years,

The current owners and population of Jerusalem might not be too happy
with that idea.  Hey, why don't we make New York an Open City too?
There are still Indians around trying to reclaim their homeland.



Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 07:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Oh yeah the british invented the concentration camps as well.
->
-> So fucking what?

Mussolini was herding Ethiopians into concentration/extermination camps
a while before Britain made lip service to the Jewish exodus from Nazi
Germany.

Hell, the Spanish rounded up most of the Indians in California (who
were evidently more peaceful than the Eastern variety) and put them in
concentration camps, where they were supposed to be slave labor.
Unfortunately, the Indians of the area were a little too primitive for
the concept of slavery, and stood around like union members for a while
and then wandered off when nobody was looking, which drove the civilized
conquistadores into paroxysms of frustration...

If you're going to take on some national guilt, find something better
to feel guilty for, like "British cuisine", a disgusting mess that would
make even a Korean pause in disbelief.

- Dave "happiness is a pepperoni pizza" Williams



Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 13:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: As long as we're off topic...
Sender: owner-gunsmith-list@swcp.com
To: gunsmith-list@swcp.com

-> Another author who does a very good job with firearms is Stephen
-> Hunter.

Laurell K. Hamilton has a series of horror novels whose female
protagonist demonstrates a good working knowledge of firearms and how
they should be used.  I don't know if Mrs. Hamilton's knowledge is first
hand, but her writing shows she understands recoil, muzzle climb, that
shooting a pistol in a confined space is very loud, that revolvers don't
normally have safeties, and other minor details that seem to totally
escape the average writer.

Compare that to someone like Len Deighton, who had one of his
characters hauling around a spare cylinder for his revolver, with the
"bullets" "heavily greased" so they wouldn't fall out...   No
mention if whether he also carried a screwdriver to facilitate
installing his homebrew speed loader, though.



Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 12:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Cheese is good, they invented a lot of the really tasty varieties.

I've read that the Japanese view cheese with alarm and disgust, which,
if true, would tend to lend credence to their claim to be a civilized
people.

The French are obviously not civilized, given their desire to hide most
foodstuffs under grotesque sauces.  Though I guess if I was eating
garbage, I might want to hide it with a sauce too.



Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 12:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> That doesn't make the Jews right.  The Europeans who manufactured
-> this mess are to blame, both Pallistinians  and Jews are losers in
-> this one.

Bah.  The "mess" has been there since before Gaius Julius went out with
his legions to conquer the tribes of Gaul, Britannia, etc. for the
Republic of Rome.  That is, before there even *was* a Europe.

The analog of the Israel/Palestine thing should be familiar to any
parent who has encountered the "two children, one toy" scenario.



Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 13:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Can we hit LA next?  I am not a big fan of NYC, but LA has only one
-> thing that makes it better - less cold weather.

Actually, I think LA would be a pretty nice place, with one minor
change - get rid of about 75% of the Angelinos who clog the place like
too many hamsters on an exercise wheel.

- Dave "Soylent Green is people!" Williams



Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 13:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Arafat
To: fanglers@

-> Arafat is quoted as saying the Jewish homeland was actually somewhere
-> out near Yemen, that they never were a people of Bethlehem or
-> Jerusalem except as immigrants. The guy is a real hoot!

I guess when you move from "terrorist" to "statesman", you get all the
statesmanlike prerogatives, including the privilege of revising history
when you want to.




Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 17:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us
Subject: Re: The sky will be black with my arrows
To: mc-engine@yahoogroups.com

-> >Americans are, or maybe were, masters at standardisation.

> Yep, and mass production on an undreamed-of scale.

Say "Eli Whitney", one of the few engineers who changed the course of
history.  His agricultural inventions came *this* close to causing a
second war between the USA and England as mechanized American raw
materials and textiles cut the heart out of the British textile
industry; they destabilized the relationship between the northern and
southern parts of the United States, and were a direct cause of the US
Civil War.  During the war, Whitney's mass production techniques gave
the Union Army an overwhelming armaments advantage over the
Confederates.  The same techniques, carried home by German military
observers and mercenaries (such as Graf von Zeppelin) gave the Kaiser's
armies the advantage in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, which directly
led to WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and side-tracks like Korea and Vietnam.

It wasn't that Whitney was a better or more productive inventor than
Edison, Tesla, et.al.; he just happened to be in the right place at the
right time, like a mountain climber starting an avalanche.  Edison, the
Wright brothers, Goddard, most of the rest could have never existed and
things wouldn't have been a whole lot different; lots of people were
working on heavier than air flight, rocketry, electric lights, etc.  But
they didn't set off the kind of chain reaction Whitney did.

In American schoolbooks, if Eli Whitney is mentioned at all, he's
simply credited with inventing the cotton gin and dismissed with a
sentence or two.


Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 23:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: a couple of quotes
To: fanglers

I recently read "The Spell of the Black Dagger" by Lawrence Watt-Evans.
Fantasy stuff, not one of my favorite genres, but not bad.  It had a
couple of bits I found interesting enough to key in and share:

In one section the bad guys have the upper hand and the military is
abandoning the capitol city.  One of the nobility is pissed, and asks
the general what he plans to do.  The general says,

"We retreat, we regroup, we reconsider our situation, and when we're
ready, we retaliate."

The four Rs?

Later in the story, the revolutionaries seem to be having a hard time
deciding whether they're going to be a government or just vandals;
the city government and militia have fled or been executed, but the
basic services are still going.  A character notices,

"A city the size of Ethshar mostly ran by itself.  Lady Sarai thought
of it as a spinning top, and the government's job was to keep it
balanced - a touch here, a touch there.  Tabaea would be bound to miss
a wobble here, push a little too hard there, and before long the whole
thing would careen wildly out of control, maybe come smashing to a
halt."



Date: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 00:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: assist me, please
To: fanglers@xephic.dynip.com

-> Just why is it that in Word help, "Business-cards" gets me to mailing
-> labels? - but not to cards of any sort?  (Why capitalized?)

Turd 5 for DOS would do it.  I guess Microsnot wants you to send
"vcard" spam with Exploder now.

Just remember, your Windows software is *much* easier to use and more
"productive" than that nasty old text-mode DOS software.  Just keep
clicking randomly around (make sure you try the right button too) until
it does what you want; modern Windows software is so intuitive very
little of it ships with that nasty, redundant, tree-killing, obsolete,
shelf-occupying "documentation" stuff.

The way Windows users are conditioned to click on anything and
everything just to see what it does is the major reason why Unix will
never replace Windows as the OS for the masses.  Not without major
menufication and handholding, anyway.  Unix assumes you know what you're
doing, and has many ways to zero your filesystem without bothering to
ask "Are you sure?"

- Dave "still using DOS" Williams



Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 17:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: library
To: fanglers@

The battery in the Escort died downtown, so I wound up making a 45
minute walk back to the house.  The cell phone didn't do me much good
this time, as everyone I knew to call was at work or has one of those
goddamned answering machines.

I stopped at the library since it was on the way, and air conditioned,
and has a water fountain.  I haven't been there since, oh, 1995, when I
ILL'd Ricardo's book.  I ILL'd it again; this time I'll scan it for
FangleBase.  It's out of copyright anyway, so it's not even illegal...

The card catalogs are gone.  They had a couple of PCs set up as an
electronic catalog.  There were two PCs set up for "internet access."
There were about a dozen people sitting around, and a sheet to put your
name down to become the next in line.  Looked like the most popular
service in the whole place.  Net access was one of the things I'd put in
while part of the Governor's Commission On Information Services back in
'92; I guess that's fairly prompt action for Government Time.

They used to write down the information needed for ILL on scraps of
notepaper.  Now they have a large, complex form, with lots of fine print
on the back, which I annoyed them by reading.  Berne Convention
copyright bullshit, and how they'll send Noodles and Guido to break your
balls if you don't return the books by the due date.

ILLs were free; now they cost $2.  Since the local library system has
nothing other than travel books, cook books, and Dr. Seuss, that means
any book you borrow will cost $2.  On the other hand, considering how
many times ILL saved me from spending $75 or $100 on some
highly-recommended tome that turned out to be crap, $2 is a bargain.

It's still a "free public library", but as usual, you get what you pay
for...



Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 20:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: My Porsche 911 is for sale
To: fangler

-> All I need is a VIN that can't be claimed by someone else.  Then I
-> can join the Porsche club and sign up for open track events before
-> they fill up!

Jay is always able to get a slot with the Memphis group because he's
available as an instructor, and they're chronically short of those.

When I get TRX back in track condition I'm going to start looking at
the ads again; I've seen lots of 914 basket cases in the $500 range.
They have chassis rot problems.  I figure I can eventually recover most
of that in parts, then scrap the rest.  Keeping the panel with the
serial number, of course.

"Yes, I own a Porsche.  Here, it's right here in this notebook..."



Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 06:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: English Tea
To: fanglers@

-> my stereotype of English food, no doubt bolstered from Dad's stories
-> from being there during the Big One, was a bit askew.

The Brits had been importing over 60% of their food at the beginning of
the war; Doenitz' U-boats put the hurt on them early.  Most of the meat
and heavy staples got reserved for the military.  The rationing system
theoretically gave all the civilians adequate calories, but most of
those calories were "whatever there isn't a shortage of this week."  The
mainland Brits weren't on starvation rations, but they were eating
pretty low on the food chain for a long time.

1946 and 1947 were pretty bleak; HM Government shipped a lot of food to
Germany and Eastern Europe, which *were* starving, and the USA had cut
off the cornucopia of Lend-Lease goodies as soon as Doenitz folded up
the Reich and surrendered.  The British efforts were forgotten when the
Marshall Plan started dumping free American dollars throughout Europe
(*except* for Britain) during the 1950s.

The British Empire paid dearly for their betrayals at Munich.  To tie
that into the "treaty" thread, that's what happens when you decide it's
not convenient to fulfill the obligations of a treaty you supposedly
negotiated in good faith.  Britain decided world opinion wouldn't be
unduly bent if they told the Czechs to fribble off; after all, the
defense treaty was "only paper" as Herr Hitler liked to term such
things.



Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 14:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: English Tea
To: fanglers@

-> contrary.  They had plenty.  It was what they did to the meat that
-> formed his opinion.  The stereotype was further bolstered by the
-> Brits I worked with at M&M Mars.  Some of the crap they ate looked
-> like grease trap scrapings.

Well, yes, you have a point there.  The Brits do strange things to
beef, but at least it's (usually) identifiable.  Contrast to the French,
who like to hide it under semiliquid glop, or the Scandinavians, who
tend to saw off a chunk of dead cow and look at it in utter bafflement.

- Dave "Eat dead cow now!" Williams



Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 16:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: English Tea
To: fanglers@

-> Also being from the states, I was pissed about the poor service in UK
-> restaurants

I had lunch at my usual Thai restaurant today.  There are six in
town...  anyway, as I was standing at the register waiting for my
change, I noticed a bald guy in a red robe sitting on the floor on the
far side.  The seating area is shaped like a large "U", I sit on the
side closest to the steak bar.  Anyway, Tic and Yolly had cleared the
tables out of the other side, and there were (as I leaned around to
look) about a dozen Buddhist priests, monks, whatever, sitting on the
floor having tea.  They smiled and waved, I waved back.  The proprietors
of the restaurant often sponsor such people over here, and they're
involved in some big Buddhist organization out of Chicago, so it wasn't
greatly unusual.

The unusual part was, at least for me, two of them were on cellular
phones, and were apparently relaying back and forth between the group
and whoever was on the far end.  Whatever it was must've been pretty
funny since they were having a blast.

I've carried a cellular phone around for six years, from back when they
cost $100 a month and you had to buy service by the year.  I know they
only cost $19.95 a month for service now and the phone is usually free,
and I see small children wandering down the street with them.  Still,
it was a bit of a culture shock, I guess...  nowadays, it's just a
telephone, like you expect to find in every building, like a light
switch or running water.  I wouldn't have been surprised if there had
been a wire running to the handset.  I've been carrying around the idea
that cellphones are rare and expensive, even when I *know* they aren't,
not any more.  But it still takes a while to shake off OldThink.

- Dave "Preconceptions R Us" Williams



Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 17:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: presidential limo
To: fanglers@

-> there in his DeVille Pimp d'Elegance, Bush rode in a Lincoln Stretch,
-> and there were also a bunch of sinister looking black Suburbans
-> hauling the DC elite.

Window tinting is big here.  So are Jeep Cherokees.  Sometimes I'll see
two or three Cherokees in the same area, all with blacked-out windows.
Though I've never particularly had to worry about them, I still
associate such vehicles with the Haitian Tontons Macoutes, which are a
peculiarly Haitian mix of secret police, assassination squad, and voodoo
houngans.

- Dave "What, me paranoid?  Why do you ask?" Williams



Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 17:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: traffic tap
To: fanglers@

-> Now whatever happened to those tidal generators that got all the
-> press in the mid 70s?  That's an even better source of energy that

Large initial investment, small power output.  Maintenance issues.
Return on investment was better for conventional oil and coal burning
stuff.

Willy Ley's "Engineer Dreams" from the early '50s has a lot of stuff on
tidal power, geothermal power, and interesting oddities like pipes
dropping below the thermocline with turbines in them.  All of the above
were used commercially at some time, and he covers several in detail.

It's an interesting book if you ILL it.  He covers a lot of "macro
engineering" projects, like the Channel Tunnel connecting England and
France.  It was a dead issue when he wrote the book, but the history of
the various tunnel attempts was very interesting, and threaded with the
Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and WWI.  Then there were *really* big
projects, like damming Gibraltar and drying up the entire Mediterrenean,
or making giant lakes in Africa to change the climate, etc.  Ley makes
the point that all of these projects were within 1950 technology and
financing; most of the projects died due to political reasons.


-> tidal water entering/leaving a big concrete septic tank (with a water
-> wheel on the ports) would work.

The usual setup was to dam an estuary so you got lots of volume to play
with.  The "wetland" ecoNazis would have collective "fully liquid fecal
incidents" if anyone so much as proposed such a thing nowadays.



Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 17:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Watch out boys and girls
To: fanglers@

-> I guess the only way I could even begin to swallow photo radar
-> is if it were blatantly posted everywhere installed.  Of course, we
-> all know that the gummint would do that... .

That'd be fine until you lost your license because your wife or kid ran
one too many red lights in a car registered to you.

Perhaps a lot of vehicles will wind up being registered to Delaware
corporations or family pets.



Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 21:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: [Fordnatics] No Boundries...
To: fordnatics@mustangworks.com

-> Now we know where Dan Quayle learned to spell...

The press jumped him for spelling "potato" as "potatoe."  Interestingly
enough, I was taught in elementary school in the 1960s that "potatoe"
was an acceptable variant spelling.

Having seen some of George Washington's correspondence, Uncle George
wasn't so hot of a speller either.

I thought the netnews and AOL people were bad, but after being on a few
lists with lots of Australians, those guys are ten times worse than any
kewl-d00dz infected newsgroup.  I finally unsubscribed from a couple of
lists when I was unable to decrypt nine messages out of ten.

Either Australia's educational system is even worse than the USA's, or
their kewl-d00dz are even kewler than ours...

- Dave "two, too, to" Williams



Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 14:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Just saw this as someones sig.
To: fanglers@

-> I wonder how long it will be before some Fangler gets raided for
-> smelting aluminum or having a machine shop?

The DEA routinely acquires search-and-seizure warrants with a 'probable
cause' based on high electric bills.

I'm amazed jgd hasn't been visited by a black-hooded ninja team, come
to think of it.

"What's this?"

"It's oregano, fuckhead."

"Oregano?  What would you do with five pounds of oregano?"

"This is a restaurant, fuckhead.  We feed it to people."

"Feed it?  You mean people *eat* this stuff?  Get real!"

"This is a restaurant, fuckhead.  We feed it to people."

"Feed it?  You mean people *eat* this stuff?  Get real!"



Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 18:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Robo-Lobster
To: fanglers@

-> Instead of hiring engineers, Ayers hired 22 biologists to help
-> design Robo-Lobster. They studied films of lobsters and digitized

Considering the brain of a lobster is about the same size as the brain
of a cockroach, maybe they should have used politicians instead of
biologists.

- Dave "and the politicians... are now deejays" Williams



Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 18:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Fw: Meeting Minutes
To: fanglers@

Amazingly enough I had *not* seen the majority of those before, *and*
they were amusing.   heh, heh, heh... 


-> The next time you feel like complaining, remember: Your garbage
-> disposal probably eats better than thirty percent of the people in
-> this world.

I used to say that was because they were exercising their right to
breed as fast as they could, coupled by putting up with oppressive
government, but the USA is heading in that same direction quite
rapidly...



Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 20:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Interesting stuff
To: fanglers@

-> They seem to be spectacularly successful in outwitting the Fibbies
-> and company and the architecture of their organization - autonomous

I was discussing "single point of failure" system designs with a friend
this morning.  He just moved into a management position, and inherited
a data processing disaster - a "paperless office" with all the systems
owned and managed by an outside group, who don't make backups and could
care less if it works or not.  Ron is busily converting critical
sections back to paper forms and file cards.  He agrees with me that
just because some things *can* be done by computer, it doesn't mean they
*should* be.  Particularly not the DP/IT system they're stuck with.

I brought up the point that if Timothy McVeigh hadn't been an absolute
dipshit, he could have made a hell of a lot larger point by using a
smaller, cheaper suitcase bomb in a certain unguarded telco equipment
room in a parking deck in Reston, Virginia - which is where the routers
that handle almost half the traffic in the US are located, and the choke
point for MILNET, and most of the us.gov heirarchy, *and* the
single-point-of-failure for the NSA, FBI, and CIA.

Anyone remember the very brief telco outages in New York and Cincinnati
a few years ago?  Major news, major hassle.  Any punk with a few bucks
could bring down half the Fed with no trouble at all - and even places
like the San Jose NAP have minimal security.  They're all stuck in
telco-think, where a blank door and a padlock are all you need, and
that's mostly intended to discourage people just randomly exploring, not
to defend the system from a determined attack.

The net is larger than it used to be, but it's a lot more segmented
too.  The pissing contest between many of the providers block entire
sections of the net from each other, and you can't just arbitrarily
route traffic around dead spots any more like in the old days.  Even if
you're not blocked, the fiber-service-host chain is all split up like
some multi-level-marketing scheme, all rigidly bandwidth-controlled, so
even if you could theoretically route through some places, your packets
would just time out during the wait.  There are probably a dozen NAPs by
now (I haven't been keeping track), but I bet there are still only three
or four true key points connecting everything.



Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 10:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: NAPA and magic smoke
To: fanglers@

-> Well, who _does_ carry quality parts now?

Everyone.  As long as you want *poor* quality.

- Dave "attitude?" Williams



Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 09:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 1974 SPITFIRE W/ ALUMINUM V8 $650
To: fanglers@

-> 1974 SPITFIRE ALUMINUM V8. Rolling body-chassis, in good condition
-> with factory hardtop and alloy wheels. Also aluminum 215 V8 complete
-> with accessories. $650 for both. (651) 462-2599 or
-> Atblueheaven@aol.com (MN) 10-01

[flared nostrils]

Must... resist...

[shudder]

Britcar fever is like malaria; every now and then it comes back to see
if your resistance has weakened.

I did a 400 Chevy swap into a Spitfire once.  The engine looked lost in
the vast expanse of emptiness you get when you tilt the front cap of a
Spitfire up.



Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 19:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Interesting stuff
To: fanglers@

-> those people to be innocent joe sixpacks.  They were, for the most
-> part, agents of the government, implementers of all the regulations

A friend of mine calls such people "termites."  There's no use killing
them; there are plenty of exactly interchangeable replacements to step
into their shoes, and the machine hums on as before.  Except for the
inevitable backlash cranking down the screws that much tighter on,
say, myself.

A Federal building in Oklahoma.  Chickenshit.  Effect: zero.  Why?
Because the people who *make* the regulations the termites are enforcing
were not threatened.

If McVeigh had hit the Senate, or the House of Representatives, sure.
Or even the big IRS processing center in Dallas; not many politicians,
but it'd hit them in their wallet.

But no, McVeigh's accomplishment was basically a drive-by shooting at a
bunch of nobodies who were replaced within days.

I understand your point of view, but from mine, McVeigh didn't do
*nearly enough*.  Not even enough to justify the label "terrorist"; just
a bigger version of a drive-by shooting, which in my opinion is the most
cowardly loser crime that exists, even worse than child molesting or
plain old outright murder.



Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 07:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Another Lamborghini (Diablo) crash
To: fanglers@

-> The theaters I was in in San Jose were nice.  Stadium seating and
-> clean. Some were not stadium seating, but huge screens and leg room
-> and comfy chairs...

I've seen theaters actually advertise "stadium seating."  WTF?  Who the
hell wants to sit on a pine board on a rickety pipe frame?

The now-defunct theater we had in town when I was a kid had what I
always thought of as "theater seats", fold-down upholstered seats that
were assembled in rows.  A hell of a lot better than a board.



Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 07:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Interesting stuff
To: fanglers@

-> kid is raised and educated and goes to work (in the private sector),
-> then I have sympathy.

I don't particularly mind them working in the public sector.  This is a
representative republic; I have no problems with the government doing
the things it is obligated to do - foreign policy, maintaining the Navy
and the National Guard, weights and measures, and so forth.  Someone has
to do this things, which are mandated by the Constitution, and frankly,
I don't particularly want to do it myself.  I have plenty of stuff to do
already.

However, I *do* expect my public servants to know their jobs, operate
within their authority, and uphold the Constitution.  And I expect them
to do it without me having to spend as much time watching them as it
would take to just do it myself.  Unfortunately, my expectations are
seldom met.



Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 12:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Hydraulic torque wrench redesign.
To: fanglers@

-> In Italy they sell faux cell phones as fashion accessories.

They used to do that here, until every kid and wino had a cell phone of
his own.  Wal-Mart used to have fake console-mount cell phones with
external stick-on antenna for $25.  Toy pagers were $5.

Pagers and cell phones used to be status symbols.  Now they're
anti-status symbols.  Being able to eat lunch or attend a meeting
without being rung or paged is a major statement; "I am so important,
people wait for *me* to call *them*!"



Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 07:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: V16 configuration
To: fanglers@

Mike Mager was sketching out a design for a V16 using four Kawasaki
ZX-12 cylinder heads, a welded aluminum crankcase, and a billet crank.
This led into considerable reading on balance and firing orders for
V16s and much learning elsewhere.

Last Mike mentioned, he had found the cylinder spacing on the ZX-12 was
not even.  This could be overcome, but he thought it was uncouth, and as
far as I know he's been looking for some other head that might flow as
well as the Kawasaki.

This morning I found, in LJK Setright's "Some Unusual Engines" -

"...Napier... 16-cylinder device called the Cub.  This engine consisted
of four rows each of four cylinders arranged in an irregular cross
around a common crankcase, with the angle between each upper cylinder
block and its corresponding lower block being 90d, the angle between the
two upper blocks being 45d, leaving 135d between the two lower blocks.
Improbable though it looked, it was an excellent configuration when
combined with a single-plane four-throw crankshaft, giving firing
intervals of 45d and perfect primary and secondary balance - whereas the
broad-arrow layout of thr 12-cylinder Lion was left with a slight
horizontal secondary shake."

This X-16 layout is two 45-degree-overlapped V8s.  The two lower banks
aren't quite horizontally opposed, so there's extra room for intake or
exhaust plumbing.  Since it uses four cylinder banks, the Kawasaki heads
could be used as-is, with no machining, welding, custom cams, etc.  A
four cylinder crank also would dramatically simplify having the crank
made.  The engine would also be short; instead of a transverse V16 with
a highly fangled transaxle, an ordinary ZF, Audi, Butfoy, etc. transaxle
could be used as-is.  I suspect the Cub had two articulated rods on each
crank throw.  Articulated rods have just over half the big-end weight of
a pair of single rods, and the difference in piston position per degree
of crank rotation is very small.

The part about "perfect primary and secondary balance" doesn't ring
quite true; I think it would probably have a small secondary shake, as
opposed to a true 90 degree X which would have perfect balance since
everything would be mirror images of the opposite parts.  The secondary
would be less than half of a single plane V8.  Given the stroke is well
under 3 inches, it's probably a non-issue.

- Dave "reading in the throne room" Williams



Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 07:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Colorblind traffic-light installer sues over firing
To: fanglers@

-> I'm a wee tad concerned that someone who is color
-> blind was hired to install traffic lights in the first place.

The law says we're *not* handicapped by being color blind, and we're
not entitled to have our asses kissed like the ADA gimps.

Maybe you should be more concerned by the fact that the whole country
has standardized on a color scheme that (depending on whose figures you
choose) between 5 and 10 percent of all males can't see.

Back on the safety rule thing, the SCCA uses colored flags for
signalling drivers; if they find out you are color blind, you will not
be permitted to race.  It's for "safety."  They refuse to put symbols or
words on the flags to make them unambiguous, and even people with normal
color vision have problems with the flags at night.

You can, however, race if you are deaf.  Of course, if you weren't deaf
when you started, you soon will be...  you can't hear the driver's
meetings, but that's okay, even though the meetings are mandatory.  Hmm,
given the insensate vicious power of the ADA federal bureaucracy,
someone could make them furnish an Ameslan translator for every driver's
meeting...

When someone uses the word "safety", it's usually a euphemism for
"we're going to jam it up your ass and break it off, and there's
nothing you can do about it."



Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 12:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Very Apropos
To: fanglers@

-> FWIW - If some jerk painted a big happy face on the stars and stripes
-> - what would *you* be inclined to do with it?

Write to Congress and suggest that it be adopted as the new flag
design?

I don't know why, but I sort of like the thought of a big yellow happy
face flag out in front of the White House...

- Dave "Fat, dumb, and happy" Williams

PS: while they're at it, they could change the national anthem to
something that's fun to sing along to, like Grand Funk Railroad's
"American Band."



Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 07:18:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Palm Pilot
To: fanglers@

-> No one at tech support at Palm could bother to answer my email.

That's okay.  If you call on the phone, you'll probably be answered by
a tele-fuck machine which will put you on indefinite hold, or direct you
to a voice-mail box connected to /dev/null.

Most places don't answer paper mail, either.


Oddly enough, most sales departments work the same way.  Back in the
Windows 3.1 says, I called or faxed every company that sold TCP/IP
stacks and client software; I had a purchase authorization for $25K and
several hundred machines to install it on.  I worked for one of the
largest employers in the state at the time, and made this all known in
my queries.  More than half of the companies couldn't be bothered to
reply, a couple wanted me to make an appointment with one of their sales
representatives, to take place not sooner than two weeks from then, a
couple eventually sent some brochures.  By then I'd found NCSA's
freeware telnet package and done a couple of minor tweaks, recompiled,
and had it deployed.

"Oh, but our product is so much better than that old DOS text mode...
stuff," they would wail.

"Your product costs $500 per seat, and you can't even follow up a sales
call; your support would probably suck to.  Be gone!"



Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2001 19:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Very Apropos
To: fanglers@

-> But "I really do hold to the Ideals for which the Flag stands".

Those ideals seem to vary dramatically by age group and ethnic
affiliation.  To a majority of Americans, those ideals are Welfare,
entitlements, special treatment due to race or affliction, and the right
to be offended by anything they want.



Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2001 18:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fire ants (was CD ROM laser uses)
To: fanglers@

-> When I lived in TX the favorite cure for fire ants was to boil a
-> large pot of water and pour it down the mound.

I still think a better solution would involve fire, explosives, or
both.  Not necessarily better at killing fire ants, but more satisfying!

Perhaps running the propane line from the BBQ grill to the nearest
mound entry would be useful.  After flushing the mound full of propane,
a couple of M-80 firecrackers...  well, you might want to use a propane
torch head, so you meter sufficient air along with the fuel, to get a
better bang!

(Welding torch?  Acetylene!)



Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2001 18:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Very Apropos
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> me that Eisenhower managed to stifle most of the stuff that would
-> cause continued damage to his little slant-eyed yellow buddies.

Possibly, but I think it's probably more a case of Eisenhower's
propanganda machine persuading people that he singlehandedly won the war
in Europe.  Any acknowlegement of the war in the Pacific would lessen
his stature as the mighty figure of WWII.

His "Crusade In Europe" is so smarmy and self-centered it's enough to
make you puke.  Eisenhower was just a field commander; he wasn't even in
the loop for any real decision-making.



Date: Thu, 05 Jul 2001 16:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: The Billy Mitchell Affair
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I just finished a biography of General Billy Mitchell, by Burke Davis
in 1967.  I had known that Mitchell was an early proponent of air power,
and that he was court-martialed for being outspoken about it, but no
more than that.

All I can say is, "wow!"  The Mitchell trial was a classic Star
Chamber.  It is usually listed as a court-martial, but it wasn't; it was
the result of a Presidential commission (Calvin Coolidge, who Mitchell
had apparently pissed off greatly), sort of like the Warren Commission.
Coolidge appointed a group of generals to act as judges; several of them
admitted candidly after the trial that they had been instructed to find
Mitchell guilty.  Guilty of what?  A catch-all called the 96th Article
of War, which prohibited officers from embarrassing or demeaning the
military or the government.  Mitchell's public reports on the US' poor
state of military readiness were deemed embarrassing, and therefore
actionable.

Coolidge's Commission met in a partially-flooded old building that was
unheated and had to have the upper stories shored up to prevent the
collapse of the upper floors.  The enquiry was "public", but there was
only room for a very small number of people.  The prosecution was
allowed to do or say pretty much anything they pleased; Mitchell's
attorney was often unable to complete cross-examinations because the
subjects were "secret", even when he produced copies of the
Congressional Record and various newspapers showing there the
information was not only not secret, but very public.

The Commission passed its guilty verdict up to Coolidge, who sentenced
Mitchell to removal from his duties for five years, without pay, later
amended to half pay.  Mitchell resigned his commission and went on an
extended speaking tour, and died within the year.  (1925)

The biographer, Burke Davis, reported Mitchell's social life during the
time between the end of WWI and the trial, but drew no inferences.
Mitchell drew around $400/mo as a general; he had servants, airplanes,
fast cars, several estates (as in, large enough to raise and train
steeplechase horses, which he both sold and rode in competition),
hobnobbed with various foreign military and political figures when in DC
and abroad, and shot off his mouth a lot.  He could do this because his
wife and mother were wealthy and supported his lifestyle.  Davis says
nothing, but I figure many of his peers, eking it out on $400/mo, hated
his guts.

Davis blandly relays various accounts of Mitchell's "heart valve
problem", short illness, and sudden, quiet demise.  The symptoms as
described (partial paralysis, speech problems, inability to hold focus,
rambling, sudden death) are classic symptoms of a series of strokes.

The excerpts from the "trial" were most interesting, though.  A cross
between a kangaroo court and something from Lewis Carroll, or maybe
Gilbert & Sullivan.


Beyond the whole Mitchell thing, though, was the attitude of both the
Army and the Navy: "We see no problems now, we see no problems in the
future, everything is just fiiiine, no need to change from doing things
the way we always have."

The whole thing differs only in minor detail from the attitude of the
French government and military as described by Shirer in his "The
Collapse of the Third Republic", about France between WWI and WWII.  I
had wondered why the French were so stubbornly ostrich-like in their
refusal to acknowlege their danger from the Nazis; here it is in the
States, except it's Mitchell and the Japanese.

In retrospect, at least various members of the British Parliament would
periodically stand up and try to put forth the danger of the Nazi
buildup, and though the RAF's struggles to develop into an effective air
power were laughable, hell, at least they tried.



Date: Sun, 08 Jul 2001 17:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: [tpm] Microsoft outlaws Perl
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> she has a Doctorate in ME but she cannot speak english.

Not unusual; I went to a parent-teacher conference with my Dad once,
when my sister was still in school.  It was an interesting experience.
When my Dad asked the teacher to repeat something, she got all puffed up
and announced that "Ah gots de Mastah daygrayh in Eenlish!"

Even my Dad realized there was more than one scholastic and
bureaucratic failure required to generate such a comment...



Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 15:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: John Morgan's cars
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> It gets worse.  Bo's son was offered the NSX if he would accept an
-> all expenses paid four year trip to UCLA.  I know a lot of people
-> that would kill for that opportunity - both of them

I wasn't offered a car, but I was offered the college of my choice, all
expenses paid... but only if I took an MD or law degree.  Engineering
was definitely *not* an option.  I had absolutely no desire to become a
doctor or lawyer, so that was the end of that.



Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 15:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Wireless modems
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> What's the test, a presidential ballot?

I don't have a TV, but I heard about that anyway.  Florida elected
someone called "Chad."

- Dave "still keeps up with current events" Williams



Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Russian torpedo
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> If it works as described, carrier task forces are now just very
-> expensive sitting ducks, and the star wars program is obsolete where
-> it stands, whether it works or not...

On the other hand, the Russians are so strapped for cash they'd
probably sell us all of them we wanted at a bargain price...


"Comrade!  Finally we are ready to strike at the capitalist imperialist
running-dog aggressors!  Prepare to launch the missiles at 0300 hours!"

"My apologies, Comrade General.  I can't do that."

"What!  Why not?"

"We sold all the warheads to Pakistan and Israel, and then the Duma
sold the rest of the Rocket Defense Force to Liberia as scrap."

"Liberia!  The RDF cost thirty billion rubles!  How did they pay for
it?"

"We got two ships full of sweet potatos, a dozen Nintendo games, and
'Favored Trading Partner' status with the Liberian sandal-weavers'
union."

"Sweet potatos, eh?  I think I'll wander down to the market and see if
any are left..."



Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 04:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: John Morgan's cars
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> No thanks.  I try to live my life to give no identifying marks for
-> the police reports. . .

Pfft.  The military is already DNA-typing their people, a number of
large businesses are doing it to their employees, and there's a big push
to do it in the schools "for the children" in case they're abducted by
child-snatchers from Uranus or something.



Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 18:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: TN taxation
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I'll dedicate my life to kicking their asses out of office!  What
-> part of "just say no" to spending don't they understand?

It's not their money, and they figure someone else will be in office by
the time the shit (if any) rolls in their direction.


By the way, I'm reading a rather strange book on the Scopes Monkey
Trial at the moment, by L. Sprague De Camp, of all people.  Much of it
takes place in and around Chattanooga as well as Dayton TN, which was
the official site of the trial.  De Camp's version is *much* different
from what we were taught in school, of course.

Now I see why the Scopes trial got so much attention.  De Camp
introduces us to a guy named Sue, a town called Fiery Gizzard, and
enough slapstick for a dozen Hollywood movies.  "Fiction must be
believeable; the truth, on the other hand, simply has to be true."  I
was starting to think that the whole thing was more like a circus than a
trial when De Camp mentioned that Dayton's major developer had kidnapped
some Fiji Islanders and sold them to PT Barnum's circus in San Francisco
before moving to Tennessee and investing in real estate.

It really *was* a circus...

Do you want this book when I'm done with it?



Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 23:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Scopes Trial
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I now know more than I ever wanted to know about the Scopes trial.

I remember we covered it at length in elementary school, but we were
led to believe Scopes was found innocent.  It wasn't until a few years
ago I found out he was found guilty.  It wasn't until today I found out
Tennessee's Butler Act, the legislation that Scopes was convicted under,
was law in Tennessee until 1967, when it was finally repealed.

Several other states had passed their own "Monkey Laws", including
Arkansas.  Arkansas' Rotenberry Act wasn't repealed until November 1968,
not that the school systems had any intent of teaching anything
irreligious anyway.  I was incarcerated in the Arkansas school system
from 1970 to 1977, and I don't remember ever seeing anything about
evolution.

De Camp's description of the attitudes and threats of the townsmen
against Scopes and his attornies was very familiar; I ran slam into the
same thing fifty years later in Arkansas.  Fortunately I was smart
enough to keep my mouth shut after seeing a couple of other out-of-stat
kids beaten senseless.  Think "Night of the Living Dead" except in fast
forward.  The True Believers would go apeshit even at the thought of
someone who didn't believe exactly the way they did.


I wonder what the physicists and engineers at Oak Ridge thought of the
Tennessee school system...  or if they ever even knew.




Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 20:30:27 -0400
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Flat head in a Pantera
Sender: bounce_dave-2Ewilliams-40chaos-2Elrk-2Ear-2Eus@realbig.com
To: Multiple recipients of list 

-> I am looking into a Buick Nailhead motor also!!

Back in the late '50s and early '60s a guy named Max Balchowsky built a
horrendously ugly car called "Old Yeller" out of assorted junkyard
parts.  Imagine a 1-1/2 scale Lotus 7 with a 401 Buick and six
carburetors and you're close.

Old Yeller did very well in various racing events, trouncing the
factory Maserati and Ferrari teams several times.  Balchowsky built a
couple more cars and farmed the driving chores out to a has-been named
Carroll Shelby and a wet-behind-the-ears never-was named Dan Gurney.

Shelby liked Old Yeller so much he decided to build his own, and was
negotiating to buy some of Buick's recent aluminum V8s, but the deal
fell through when Buick discontinued the engines, so he wound up
schmoozing a 221 cubic inch Ford Fairlane engine and power-schmoozing an
engineless AC Aceca from England, and then his buddy Dean Moon fired up
the torch and mated the two, whereupon Carroll and Dean, drunk off their
asses, proceeded to take the car four-wheeling through some nearby
fields because they were too drunk to keep it on the road.

Shelby's attempt to use the aluminum Buick was probably due to Moon
being one of Buick's skunk works, and the fact that their businesses
shared the same building.  But the Ford connection panned out okay in
the end...



Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 20:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Big brother wants the shirt off your back
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> We can knock these things out, easily enough.  We may have several
-> years before a functioning Embedded Electronic Fingerprint is
-> mandated by law?

Too late; some states - Arkansas among them - already digitize your
fingerprints along with your face if you want to get a license to drive
on the highways you're paying taxes for.

My driver's license has a magnetic stripe on it.  I used my Kwik-Way
Magnaflux magnet on it.

When I got my first license in 1972, it was just a paper card, no
picture, no lamination.  8991-7344 was the number.  When they went to
the fancy cards they wanted to use my Social Security number.  When I
refused, they took revenge by changing my license number.



Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2001 20:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: puncturing
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Steve has installed threaded inserts under a guy's scalp, and the guy
-> then screws in spikes.

Now that makes a STATEMENT!  I'm not sure what that statement is,
though...

- Dave "I think I have a headache" Williams



Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 08:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: PK
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> PK Zip must have been one of the most widely used bits of software
-> around. I always wondered if MicroWhatzits actually paid him to use
-> it or just ripped him off?

SEAware came up with the first really good archiving program, called
ARC.  Besides compressing files and building libraries, it would let you
execute a compressed file directly, build self-extracting archives, or
span archives across diskettes.  SEA sold it as shareware, and you got
the source code as part of the deal.  It was fairly portable C, and
wound up being ported to just about everything.

Katz ripped off SEAware's code, rewrote part of the compression section
in assembler and sped it up some, and marketed it as PKarc.  The guys at
SEAware took exception to this, and it turned into a nasty court battle,
which SEAware quite justifiably won.  However, Katz did a very effective
publicity ploy, with him and his buddies hammering the BBSs about how
the "big corporation" was oppressing him, yadda yadda.  SEAware was just
two guys, btw.  Somewhere during the trial Katz changed the file
extension from .ARC to .ZIP, but the software was still making .ARC
format files.

After the court found for SEAware Katz made a deal with a guy whose
name I don't remember offhand, who had a program called "MDCD" which
used an entirely different algorithm.  It was also written in C.  Katz
wound up hiring some help to adapt MDCD into PKzip.  PKWare wound up
with seven or eight people on the payroll and SEAware wound up shutting
its doors.

Katz promised a whole bunch of features that never materialized, but
PKZIP never did as much stuff as ARC did, and PKZIP just sort of
stagnated.

Katz wound up with lots of popular support, but he was a slimeball.



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 00:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Small computer CRT's
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> This is just me I guess, but I should think input and menu navigation
-> on a mobi computing device (OBD, Navigation, ECM, etc) should be via
-> voice recognition.

There's nothing that can beat a good keyboard in the hands of someone
who knows how to use it.  However, there are circumstances, like
wearables or palmtops, where a keyboard simply isn't practical.  In
which case voice recognition looks good, assuming you have the computing
power to handle it.

I guess if you're wandering around with a Private Eye monitor in front
of your face, an inertial mouse in one hand, and computer bits clipped
all around your belt, you won't look any stranger if you're talking to
yourself.

Most user interfaces assume the use or arrow keys, control keys, or a
mouse pointer; such things become very awkward with voice only.  I
expect an optimal voice interface would look a lot like 80x25 text mode.



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 08:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Star Track  (merely a ramble)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Me, with no smellovision, and a new Star Track version is soon to
-> begin - oo-oo-oooh!  Really, I never liked any but the original.

I watched the first couple of episodes of the Nerd Generation.  "Cool",
I think, as I see how they've repaired some of the problems with the
original series; a 30-year-old captain for a capital ship was hard to
swallow; having him and half the bridge crew zooming off for adventures
broke the bogometer more than once.  TNG had a captain old enough to
have reasonably acquired his position, and he sent flunkies off to be
dissolved by aliens and beaten up by the bad guys.  And they set it some
decades in the "future" of the old series, which neatly sidestepped a
lot of potential continuity problems.

But... but... what a cataclysmic fuckup!  Everything was all
touchy-feely, and STUPID.  The old series had its problems; most of them
were due to operating with almost no money, and the rest due to the
requirement to use union scriptwriters, who had no clue as to what the
series was about.  The Nerd Generation had megabucks to play with, and
everyone knew what science fiction was supposed to be... but the very
best of its episodes barely made "lame."

I remember sitting there with my jaw dropped, watching the very first
episode... and realizing they'd just redone the "Squire of Gothos"
episode, just like the first movie had redone "Nomad."

If you're queer for rubber ears, TNG and its spinoffs would probably
make your day, but the storylines were BAAAAAAAaaaaaaadddddddd...

Commander Kor from the old series would have been Emperor of the
Universe in about six months in TNG.

- Dave "Ah, Captain... it would have been *glorious!*" Williams



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 08:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Small computer CRT's
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> This whole 'furnishing' bit just baffles me.

"Nomadic Furniture" (There's an NF 2 also) isn't about Louis Quatorze
end tables and Dyncan Phyfe settees.  It's mostly about how to fangle up
stuff to store other stuff, sleep on, or sit on.  Sort of like the
traditional collegiate dorm cinder blocks and boards, but with a little
more imagination.

The authors had frequent job-related moves, and they finally decided
they had had enough to trying to ship furniture to Oman or buy new
furniture in Yemen, so they started coming up with ideas like, "Oh,
yeah, bookcase... hm... screw a front panel on it, and it's a pre-packed
book shipping crate!  And if you stuff all the spare socks and underwear
in there to keep the books from sliding around, you don't have to pack
those separately..."

Some of the ideas are silly or useless, but the attitude is good.



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 08:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Small computer CRT's
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> No Mike. From someone who has children to someone who has not.
-> They are most definitely NOT self-raising.
-> The fools who allow such are the ones whose off-spring are derrided
-> constantly by some of the child-haters here.

Well-behaving and properly brought up children aren't just a minority;
they're so rare they're usually worth comment when noticed.

Way too many people think sitting the kid in front of a TV and a VCR is
"parenting."

The way it's going, if your kids *don't* shriek like monkeys and
destroy everything in their reach, the State will probably haul them in
and examine them to see why they're "abnormal."



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 12:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Hydrogen-powered BMW's
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Well, the US Navy had their troubles with a couple of their rigid
-> airships, too. ;)

So did the English, Italian, and French, all Navy geeks playing airmen.
The Krauts were running regular passenger service with no trouble.


-> If the market will bear a bunch of floating hotels, why won't it bear
-> a Zeppelin or two for leisurely cruising?  Man, that would be fun...

Zahradfabrik Zeppelinwerke has a new one, "Zeppelin NT", slated to go
into service any time now.  Unfortunately it's a "semirigid", ie a blimp
with stiffeners.  Not hardly a real Zeppelin by my standards.

Figure a steady 100+ MPH cruise speed, no airport traffic problems, and
point-to-point wouldn't be that bad, timewise.  Also consider airship
passengers have a hell of a lot more room than the poor bastards crammed
into aluminum cigar tubes...

For long distance work heavier-than-air is the fastest way to go, but
for short hauls, you don't even need an airport for a dirigible, just a
mooring mast.  Why fight traffic and pay for parking at an airport when
you can dock at, say, a convenient suburban mall, or even right
downtown?

Airframe cost, fuel efficiency, and cost-per-passenger-mile would be
*DRAMATICALLY* better with an airship, not to mention runway congestion,
noise footprint, yadda yadda.

Some people have a thing for trains; mine is for airships.

- Dave "airhead" Williams



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 13:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: VBC boost controllers on ebay
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> PT Barnum would no doubt have loved Ebay. Makes me wonder how many
-> suckers buy these for their naturally aspirated cars so they can
-> adjust some boost into the engines?

Remember the K&N "Filtercharger" ads that did everything they could to
imply their air filters were actually superchargers?  That was back when
K&N's only published telephone number, for sales or information, was a
900 number.

K&N is one of the companies that can kiss my ass; I'll do without
before I'll use one of their products.



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 17:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Mike's taste in furniture was: Re: Small computer CRT's
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The table top for me would be some sort of cast-in-place concrete.

Don't laugh; I came *this* close to casting a lathe bench out of
concrete.  And back when I was thinking of making a lathe, I was giving
serious consideration to casting the headstock from concrete.



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 18:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Cops in Cameros
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Try a pistol belt add a cuff holder, couple clip holders, PR24,
-> Radio, possibly another set of keys, mace, and get in any car.

No shit.  Here in this jerkwater little town we have RoboCops.  The
cars have front and rear radar, front and rear video cameras, cellular
FAX, some kind of cellular cop data terminal, the COPS vehicle locator
and antenna array, car radio, shotgun, fully-automatic M16, all their
crash and first air gear, etc.

The RoboCops carry Glocks (Glocks seem to be a fetish with cops), the
PR-24 nightsticks, Mace, handcuffs, flashlight, cop radio with
lapel-mounted mike, cellular phone, pager, and lots of odds and ends I
haven't taken time to identify.  They're walking junkyards... whenever
they climb out of their four-wheeled wombs.  You used to see cops at
various places for lunch; now they only eat at places with drive-through
windows.  Weird.

Those trigger-happy motherfuckers need fully-automatic weapons as some
sort of security blanket, I guess.



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 18:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Dean Koontz
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I found a cheap copy of Dean Koontz' "Seize The Night" while booking
last Saturday.  Read it last night.  I've only read a handful of his
books; so far, they've all been relatively straightforward science
fiction, but they're blurbed and marketed as horror genre.

"Seize The Night" started off very good.  Hell, it *rocked*.  Then
halfway through it takes a sharp turn for the worse, becomes boring and
repetitive, and a couple of comments indicated that it is actually the
sequel of a previous book.  Nothing on the covers mentions that.  It
kept ringing in more and more plot complications (aliens, alternate
universes, time travel, time paradoxes, mutant chimpanzees, serial
killers, town cops turning into monsters via an escaped military
retrovirus altering their genetic structure, an old guy who could talk
to animals... AND MUCH MUCH MORE!) until I was just sort of grinding
along waiting for Koontz to tie it together, but he just sort of
dropped it in midstream.  Amen.  I sort of got the impression the book
was just a place marker for a forthcoming third volume.

I really hate that crap...

The part that pissed me off was, the first half was really good, but it
was like two separate stories had been jammed into the same cover.
Deadline pressure?  Doesn't give a damn?  I'm too stupid to see the
continuity?  


The first Koontz book I read was "Lightning"; AB had read it and wanted
me to read it.  It was a damned good story and I recommend it highly; it
went into the "keep" pile.  (Sorry, Millam and Dean)


Also finished up a book on the kamikazis last night.  I was surprised
to find out the first kamikazis were organized at and flew out of Clark
AFB in the Philippines during the Japanese Occupation.  My brother spent
four years at Clark; he'll be up here in a couple of weeks and I'll find
out if he knows about that.



Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 21:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: fanglers-digest V1 #3456
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> When some court decided that it was only the Feds that couldn't use
-> ssn's for id's.  States can do whatever they want to.

That was part of the original Social Security Act of... 1933?
Somewhere in there.  There was major hostility to the idea of a national
ID card, and that's what the SSN looked like, so they tried to stop it.
Didn't really work, but that's why you've always seen those little signs
at the Post Office telling you that a Social Security card is not a
valid ID if you write a check.

The states, however, CAN do pretty well as they please, until someone
(often the widely-despised ACLU) forks out the money to make a case and
take it to Federal court.



Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 11:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Divine Wind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Ultimately ineffective, but with the right execution, it could have
-> been a real killer blow to US naval power.

We lost a bunch of ships right at first, but the Zeros couldn't carry a
big enough bomb to make it a sure kill.  After we caught on, the
interceptors just looked for the plane with the big bomb slung
underneath and took that out first.  The first kamikazi flights were one
plane with the biggest bomb it could lift and three or four wingmen to
defend him.


-> I was under the impression that the k-ks were typically younger guys,
-> who either volunteered early on out of the Academy or who only got
-> cursory training.  True?  I imagine their veteran airmen were pretty
-> much killed off by that time.

Well, all of the pilots were "younger guys" no matter what side they
were on.  It was rare to see one older than mid-twenties.

The first "Special Attack Force" (their official name) was organized at
Clark AFB in 1944.  Clark was in Japanese hands at the time.  The
admiral in charge of the area including the Philippines had developed
the plan some time before.  When the time came, he flew out to the base
and told the flight leaders that the war situation was bad, and that he
needed to ask for volunteers for suicide bombing to buy the Empire some
time to regroup.  He explained to the flight leaders that these
volunteers might ultimately save the lives of hundreds or thousands of
their countrymen.  The flight leaders (one of them, a guy named Noguchi,
wrote part of the book I just finished) then presented this to their
pilots, and told them that they had three days to make up their minds.
Each man would put a piece of paper and put it in a box by the flight
leader's door; if they volunteered, their name would appear.  If they
did not, they would leave a blank piece of paper.  Other than two guys
in the infirmary who couldn't even walk, every pilot volunteered.

Several months went by before they were finally ordered to make
sorties, and then they flew every day, weather permitting, but though
sveral planes were lost to fighters or antiaircraft fire, none managed
to hit a ship until the last day, when they were flying out against the
US Navy's fleet as they retook the Philippines.

The survivors were ordered to fly to Formosa, where they were spread
out through two more kamikazi squadrons that had been formed there.
Noguchi commented how morale was very low and most of the pilots were
draftees and had been ordered or pressured into duty, but it was the
Formosa groups that made almost all of the kamikazi kills.

Noguchi's original group at Clark were all pre-war flyers, some of whom
had been at Pearl Harbor, Manchuria, and Korea.  They were all
professional soldiers, and they knew that soldiers can get killed.  As
kamikazis, they could make sure that they didn't die for nothing, like
Ridgeway's people at Bataan when Roosevelt and Marshall told them to
stand and fight and promised them support and supplies that they never
even intended to send.  Maybe dying for nothing, or dying and taking a
bunch of enemy bastards with you, that's a no-brainer for a professional.

I never could understand the contemporary American attitude toward the
kamikazis; most of the US Medals of Honor were given for basically the
same thing.



From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Divine Wind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Seems to fit the profile.  Look at the suicide bombers in the Middle
-> East.  Almost all of them have been young men, many still in their
-> teens.

The older you get, the more you have to lose.  Usually, anyway.


-> Makes sense.  Why spend a lot of time and money to train someone
-> who's going to get killed on his first mission?

The pilots at Clark practiced every day, making runs against bamboo
targets at various angles and while doing evasive maneuvers.  It would
have been very bad juju to miss the target or nail something minor like
a smokestack.

The pilots at Formosa got classroom instruction, but by then the fuel
situation was bad enough they put it into patrols instead of flight
training.


You also have to remember that pilot training was pretty simple back
then; even US bomber pilots only got a few weeks.



Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 20:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Decisive Warfare
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I'm about halfway through a book called "Decisive Warfare", written in
1969.  It's one of those ultra-academic works that invents its own
terminology for everything.  In between the bullshit there's some
interesting stuff; extensive quoting of military works by Fred
Lanchester (yes, *that* Lanchester) that I'll try to snag via ILL, some
interesting observations on various subjects, etc.

The author has a jones on mobility, which is correct, but he also has a
jones for the Mongol hordes, which are mentioned favorably at least
every other page.  The author mentioned the Mongols' rate of advance far
exceeded that of the Nazi Blitzkreig or the Allied sweep through France.
True, but he entirely disregards that both his WWII examples had to deal
with an entrenched and well-supplied enemy force, while the Mongols
merely invested small towns and villages, or simply ignored them, as
they were of no military importance.

In his fascination with the Mongols, he overlooks the development of
the stirrup and the chariot completely.  Chariots in Hittite and Roman
formations revolutionized warfare in their day.

The author correctly notes that aerial bombers are simply an extension
of artillery, but then he writes off bombing as "proven ineffective".
I've seen that mindset before; here's another man who hasn't read Albert
Speer.  

Some of his other ideas are strange.  He believes a single machine gun
"can replace a company of riflemen."  For simply sending hot lead across
a battlefield, perhaps.  But a machine gun's difference from a company
of riflemen isn't in how many riflemen it can replace, it's in how it
can focus its fire in a small area.  Emplaced, crew-served machine guns
are also primarily *defensive* weapons; when you're going to take a
position, it's that bunch of guys with rifles that do the work, as WWI
or the Pacific Theater in WWII so dramatically show.

- Dave "armchair strategist" Williams



Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 21:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Divine Wind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> read too much about Japanese history.  When you think about bushido,
-> and that the Empire relied on it heavily (a change in policy from the
-> Meiji days), kamikazi makes perfect sense.

Black Jack Pershing had no compunctions about ordering suicide charges
against German machine gun emplacements in France; he did it over and
over again, until the pile of bodies was high enough to shield the last
waves of attackers.  They called it "tactics".

Ask Kemper about the Battle of Vicksburg and tactics.

You don't need bushido to trade your life for your country; Americans
did it plenty of times.  Hell, look back a couple thousand years to the
story of Horatius at the bridge; it's definitely not an inscrutable
Japanese idea.

-> I wanted to bring that up.  I have had quite a few arguments with
-> people over the kamikazis.  The arguers seem to think they're nuts,

I thought much the same.  Before I grew up.



Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 21:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Divine Wind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> that the Kamikazis are the only part of imperial japan that I have
-> any respect for.

The Kamikazis were all Imperial Navy, by the way.  The IJN was, by and
large, a respectable military organization comparable to the American,
British, or French navies.  However, the Japanese Army and Navy were
mortal enemies, and it was the Army, with its disproportionately high
percentage of slavering psychopaths, that engineered the Rape of Nanking
and the mass executions in the occupied territories during the war.

When I said "mortal enemies" it was no exaggeration; as the Army
infiltrated and solidified its control of the Japanese government it had
no qualms about assassinating Naval officers holding office, and the
Navy wound up putting down at least two attempted coups by the Army.
Each service was intensely jealous and suspicious of the other.



Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 21:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: carp
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Well, there was this one guy, see.  He went to court and had his name
-> changed to "Adam".  He went back and got "Adam Adam Adam".

During the Korean war era, the US Marines included two brothers, one
named "White Supremacy Jones" and the other "State's Rights Jones."

Well, at least they're better names than those made-up Afro-Power names
like "LaDawanda" or "X", or those illiterate-hospital-clerk names like
"Micheal", "Dartanyun", or "Lorane."

I once encountered a guy who'd named his kid Elwood L. Wood.  Something
like that could be a great parental bonding experience, or a justifiable
reason for "accidentally" unplugging Dad's respirator at the nursing
home....



Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 22:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Eating Crow - Roush Lima Turbos
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I kinda thought that it tasted like rattle-snake.....
-> Being from Arizona and all....

Rattlesnake tastes just fine.  But as far as I'm concerned, practically
all saltwater "seafood" tastes like toxic waste and smells worse.  The
only edible "seafood" is a few kinds of fish, octopus, and squid - and
the last two have all the excellent texture and flavor of foam rubber.



Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 23:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Divine Wind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> 1) They ran out of planes;
-> 2) The war ended.

Kenichi Yamamoto was an aircraft engineer during WWII; he was working
on a project called "Wild Orange Blossom" near the end of the war.  It
was a special plane for kamikazis.  Yamamoto's home and office were in
Hiroshima; he happened to be out of town when Japan entered the Atomic
Age.

Yamamoto went to work for a car company called Toyo Kogyo, and got sent
to Germany to get all the goodies from Felix Wankel when Toyo Kogyo
licensed Wankel's rotary engine technology.  Yamamoto was a fairly
junior engineer at the time, but the Japanese are good about picking
people and turning them loose.  Yamamoto raided other departments to
build a team that called themselves "the 57 samurai" and they managed to
come up with a buildable variant of Wankel's engine and designed all the
machinery needed to make it.  Did it on schedule, too.

When Toyo Kogyo started selling cars in the US, Yamamoto was senior
management.  When the RX7 was introduced, he was head of the company.


I used to think about stuff like that when I was driving my RX7.  I
really need to put the new engine in; not putting down Yamamoto's work
perfecting the Wanker engines, but I liked the car a whole lot more
after I swapped in a nice American Ford V8...


- Dave "repository of strange factoids" Williams



Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 07:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: feature creep
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I went to the lumberyard with my Dad yesterday.  We walked past a rack
of odd-looking microwave ovens, all-white, with louvered doors.  I
figured white was the new stylish color for microwave ovens.  I made a
sudden stop and backed up after passing the display, "eh?"  Each display
unit had a TV-type remote control sitting on top.

Ri-ight!  I noted the touch pads and digital displays were unusually
complex.  Then my eye was caught by the little streamers tied to the
louvers in the doors. they were grilles - the digital touch pad remote
control devices were window air conditioners.

Hm.  A quick check showed neither Rod Serling or Alan Funt hanging
around.  Maybe they weren't a joke...



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 06:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Eating Crow - Roush Lima Turbos
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Yeah and it doesn't taste anything like chicken either.
-> I kinda enjoy the "joke" about everything tastes like chicken.

Best as I can figure, some places must have some really *strange*
chickens...



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 06:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Another ATM "front end" fraud - this time caught
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Dave, you seem to collect these experiences.

The whole world isn't like where you are, you know.

The major problem is it's a sizeable suburban community, but there are
only two banks, if you don't count the "bank of the week" which seems to
change hands way more often than I like.  If you want to go to a bank
and have an ordinary job, you take off work - they're open 9 to 4,
Monday through Friday.  Little Rock, the state capitol, has a bank
that's open part of the day on Saturdays now; it's a big marketing point
for their ads.  They're half an hour away, though.

There are places that are worse; some friends of mine on the east coast
live in areas where banking conglomerates have sucked up *everything*;
you deal with the conglomerate or you bank by mail somewhere far away.
The normal pattern after an area is taken over is for the end of "free
services"; some of them not only don't offer free checking, they
actually charge for deposits too.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 06:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Divine Wind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Hey, the History Channel had a bit about that recently.  Their
-> premise was that the Japanese military started out their expansionist
-> war with good, solid hardware, but stuck with it through the changes
-> of WWII until it was too late.

That is essentially true.  Like the Germans, the Japanese developed
leading-edge hardware during their pre-war buildup.  However, the
Germans were forced to make continual improvements as the British, and
later the Americans, advanced the leading edge a bit further.  The
Japanese, on the other hand, were fighting against nations that were
militarily backward or obsolete even by the standards of the day, and
that definitely includes the United States at the beginning.  It took
the US until late 1943 to become an effective combatant.  By the time
the US became a real threat to Japan, their resources were *already*
stretched to the limit in the mainland, and China had turned out to be
a Tar Baby like the USSR was to Germany.  Japan could theoretically have
pulled out of China and used those forces to its advantage elsewhere,
but Japan had been in China for decades, considered it Japanese
territory, and it was politically unacceptable to consider such a thing.

Like the Germans, the Japanese bit off more than they could handle, and
the war lasted longer than they could afford.  And as far as I know,
they had no one comparable to Albert Speer, whose juggling of the German
economy kept the Reich staggering along far after it would have lasted
otherwise.  For that, Speer got a stiffer sentence than "unrestricted
U-boat warfare against unarmed civilian ships" (*and* Hitler's
designated successor) Doenitz, which should indicate how effective his
management was.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 06:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: When Slide Rules Ruled
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Does the sight of a slide rule make your eyes mist with memories of
-> your high school physics class? If so, you'll love Eric's Slide Rule

I actually knew how to operate a slide rule once, though I'd probably
just stare at one in incomprehension now.  (It's in the other room; I
noticed it just last week, but I didn't have to stare in incomprehension
because it was safely holstered in its cover, where it has been since
probably 1975...)

When I was first learning how to use a slide rule I kept wondering how
it was supposed to be accurate; the missing part the instructions didn't
bother to mention ("intuitively obvious?") was that it worked by
*approximation*.  OH!  *Now* it makes sense...

The tables in the back of Machinery's Handbook would tell me almost
everything a slide rule would, to four decimal places.  The slide rule
wasn't as accurate, but it was a lot faster.  Okay, fair trade.

Using a slide rule meant you had to keep track of things manually; not
like hitting a wrong key on a calculator and turning the output of a
long calculation into GIGO.  Some people still think slide rules are
"better" than scientific calculators or MathCAD because they force
attention on the process, not the numbers.  True, but in the same way
walking is "better" than flying because you're not likely to have a
mid-air collision.  Scientific calculators and math software are power
tools, like a radial arm saw or a stamping press; like any other power
tool, they require that you pay attention when operating them.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 07:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Pretty cool...
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> It's easy to make sweeping generalities about folks and try to fit
-> them into a pre-conceived mold.  It's much more challenging to accept
-> folks at face value and not to try to get them to fit into any kind
-> of pre-conceived personality type, but you'll make more friends that
-> way.

Stereotypes exist because people tend to behave as other people expect
them to, in a nice little positive feedback loop.

Few people fit their stereotypes exactly, but most are close enough to
keep the loop going.  Meanwhile, everyone thinks they're a unique
individual, when most of them are as similar as army ants due to their
programming by the schools, media, and workplace.


Brian: "You are all individuals"
Crowd: "WE'RE ALL INDIVIDUALS"
Voice at the Back: "I'm not"
- The Life of Brian



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 07:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Pretty cool...
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> never met a good one - I used words to that effect.  My guiding line
-> is to treat all people the same on my first meeting, its after that
-> when I become narrow minded...

Nah, I save time by starting off narrow minded.  Most people are
mindless drones anyway.

- Dave "I feed the pigeons my methadone so they'll come back" Williams



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 07:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Safe at last
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Yeah. F*ing lawyers. Kill 'em all but only after several days of
-> intense torture...

I concur, but lawyers are just the symptom - the real problem is a
legislative and judicial system that is a disaster of overlapping
authorities running with no feedback and beyond Constitutional bounds.

Lawyers are the easy target, but the problem is "them" or "the
Establishment", and since they also comprise the lawful means of fixing
the problem they represent, I doubt much will happen as far as fixing.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 08:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Pretty cool...
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> No membership required for any of the PCA of BMW chapters I've run
-> with.  The local chapters can make their own rules, though, so it's
-> certainly possible for them to be more exclusive.

The Memphis PCA requires that you own a Porsche.  I've suggested that
Jay buy one of those $500 914 basket cases so he could join up, but he
always gets a slot because they're chronically short of qualified
instructors (a newbie being instructed by Jay is the equivalent of a new
motorcyclist being instructed by Evel Kneivel).  His wife objected to
having "some junker" occupying one of their apartment parking places;
she wasn't amused when I suggested they simply have it crushed, put a
piece of glass on the top, and use it for a coffee table.  I looked at
the bylaws, and there was nothing in there that said it had to be an
OPERABLE Porsche.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 08:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Cops in Cameros
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> down to sane levels of speed he disapeared forever.  If you do 135 in
-> a 65 it is like doing 65 through a parking lot with all the cars
-> changing position side to side at random.

My old Seca Turbo had one of those silly 85-mph Federal speedometers.
With the boost cranked to 20PSI, it would easily run right up against
the rev limiter, just a hair over 150 by the numbers.  Plenty of power
to sit bolt upright, no need to fold the mirrors back and lay down on
the tank or anything.  Since it was RPM-limited instead of power-limited
it never *felt* like it was moving as fast as it was.

The Seca Turbo's brakes weren't anything to brag about.  A friend of
mine took it out on I-440 to bang it against the rev limiter, came up on
some traffic swiftly (this was still in the 55-mph days), rolled off the
throttle... applied the brakes... reached for the rear brake... knuckles
standing out from a deathgrip on the lever... cars are growing larger...
finally the speedo needle lifted off the peg and swung down, and the
tunnel vision went away.  He was still all wound up when he got back.
I told him yeah, you get used to it after a while.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 09:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Dean Koontz
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> We've been here before  :)  I liked "Burning Chrome" and "Count Zero"
-> but I have remained disappointed that there have been no more, so
-> that makes your point, I guess.

Burning Chrome was a bunch of short stories he pilfered to write
"Neuromancer."  Some of them weren't too bad.  "Count Zero" was just
more "Neuromancer", except it lacked a plot.  "Mona Lisa Overdrive" not
only lacked an identifiable plot, it didn't even make good sense.
"Virtual Light" was even worse.  And that thing he wrote with Bruce
Sterling, which was so bad I my mind keeps blanking out the title, the
one that took place in 1800s England.  Baaaaaad.


->  I have gotta check out "Hard
-> Wired." Several have recommened it and if you are with 'em I will be
-> looking.

100%.  I do warn you; the way it starts as two separate plotlines makes
it awkward to read at first.  They *do* merge.  And Williams wrote the
whole thing in an odd present-tense dialect that bugged me for a while.

I got Dock Myrick to read it a few weeks ago; we were agreed that the
story was intensely visual.  And if some of the scenes and subplots
seem vaguely familiar, remember it was written well before the movie
"Independence Day."


Another one you might want is Tim Powers' "The Anubis Gates."  You can
find other stuff that he wrote; only "Dinner at Deviant's Palace" is
worth reading.  "The Anubis Gates" defies easy categorization and it is
*very* complex; just seeing how he winds it all up is worth the read.


I read.  I do it because I enjoy it, and because I'm a book junkie.
Reading occupies close to 100% of my input bandwidth; the only
limitation is how fast I can assimilate the words.  That's probably why
my attention span is about three microseconds long and I zone out on
speeches and television.  I read in the bathroom.  I read when I eat.  I
read before I go to sleep.  Sometimes I just spend hours reading.  If I
go anywhere, I always have something along for emergencies.

Most of what I read is crap, because 90% of *everything* is crap. But
there's some stuff out there that's... rich, I guess you'd call it.
Textured.  Stuff that you can read it, flip back to the first page, and
read it again, and it's even better the second time.  "Hard Wired" and
"The Anubis Gates" are like that, and believe it or not, "Neuromancer"
is like that.  Someday I need to make a little list, I do, I do...



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 20:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Another ATM "front end" fraud - this time caught
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Looks like Arkansas IS stuck in the banking Dark Ages.

Well, we don't have metal detectors or security guards in our banks,
like some places do... it's not *all* bad.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 20:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Gator, ostrich, turtle, was Re: Eating Crow - Roush Lima Turbos
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> When I was in the Carribean, I had a turtle burger.  It was so long
-> ago I can't remember the taste but I remember liking it.

My brother is fond of monkey-ka-bobs when he goes to the Far East.

Thor Heyerdahl interviewed one of the last cannibals in 'Fatu-Hiva'.
The old guy had been persuaded out of his dietary preferences by some
missionaries, but he was still wistful - he felt there was nothing that
tasted better than human flesh, and why waste the meat after you bashed
an enemy's head in?  If you killed anything else you wouldn't waste it,
would you?



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 21:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Eating 'Q
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> ice overnight.  Fedex tags a hazmat fee on it because of the dry ice.
-> I've experimented with deep freezing the 'Q (>-150 deg f) and

Every damned thing is hazmat now.

I've shipped cooked meat to Germany before, when a friend stationed
there had a jones for some Thai beef.  Ordinary home canning procedures
worked fine; AB picked up a Mason jar and a pack of lids for a couple of
bucks, I brought the jar of beef to a boil in a double boiler, screwed
the lid on, and mailed it.  Got there just fine.

Canning might be a little more hassle than freezing, but the material
cost is probably close to the same, and you won't run afoul of the
Hazmat Nazis.



Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 23:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Jodrell Bank
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I recently finished a book on the Jodrell Bank radio telescope in
England.  (Dean, do you want it?)  It reminded me I hadn't reread Fred
Hoyle's "A For Andromeda" and "Andromeda Breatkrough" in a long time, so
I grabbed the first and started it again.  I probably first read those
in the fifth or sixth grade.

Hm, copyright 1962.  That old?  Yes.  I didn't start paying attention
to such things until relatively recently.  Adapted from a BBC radio
play.  I remembered that.  The radio telescope at "Bouldershaw Fell" is
obviously based heavily on Jodrell Bank, which was quite famous at the
time.

The story line is about how the telescope received a transmission from
an alien civilization, and how they decoded it and used that
information.  Oddly enough, it's not all that common of an SF plot line,
and Hoyle seems to have been the first to use it, best as I can figure.
Piers Anthony's "Macroscope", John Varley's "The Ophiuchi Hotline" and
related novels, maybe a couple of others I can't remember offhand; not a
lot of mining on that idea in the last forty years.

I liked Hoyle's two books a lot; I'm just getting back into the first
one, and it looks like I'll like them again.



Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 07:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: books
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Dave, that link will give you a decent rate breakdown.  Large single
-> page though...

And what am I supposed to do, sit the package on my keyboard and see if
it has a scale function?

I have a paper chart that tells me the prices if that's all I want to
know.  But you need more than that.

The postal POS terminals have scales, which is a sort of integral part
of any system that charges by weight.  I could use my balancer scale,
but if their scale disagrees, they get to cancel $10 or $20 worth of
stamps and make me go to the window during working hours to retreive my
package and try again.

Just because something is on the Web doesn't make it useful.  



Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 18:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Chopper
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> There are those choppers out there, that aren't a vibrating mass of
-> Harley V-twin.  Sometime, before my time, people chopped up frames
-> and put in other engines too.  The two I see most often besides HD,
-> are british twins, and

The doofus "show choppers" have completely overwhelmed and masked what
choppers originally where.  As you noted, not just Harleys, though HDs
have probably always been the dominant make.

In the beginning, choppers were stripped down for lightness.
Dispensing with the front brake wasn't so unreasonable considering how
crappy brakes were back then anyway, and there are still motorcyclists
today who won't use the front brake because they flipped a bicycle that
way when they were six years old.  Back in the late '50s and early '60s
the freeways were brand new, smooth as glass, and well-maintained; you
didn't *need* a rear suspension, and prewar bikes did fine without it on
the crappy roads before WWII.  Bias-ply tires (your choice of rib tread
or rib tread in front) weren't all that stable, nor were chassis that
rigid, so raking out the forks a bit gave more stability on the freeway
- and in the early '60s, there were still places even in Nazi states
like California where the speed limit was "reasonable and prudent."  I
just barely remember no-speed-limit freeways.  Lots of places didn't
require mufflers, so those got ditched too, along with turn signals (not
many bikes had them back then anyway).

Choppers were freeway cruisers and drag racers; form followed function.
Most modern choppers are "choppers" the way an Aztek is a pickup truck;
ie only by modern interpretation of the term.



Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 19:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 3D Cad/Modelling software
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Ahem.  Sounds like a lot of anti-worker sentiment buildup in the old
-> halls of Fangladesh.

Damn straight!

I asked jgd how it felt now that he was a capitalist imperialist
oppressor of the working class.  He gave me a strange look, brightened,
and said, "They smash just like cockroaches."

- Dave "scourge of the working class" Williams



Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 19:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Code Red worm
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> An explanation of, and patch for, the IIS buffer overflow
-> vulnerability is available at

Keermininy!  Buffer overflow exploits are *ancient*!

Everyone said, "how horrible" and claimed they'd fixed all that...




Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 10:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Building a Droid for the Space Station
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The idea may have its roots in science fiction, but this droid is

An "android" is a humanoid robot.  "Droid" is some kind of mushmouthed
George Lucas non-word.  I refuse to use it; I skip over it in text; I
simply give a blank stare of incomprehension in conversation.

- Dave "R.U.R." Williams



Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 10:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Tube bending
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> doing your ritualistic wrench worshipping and antler dances until the
-> last geezer dies. Then other people's kids will move in anyway.

Actually, when the last couple of us are too crapped out to get around
any more would be a great time to smoke test the DIY-nuke project.

Nobody's kids are getting my toys, I'm taking them all to Valhalla with
me.

- Dave "got a match?" Williams



Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 16:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Zen of Fiberglass leaf springs
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> But thats why we live here on this list, safe and hidden from the bad
-> nasty outside world.

Under my lordly gaze, the outside world is as cockroaches under the toe
of my cowboy boot.

- Dave "in touch with his inner sociopath" Williams



Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 21:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Definitions
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I can't for the life of me can't figure out the adversion to the
-> Internet. So many of the guys are of the *I'm to _______ to figure
-> out computers*.   I know I'd have been lost without it.

Lots of bleeding heart types talk about how email dehumanizes contact
between people, how "artificial" it is, etc.  The way I look at it, it
provides a level playing ground for everyone - with all the social
metadata of appearance, age, health, race, etc. stripped away, it all
boils down to what you say and how you say it.

The military lists I've been on are full of geezers who fought in WWII
and Korea; every now and then one of them drops offline, and sometimes
we'll find out they got the big NO CARRIER at age 86 or whatever.



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 16:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Retelling my Divine Wind story
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> He TOLD everyone he was trained as a Kamikazi pilot, was a translator
-> for the occupation forces, etc, etc.

There were *thousands* of aviators who were formally in kamikazi units,
in training to join such units, or selected and waiting for training.

If you think about it, meeting one at General Dynamics is a lot more
likely than finding an ex-SS officer running much of the US space
program...



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 16:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Code Red worm
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.

-> introduce a bug. Yes, it does violate the modern notion that an
-> object should always perform robust error checking, but that notion

You have to remember a lot of modern "applications programmers" don't
actually know anything about the tools they use.  I knew a guy who was
making a snotload of money doing app software for the NC DOT in Visual
BASIC.  All he knew was drop-the-icon and connect-the-links.  And in
Microsoft's "integrated programming environment" the difference between
application program, operating system, and application software is hazy.
He was explaining how he could web-enable anything by just dragging a
browser icon over and dropping it on the form.  Uh.  Yeah.  It was just
a link to Microsoft Internet Explorer... 

Range checking?  They never even *see* that sort of thing; it all takes
place below the GUI level.

The gap between a poor programmer and a good one is even wider now with
the advent of so many "programming environments", but unfortunately it's
a difference that's only perceivable by good programmers.  Poor
programmers don't even realize the kind of thing they don't know, nor do
their managers, who think programmers are programmers.



ate: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 16:26:00 -0500
rom: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
ubject: Re: Definitions
ender: owner-fanglers@
o: fanglers@

> Must be someone speaking that has no idea of what bed ridden is or
> being terminally ill really means.   Once you lose your ability to
> drive the world get small real quick.   Not being able to food shop
> and browse around, hit the library, get out and laugh.

0-4.  I was bedridden for almost two months, and stuck in the house
or several more after having my left leg dismantled by a DWI in a '67
uick Wildcat.  A buddy brought over a typing stand, lashed my computer
o it, and ran a modem wire down the hall.  I practically lived online.

he first time I got out of the house my myself I crutched out to the
ig red '65 Chevy pickup, fired it up, and nearly shit myself feeling
ll the cartilaginous bits in my left leg flex when I pushed the clutch
own.  The orthopod said I should be able to press 40 pounds against a
cale on the floor; I knew GM's corporate clutch pedal force is 30.
ust drove around town and back to the house, the leg looked like
someone had grafted a watermelon on below the knee by then, but the rush
is still sharp in my memory fifteen years later.

Like the voiceover on "The Road Warrior" said, "Mobility... is the key
to survival."

I don't wonder why you bought the GN.  I *know*.  I've been there too.


-> 86 and on line, amazing.

They come through in 80x25 text mode, just like everyone else.  



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 17:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Convert 3 Phase Machine Tools to Single Phase ?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> He gets extra bitch points to remind the rest of us that life
-> is easy... ;)

No libraries, but license plates are still only $20.  No machine tool
places, but the state doesn't care about my automatic weapons.  No
police helicopters, no smog checks, no safety inspections, no "traffic
enforcement" privatized revenue collectors.  The whole state's violent
crime rate is less than that of most major *cities.*  No tire choppers
on freeway on-ramps.  I can buy acetone and MEK at Wal-Mart, burn my
trash, and I don't need a permit to fire up the barbecue grill.  Gas
prices stay in the lower percentile nationwide.  There's a state income
tax, but no *city* income taxes like some places have.

Other than high electric rates, Arkansas' disadvantages are mostly in
what it *doesn't* have.  I can get books via ILL if I wait, but waiting
won't get you cheap gas in Detroit or let you keep your machine gun in
DC.

Just because I'm vocal about some of the disadvantages of living in
Arkansas doesn't mean I'm blind to problems elsewhere.  At least Arkanas
mostly doesn't care about my cars, my guns, or my politics.  I stopped
thinking of Sacramento as "home" a few years ago when I realized if I
ever moved back, none of my toys could go with me.



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 17:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Definitions
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Feh, they're fools.  Email is the best communication mechanism, IMO.
-> Mainly because I much prefer the written to spoken word.  And while

Not just that, but email lets you interact with people you otherwise
would never get to meet or talk to.  Cliff Stoll whines about how
dehumanizing email is all through "Silicon Snake Oil", talking about how
much better it is to spend evenings by the fire sipping tea and chatting
with friends.  Well, yeah, he's an academic and lives on a campus, so
maybe he has a shot at meeting more people, or maybe he just has low
standards for friends.  Get John to run his spiel about how Cleveland is
an intellectual vacuum.  But not only can sociopaths like us meet and
associate, we can congregate somewhere and we already know each other.
Heck, I remember you on the old hotrod list eight or nine years ago; how
many local people do you still talk to on a daily basis that you met
that long ago?



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 18:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Code Red worm
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.

-> UNIX and C were at least partially a reaction to Multics and PL\1
-> which appeared to put too much complexity in the operating system and
-> the compiler; UNIX and C arguably went too far in putting

I dunno.  I've seen that claimed before, but Multics turned out just
fine... eventually.  As I see it, its problems were almost entirely
political.  I've been through the hell of management buy-in and
interference in individual programs; Dan and Keven can tell you how
multi-company programs tend to work.  And not only that, Multics'
development was widely distributed and used incredibly primitive
development tools and communications - programmers wrote notes, which
were typed by secretaries, and dropped in the mail.  Oooh, BABY!

Most people forget Multics eventually *was* finished, though it was
mostly known under the Honeywell variant's name of GCOS.  Unix
eventually evolved into something almost indistinguishable from Multics,
at least from the resource and user end.  Certainly there was no more
difference between System V and GCOS than there were among the variants
of "Unix."

Ritchie was fresh off the Multics project and went for the incremental
approach, which I personally favor.  The original Unix was just a loader
for Lunar Lander - the world's first game OS.  Eat your heart out,
Sega...  But as I've found, it's hard to sell incremental development to
management, they like to see nice clear flow charts.



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 18:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Retelling my Divine Wind story
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> a Russian, North Korean, and Indian, and a German.

The Soviets had complete details of the US A-bomb project long before
the British were allowed a few dribs and drabs, even though they were
supposedly equal partners.  Then that moron who replaced Churchill gave
away the British rights to the results of the Manhattan Engineer
District, and they had a long, expensive time of it doing it on their
own.

Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki were all technically joint ventures
with the British, who originally started the atomic bomb project but
didn't have the resources to carry it through.  One cataclysmic moment
of treaty-signing stupidity changed Britain from a nuclear power to an
also-ran.  Well, the USA has done things about as stupid... 



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 18:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Retelling my Divine Wind story
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> nationals? If they all were foreign nationals, what were they doing
-> inside this program? If *that* is true, why not just link up your

Heck, half the brains at Los Alamos in 1945 were technically enemy
aliens!



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 21:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Definitions
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Did you notice at LFB that the conversations never had lulls? To be
-> honest it felt more like getting together with old friends than
-> meeting strangers for the first time.

Were we really strangers?  After all these years of letting it all hang
out on the list?

I didn't know what some of you looked like, but I knew who you were,
what you were interested in, and your basic opinions and attitudes
toward life.

My major problem is remembering to shut up every now and then to let
someone else get a word in edgewise!



Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 21:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Definitions
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I think the only person I'd ever met who was at LFB 3 was dave.  yet
-> I felt like we had all been lifetime friends.  Funny how that
-> works.  That dehumanizing email thing.

At an LFB, someone announces that after years of scrounging the
materials, he's ready to detonate his very own DIY nuclear device.

Which response below is probably *not* from a fangler:

a) says, "Cool!"

b) says, "Can I videotape that?"

c) asks detailed questions about the triggering mechanism and expected
yield

d) threatens to call the police, newspapers, Atomic Energy Commission
and the Environmental Protection Agency

e) says, "What a pussy, the one I'm building is twice as big."



Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 04:23:46 -0400
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fuel Tank Flush
Sender: bounce_dave-2Ewilliams-40chaos-2Elrk-2Ear-2Eus@realbig.com
To: Multiple recipients of list 

-> You filled a garden sprayer with gasoline?  And you fly the SR-71?
-> "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy..."

Go to Altavista, search the rec.motorcycles archives, and read some of
Mary Shafer's articles.  She divided her time between engineering duties
on the SR-71 and hanging out with the Denizens of Doom M.C..  Heck, she
even got some of the Denizens a special guided tour once.

Visualize the intersection of the "one per-center biker" set and the
"hardcore computer geek" set, size the group to critical mass, and
stand waaay back when they encounter NASA-Dryden's security force...

Gasoline-filled garden sprayers would be trivial to the Denizens, whose
collective interests involve antisocially fast group rides, exotic
firearms, helmet-cams with cellular modems (see them crash in real
time!) and homebrew beer.

Actually, they're quite a lot like the Team Pantera people, come to
think of it...



Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 09:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Harbor Freight Cook Out [re: $40 mini drill press]
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> What countries are the bad  (communist?), what countries are the good
-> (non communist?)?

And then we had Communist governments in France and Italy for a while,
and we imported bunches of Yugoslavian stuff, but those were "good"
Communists.  Korea has moved from "bad" to "good", lots of Korean cars
around here, I have some Korean SIMM sticks sitting on the monitor.
Vietnam and mainland China are "bad" Commies, and Cuba is still a very
carefully ignored sore spot to the Department of State and the White
House.

Meanwhile, the USA supported "good" "democratic" governments in
Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, and the Philippines, and such support
directly led to the Communist governments in Vietnam and Cuba, among
others.

I wish the Bureau of Thought Control would issue little event cards
like the opera or the dirt track, because I have a hard time telling the
good guys from the bad guys.  And judging from the USA's cumulative
score, I'm not so sure we're among the good guys.



Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 14:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: burnin' love
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Ever look at the fine print on the side of a plastic gas can? "Set
-> container on ground when filling, keep pump nozzle in constant
-> contact with container."

Yeah, but I tune it out, along with the part about contact with
gasoline giving me lead or phosphorus poisoning and all the other
gratuitous safetyspam(tm) I'm bombarded with every day.

The spam level on the MSDS stuff finally got to bad the system is
worthless; now *everything* is hazardous and fatal, the sky is falling,
and we're all going to die horribly.



Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 17:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Harbor Freight Cook Out [re: $40 mini drill press]
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

->  Norm "Waving The Flag, Love It Or Leave It" Murdock

Yeah, I bet the Governor of the American Colonies said something
similar in 1775.

Of course, since generations of Congressional and Supreme Court
finagling have effectively chinked all the normal means of expressing
dissatisfaction with the government, there's not much left as far as
lawful methods of changing things.

I used to think the revolutionary types were a bunch of idiots.  Now
I'm not so sure.



Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 06:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Cheap stepper motor driver source
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Use an LCD screen and program the gauge faces.  Race mode with a
-> centered tach, street mode, diagnostic mode with digital readouts for
-> everything,

Alex's Vector W8 has one of the old orange HP gas-plasma laptop
displays inside; it's programmable for various functions and readout
styles.  One of them looks *just like* Dr. McCoy's Sickbay readouts in
TOS; I got him to show it to Dan when Dan was here a few weeks ago.



Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 06:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: propane burner
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> This is the point of no return, be damned careful here.

It's those tool pushers.  First they hook you with one of those $40
Chinese drill presses; pretty soon you're mooning over ads for 5-axis
CNC machining centers and learning G-code on the sly.

Addicts start neglecting their bass boats and tennis appointments to
spend more time torturing metal into strange new shapes.  Then, once
their bank account is empty, they lure their friends into buying their
old equipment so they can "upgrade" to a new high.

They even band together in places like rec.metalworking to spread their
ugly fascinations.

It is truly a sad thing...



Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 21:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Shoplifting and Computers
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I was watching a program on this where the narrator gleefully
-> reported that the system was accurate in seven out of ten cases.  I'm
-> just imagining how I'd feel if I was mistakenly detained.

I wonder if they'd consider me an accessory before the fact if I
offered to loan you my ax?



Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 22:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Shoplifting and Computers
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Already being done in casinos for known cheats and card counters.

Actually, that message from comp.risks is quite old.  Since then face
recognition systems have been put in place in all major airports and
most bus terminals, paid for with Federal funds.  There was some talk
about putting them in the concourses of malls, but that was some years
ago.  I suspect they're in place now, though.

Did I mention Big Brother Is Watching You?

Hell, I don't need any conspiracy theories, the Fed feeds my paranoia
quite sufficiently already.



Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 22:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: re:NYTimes.com Article: Many States Ceding Regulations
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> And if you aren't seeing God while braking into Turn 1, you ain't
-> going fast enough.

Cycle Guide built a twin-turbo Suzuki back in the early '80s.  When
asked why, their eminently fangled answer was "because we could."

I forget the performance figures now, but they had the boost cranked up
as far as it would go, figuring they could schmooze another engine if
they rode over the crankshaft.  Held together fine, as I recall.  They
flogged it at one of the big road courses in California.  It is one of
the great tragedies of life that some people get paid to do things like
this, and I am not one of them.

CG's article format gave each tester a small space at the end of the
article for his own personal comments, something that's pretty common
now, but unique back then.  One of them (Jeff Karr?) said of the Suzuki,

"I saw Jesus so many times I started using Him as a braking marker."



Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 19:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: V8 Harley update
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

My brother came over this morning and we got eight hours or so in on
his Harley.  I think he was getting tired of shimming and aligning the
engine and transmission, only to have me turn one or the other over to
check something out.  

There were plenty of mounting points on the transmission case, coming
off the front pump bolts and the rear housing blockoff plate.  There
were plenty of mounting points on the engine, but they were mostly on
the right side (formerly the front of the engine).  To top it off, there
were no easy ways to run bracketry from one to the other.

I spent about an hour staring at the parts (staring is a very important
part of fangling), then decided that since there was no way for the
brackets to go directly from mounting point to mounting point, perhaps I
could build an intermediate 'frame' and run the brackets to that.  And
so it was done...

There are some more bits to be massaged, then we'll try inserting it in
the chassis in the morning.  Maybe.  Some days the Fangle is with you,
some days it isn't.



Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 23:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Costa Rica - Dave!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Wow, I was told that Costa Rica is one of the most highly-educated
-> non USA countries  (and I did not verify, I did not search the
-> bleedin' WWW!).

I've been told Iceland has a 96% literacy rate.  On the other hand, I'm
not too enamored of being cold...

Apropos of nothing in particular, I wanted to mention that I have
several US and world maps, all printed in the USA, that do *not* show
Cuba, though they carefully label various Caribbean islands that are
probably too small to hold a drive-in theater.

The Soviet tendency to adulterate their maps is quite well known; I was
surprised to find Rand McNally and others doing the same thing.

What's really bizarre is, most of my maps don't show Puerto Rico
either.  And Puerto Rico is part of the United States!  What has Puerto
Rico done, to be banished to the Twilight Zone?  And who is next, South
Dakota perhaps?

- Dave "cartographically confused" Williams



Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 07:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: auto registration
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

The plates are due for the B2000.  I'm looking through the latest stack
of paper from the DMV, which has been changing its procedures every few
months lately, and now they want an odometer reading every time the
vehicle is registered.

Checking my copy of the Motor Vehicle Code... an odometer isn't
required.  Good.  I'll put "NONE" in that spot.

Supposedly it's the Fed that insists on odometer readings on the titles
now.  The fine print on the affidavit you're supposed to sign is
interesting, it basically says you're not only swearing you haven't
rolled back the odometer, but you're *also* swearing, under all sorts of
penalties, that no previous owner or other person has ever fiddled with
it or had it fiddled with.  There is a checkbox for "UNKNOWN", which I
carefully check each time I get a title.

Three years ago Arkansas' DMV was still using typewriters; now they're
computerized, and the data collection rush is starting.  I can see in a
few years they'll want to know the last time it was washed, ashtray
contents, and tire tread to the nearest 1/128th...



Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 14:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: wheels/tires on a 67 Mustang
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> PS - how long will I be picking black boogers after porting my iron
-> heads?

Two days, usually.  I think the sinus cavities get filled and you have
to wait for the grunge to migrate back down before you can yack it out.

A hot steamy shower will help, or the patented 'Kemper face-plant' on
water skis will irrigate your sinuses handily.



Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 13:07:12 -0700
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: What's the point? was CHASSIS  H-D Hydroforming
Sender: mc-chassis-design@micapeak.com
To: MC-CHASSIS-DESIGN Mailing List 

-> equivelant to Triumphs Hinckley? Will we see a sports bike from HD
-> soon. Will I ever shut up? Will I drift any further from the stated

Back a few years ago (when the big single retro craze hit) there were a
couple of companies doing sportbike chassis for Harley twins.  Besides
Buell, that is.  I saw one at a bike shop once, with a beautiful
nickel-plated Seeley-style chassis, with a triangulated backbone; one
top tube kinked over the rear head, Seeley-style side tubes running
around the head, front tube just holding the front of the motor up.
I thought it was very well done.


Over the 48-hour weekend my brother and I put in 20-odd hours on his
Sportster.  The chassis had already been converted to a hardtail.  He
lopped out the main tube ahead of the rear tire, along with assorted
doodads, and flipped the rear wheel around so the sprocket is on the
left.  We used most of a spool of MIG wire on the transmission to engine
bracket.  There were no good places to run brackets from the bolt holes
on the engine to those on the transmission, so I made an intermediate
frame and bolted each to that.  It's not fully triangulated, but close
enough for government work, I think.  The engine and trans are bolted
together, with the Powerglide tucked neatly under the right side (now
rear) cylinder bank.  I was building a big C-shaped lifting bracket to
bolt to the bellhousing and intake bolts and ran out of wire just before
I was done.  There being no place in Arkansas to get MIG wire on a
Sunday evening, that was the end of that.

Today we went to Little Rock and got some sealed ball bearings for the
output shaft and the torque convertor outrigger, stopped at the farm
supply store on the way back and picked up sprockets for the primary
drive and secondary drive, and a hub to fit the output shaft.  Kevin had
to pack for his return trip to Florida, so I'll get around to fitting
the engine to the chassis later this week.

The only sticky looking point so far is the front exhaust pipe/front
wheel/radiator zone, which is going to be very tight.  If push comes to
shove I can chop the headstock and he can get some longer fork tubes,
though we'd both really like to avoid that given the extra weight of the
big iron Chevy 350 in there.


Went by the Chevy dealership today to get a key made for my wife's
"new" Geo Metro, which we bought from a local repo service.  In the
waiting room they had an April 2000 issue of Hot Rod magzines.  Looking
at the article on putting a 500-inch Cadillac V8 into a Chevette, I saw
a quote in italics at the top of the page.  "Ignorance can be a powerful
tool when used properly; sometimes even more powerful than knowlege. -
E.J. Potter."

Events in life sometimes exhibit synchronicity; I'd just spent all
weekend building a V8 motorcycle, and EJ Potter is, of course, "The
Michigan Madman," still doing exhibition runs on his Chevy-powered drag
bike at almost 60 years old.  It was an old article about Potter's
"Widowmaker" bike in a 1960s Popular Mechanics that led me to start this
particular project.

Ignorance can indeed be a powerful tool; far too many projects have
been aborted before birth because they were clearly impossible.
Meanwhile, those who don't know it's impossible frequently go ahead and
do it anyway.



Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 16:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 2-drink limit for airline passengers?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> How about this?  You assault a mamber of the crew (or do anything
-> else that is considered "air-rage") and not only to you do time in a

First someone is going to have to persuade me that "air rage" even
exists.  Sounds like another media creation to me.  Not much going on
lately, that's a major danger sign.

I'd be more worried about "airport rage"; airports majorly suck, and I
don't like being hassled, so when I'm forced to go to one I'm
continually fighting the urge to raise hell.

Airports suck, and airplanes take me from a place I don't want to be to
a place I don't want to go.



Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 16:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 2-drink limit for airline passengers?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> To deal with air rage, every plane should be required to have on
-> board a 'goon'. Said 'goon' will pummel a passenger displaying air
-> rage.

Back when skyjackings became a popular method of political expression
some countries installed metal detectors.  The Israelis hauled some
soldiers out of retirement, issued them rifles, put them on the planes,
and told them to kill anyone who caused trouble.  They blew away two or
three would-be hijackers before the Israeli government decided it was
bad for public opinion and bought metal detectors.

Personally, though I think the government of Israel is borderline nuts,
I think they had a fine idea the first time, and I was sorry to see them
drop their economical and effective flight safety program.

The US Department of Justice could put a US Marshal or deputized flight
crew member aboard each flight to handle things, but both the government
and the airlines are all too much a bunch of pussies to deal with any
political or media flak over someone getting blown away.


Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 07:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: hybrid owners can't expect big paybacks
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> use.  Most people support improved fuel efficiency in the abstract,
-> but they're not willing to pay extra for it, or sacrifice any comfo
-> or power for it.  They're certainly not "screaming" for it (except

My feeling is, if you can afford car and insurance payments for a new
fuel-efficient car, you're more than capable of feeding any old gas
sucker you want, and you can stick the left-over cash back in your
pocket.

The people who bought new Diesel Cadillacs to "save gas" are probably
the same ones who'd take out a secured loan secured against their own
savings account...



Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 08:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 2-drink limit
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> absolutely not a scintilla of legal distinction between you and a
-> fully-kitted Patrol grad from a 1 or 2-year law enforcement academy?
-> You have exactly same powers and privileges? Norm

I don't know about John's local laws, but in most states the sheriff's
department and the police derive their powers from entirely different
sources.

Arkansas is fairly typical.  It's laid out like so:

The Arkansas State Police derive their authority from the Governor.
The ASP is the highest law enforcement authority in the State.  They can
go anywhere and do anything they want.  In practice, they're mostly used
for patrolling the Interstates, some rural areas, and for providing
specialty services to lesser law enforcement agencies.
The Arkansas Highway Police derives its authority from the state
legislature.  They have cop cars and cop uniforms, but their only
function is to harass truckers and write tickets.  Their authority
extends to all roads in the state.

Each county has a sheriff's department, which derives its authority
from the county Quorum Court.  The Quorum Courts are rubber-stamp bodies
which had no legislative power of their own; in fact, even in Pulaski
County (the where the capitol is) some of the seats remain unfilled
since nobody runs for them.  The sheriff's department acts as an arm of
the county government.  The word "sheriff" is a descendant of the Old
English "shire reeve", or tax collector.  If you're delinquent with your
taxes, it's the sheriff's department (via sheriff, deputy, or process
server) who will serve papers or make arrests.  The sheriff's
departments also act as law enforcement in non-municipal areas, plus
most of them get saddled with various catch-all tasks.

There's a State Sheriff's Department, but I'm not exactly sure what
they do.  I assume it's the same thing the county sheriffs do, except
they do it for the state.

Municipalities can have their own police departments.  Not all do.  If
so, their police derive their authority from the city management, mayor,
whatever scheme they use.

Unincorporated municipalities (fancy subdivisions, gated communities)
sometimes hire constables.  A constable has only his powers as a
citizen; ie he can make a citizen's arrest for felonies, or he can
detain someone and call a higher authority.


They all like the black SS-Obergruppenfuhrer threads, but cops aren't
all the same by a long shot.  There's a lot of friction between the
different kinds, with the sheriffs usually being the odd man out.

The State Police all go through a police academy - used to be the one
in Missouri, since Arkansas didn't have one.  Municipal cops *often* go
through an academy, but if the municipality is too cheap to pay for it,
they'll give you a badge and a gun after you finish filling out your
employment application.  I used to know a couple of guys who walked in
off the street and walked out with a badge.  Sheriff's departments
operate much differently; sheriffs are either political appointees or
elected, depending on the county.

Most sheriffs are free to hire or deputize anyone they want.  Since few
counties can afford to pay for all the law enforcement they want, many
of them have unpaid volunteer deputies.  They get called to fill in when
someone is sick, it's a busy night, tornados just went through, that
sort of thing.

The big city or state police academy types look down on the deputies,
but within their jurisdiction, they still represent the law, and they
can slam your ass in jail.  The authority of unpaid deputies may be
limited by departmental policy, but they're still cops.



Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 09:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: book binding
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I'm reading a book called "Patterns of Soviet Power" right now.  It was
printed in 1945, and has a big War Department "printed conserving
critical war resources" notice under a Federal eagle on the title page.

The author was someone named Edgar Snow, a stringer for the Saturday
Evening Post, who apparently spent all his time in the USSR, China, and
the Balkans.  The book was his attempt to show what the USSR and China
had accomplished since 1939, and what he expected to happen after the
end of the war.  His projections were almost always dead nuts; I went
back and checked that 1945 date again.  He doesn't make any claim to
superhuman intellect; he explained how the Soviets had operated in
similar situations before, where it looked like they were going when he
wrote the book, and that the Soviet bureaucracy lacked flexibility, so
it was most probable they would maintain that course.  He was right.

Nothing new to a WWII combat buff, other than the "ow, wow" factor of
Snow's predictions, but *lots* of stuff about how the Soviets handled
their early days in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc.,
and predictions of Communist-style governments for those countries.
Apparently the Soviets treated the satellite nations with kid gloves
during the early days; the mailed fist didn't come out until after they
allied with the USSR and the Iron Curtain closed.

I'm majorly impressed.

The book isn't very large; hardback, about the size of a modern
oversize paperback.  It's sewn in chapters that are small enough so it
will lay flat so you can just sit in on the desk or table and read it.
I'd gotten so used to "perfect bound" books that have to be broken or
weighed down with chunks of steel bar that I'd forgotten how nice it was
for a book to just LAY THERE.

Stitching and binding costs money and publishers are cheap, so we'll
probably not see much of that sort of thing in the future.  Hell, we see
little enough of it now.  But it's a-verra-nahss, and I'm sad to see it
go.



Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2001 09:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: magnesium bar
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

Just because the handbooks describe something doesn't mean it exists.
For all practical purposes there are half a dozen aluminum or steel
alloys you can get, in certain standard sizes, before you're shit out of
luck.  So I knew if I wanted to do some parts in magnesium I had to find
out what alloys were really available, as opposed to what the handbooks
showed.

I've been trying to find some place with magnesium in stock since the
beginning of the year.  I wanted some 1x3" bar.  Finally found a place
in California with some AZ31B on hand, partially annealed.  They'd cut
an 8' long, 3" strip from some 1" annealed tooling plate if I wanted.
I wasn't interested in annealed stock, but I asked them how much just to
get a handle on the price.

1x3" x 8'.  $934.00
I made them repeat that twice, just to make sure.

The same thing in 6061-T6 aluminum bar would be $108.30, locally.

I guess those connecting rods are going to be aluminum instead of
magnesium...

I keep getting the urge to do them as 4130 steel weldments, with the
big and small ends machined on the lathe and the beams welded up from
.043 sheet, but I don't trust my welding that much.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 00:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhhh
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> sometimes. But, on the whole, were the McCarthyites right or wrong
-> about the intentions, the goals, and the threat of Communism? Yes,

Right or wrong, McCarthy and his cronies stepped over the bounds of the
law more than once, and as far as I'm concerned the antiCommunist laws
from the 1920s and beyond were unConstitutional to start with.

If Communism was such a powerful thing, that a few pamphlets and
nutballs were a clear menace to the whole American nation, then the
nation probably wasn't strong enough to last long anyway.  Of course,
the American Commies never were a menace to anyone; they were just an
excuse for some of the power trippers to do their thing.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 00:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: shhhhh
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I have stacks of Russian technical manuals and military jargon-fest
-> pamphlets from the 50s that are stamped, "Authorized Communist
-> Reading Material for the Purposes of Intelligence and Language
-> Instruction Only - US Dept of Defense"

  I have a sort of morbid fascination about the old USSR, the way
some people have a thing about cancer.


-> Reading it gave me those McCarthy-at-the-gates willies all over again
-> :)

Lots of people still have the attitude that you can be contaminated by
knowlege; if you've read Marx, you must be a Communist, etc.  The
ignorant still breed...



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 10:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhhh
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I liked reading _The Jungle_ too, but Upton Sinclair's utter bullshit
-> about Socialism just makes me laugh.  I half expect a red-caped,
-> buffed out Karl Marx to come flying through the air to knock some
-> top-hatted capitalist swine heads together and free the downtrodden
-> masses.

Lots of people love the idea.  Like that old thread, it's the sheep
mentality at work.

"Socialism" is a word which has taken on connotations much different
than it originally meant.  HG Wells was an active Socialist, but he was
probably closer to Adam Smith than Karl Marx.  That is, he approved of
radical innovations like the five day work week, some types of
government aid for the elderly or disabled, etc., but he had no desire
to give up his fancy house or his fat royalty checks in the name of the
masses.

Generations of propaganda have linked "Socialist" with "Communist",
just as they have linked "Democratic" with "Capitalist".  That's one
reason why political discussions often become awkward; the terminologies
have been so debased you have to spend half your time defining your
vocabulary before you can actually exchange concepts.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 10:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhhh
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> government official in FDR's administration who Chambers fingered,
-> etc etc, none of that mattered? They compromised Manhattan and Los

Basically, no.  The entire Roosevelt Administration was riddled with
spies and leaks; it was like they had no concept of security.   The FBI
staged some spy hunts, but that's after-the-fact action, not security
procedure.  Everything Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, etc. walked away with was
practically given to them on a silver platter.  Read Richard Nixon's
"Six Crises" or Richard Feynman's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman"
for some good examples.

There were lots of Communist spies, but they were either individuals
working for ideological reasons or very small Soviet spy groups.  The
American Communist Party never at any time presented an *organized*
threat; few of the "Communists" who actively worked against the USA were
members.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 14:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhhh
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The concept of the Hollywood blackball list is particularly
-> unsettling.

The blacklist was pretty much an accused-and-guilty thing.  It worked
much like the blacklists in Nazi Germany, except you just had your life
and career ruined instead of being carted off to a prison camp.

There's always someone who has a cause so important they feel civil
liberties should be infringed to defend it.  For the most patriotic of
reasons, of course.  Just this once.  Until the next cause comes along.
And the next... and pretty soon you have a happy little police state.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 15:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhhh
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Dave, actually, you are confirming everything I said. I said
-> *nothing* about the American Commie Party.

I was talking about them to start with; when you replied with
"Communist" I ass-umed we were still talking about the same thing.


-> sympathizers. They existed. They were a serious threat. There were a
-> lot of them. They made WW3 possible by equalizing the USSR in its
-> nuke program. They were a "threat to anyone".

Not really.  It was a major surprise to the USA when Lavrenti Beria's
nuke crew made their first big bang, so there was lots of ass-covering
going on.  "Russian spies stealing our Bomb secrets" worked as well as
anything, but the truth of the matter is, the Soviets were on the right
track all by themselves.  Their spies saved them a few rubles and at
most a few months of time.

Even the Japanese had a nuke project, which from what little is known
about it, failed mostly because the Japanese simply couldn't afford to
divert the resources for such a big project.  The only ones who didn't
have a project were the Germans, who were so clearly off-track that
Speer pulled the plug on the German atomic bomb project in late '43 or
early '44.

There's no real trick to getting fissionables, all it takes is big
heaping piles of money.  And there's no real trick to making it go bang;
the big thing is arranging it to get the best bang for the buck, or
ruble, or whatever.


-> They made WW3 possible by equalizing the USSR in its nuke program.

The Cold War and the threat of WW3 were direct results of three major
actions:

1) Franklin Delano Roosevelt's indefensible refusal to keep Harry
   Truman properly briefed and ready to take over, even though FDR
   knew he was dying.

2) The British electorate yanked the rug out from under Churchill at
   Potsdam.

3) Truman's decision to write off all of Eastern Europe to the Soviets
   at Potsdam.

Note all these were cluster-fucks of the first order, with oak leaves.
Roosevelt's inaction was treasonous in my book.  Churchill had a bad
case of overconfidence and empire-building; he barely bothered to
campaign, and it came as a big shock when lost the election.  I'm
inclined to cut Harry Truman some slack; he was a pompous little ass in
a lot of ways, but it wasn't *his* fault he was totally unprepared to
deal with Stalin.


Despite all the screeching propaganda, the Soviets had no effective
means of delivering those so-famous nuclear warheads outside of Europe
until they got that famous base in Cuba in 1963.  During the Brezhnev
era the Rocket Defense Force had missiles that were technically able to
reach the Americas, but they were little better than giant bottle
rockets.  By the time the Soviets *could have* stolen the bits for some
effective guidance systems, they were able to save money and face by
publicly ceasing development of weapons systems they were barely started
with and could barely afford anyway.


-> They were a "threat to anyone". Case closed, but mind open. Norm

WWII - which I view as an event lasting from 1900 to the late '50s - is
a particular hobby of mine.  I'm not much into airplane identification
or battle rosters; the part that interests me is *why* events took
place the way they did.  Which usually boils down to politics on the one
hand and logistics on the other.  Having the bad habit of thinking for
myself, the conclusions I come up with often do not match accepted
historic interpretation of events.

I expect there are many listers who see some of those messages, think
"oh, shit, Dave's raving again" and grab for the mouse, but that's the
way it goes...



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 15:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: BMW dealer funnies
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> the 'Ring? LOL, Norm (with a bust of Enzo and Lauda on my desk,
-> nobody knows who they are)

I have a picture of Winston Churchill on the wall of my study.  Nobody
knows who he was either.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 17:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: shhhh....Proof
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> McCarthy (symbolic of the era), in the absence of proof of being a
-> traitor, wanted to punish all communists for their beliefs.

McCarthy didn't even care about beliefs; just hanging around the wrong
people was enough.  That's what they got Oppenheimer for.  Yeah, the
King of Los Alamos got locked out for being a political security risk...



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 17:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhh....Proof
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Absolutely true. Oppenheimer himself was a known, admitted commie.
-> They made him head of Los Alamos anyway.

No, Oppenheimer never professed to be a Communist.  However, a number
of his social - not work - friends were either Socialists or Communists
of varying ideology, and when the security Nazis told Oppenheimer he was
not allowed to have anything more to do with them, he told them they
were his friends, and the Nazis could stuff it.  So, since he refused to
comply, they charged him under a particularly evil piece of legislation
as a "fellow traveler", meaning he knew too many people of the wrong
political beliefs.  He'd finished up the H-bomb project by then, so
they just turned him out and turned what was left of the nuke program
over to various committees, which have basically sat on it ever since.

That's otherwise known as "guilt by association", one of the several
fundamentals of American law that were ignored by the witch hunters.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 17:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhh....Proof
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> in God's name did FDR and Churchill view Stalin as an ally? Just
-> because of his change in fortunes? Stalin *never* looked at the US
-> and England as allies, just dupes to be manipulated. Which is what he
-> did, expertly so (Yalta, the big give-away). Norm

Without the majority of German troops being pulled away to the Eastern
Front it's doubtful Italy could have been taken.  No amphibious landings
in Europe would have been practical against an Axis four or five times
stronger than what we faced at Normandy.

Churchill said Stalin was a devil, but he'd take even a devil's help
against Hitler.  And so he did.



Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 21:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: bust of Lenin
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Buuuuuuuuttt.....I have "friends" who travel there regularly.  Do you
-> want one?

I'd like a life-size one if it's not too expensive.  Let me
know when someone is heading that way and I'll send some money.


"Hey, who's that statue thing supposed to be?"

"That's a bust of John Von Neumann."

"Oh.  Okay.    Who is John Von Neumann?"





Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 21:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re:
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> >yeah!  I like to collect Soviet trinkets.
->
-> ME THREE!  I'm currently woo-ing a woman who is very Russian.

...and here I thought I'd be the only fangler with a full-size bust of
Lenin!


I can see Eric talking to his at work:

ERIC:  "Well, Vladimir Ilych, what would you have done in a situation
       like this?"

LENIN: "Simple, Comrade Kaempfer!  I would promise them anything and
       then stab them in the back when the opportunity arose."

ERIC:   "Wouldn't anyone object?"

LENIN:  "Certainly they would object!  The trick is to make it look like
        one of your other enemies did it.  Then you can denounce them
        to their detriment and your benefit.  No political action
        should have only a single goal."

ERIC:   "Ah, I can see the patterns of political power seem to be
        universal... well, time for that staff meeting!"



Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 13:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhh....Proof
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> later.  There very well may have been back channel communications
-> between Stalin and the allies that indicated that he would NOT be
-> fighting on Hitler's side.

Stalin sent Litvinov to Munich to meet with Chamberlain and Daladier(?)
(whichever guy was premier-of-the-week of France) to offer Soviet
support for the English and French against the Germans.  They wouldn't
even talk with the Soviet delegation, and Chamberlain triumphantly
returned to London with "peace in our time."

Litvinov's career never recovered from his failure.  He was replaced by
Molotov, though he remained in the Soviet foreign service in a lesser
capacity.

Stalin *initially* backed the Allies; after being rebuffed he tossed
his cards in with Hitler since it was obvious to anyone except
Chamberlain and Daladier that some serious shit was going to come along
Real Soon Now, and the USSR would be safer in some sort of alliance.

Khruschev and Gromyko both claimed that the Stalin was fairly sure
Hitler would double-cross him, but that Stalin figured on at least
another year before the Germans would attack.


-> You don't know what you'd have done because you weren't there and
-> thus don't know even a fraction of the facts.

It was a *big* war; all the leaders and their staffs could do was paint
a broad outline and let their subordinates fill in the cracks.  What
facts Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, and Tojo operated on were
distilled through many, many layers of underlings; it's hard to tell
exactly what they really knew, as opposed to what they *should* have
known.

And sometimes what they knew was *wrong*; Churchill knew Singapore
was impregnable, Roosevelt knew bombers were no threat to battleships,
Stalin knew Hitler would consolidate his gains in the west before
attacking the Ukraine, Tojo knew the USA would stand back and let Japan
have the Pacific after being slapped down at Pearl Harbor, Hitler knew
the English would never declare war over Poland, Daladier knew the
Maginot Line would keep France safe from Germany.

None of those people were robots, either.  They were occasionally eaten
up with the dumb-ass as well as having their own prejudices and
personality flaws.  The Grand Alliance nearly came apart at Cairo, when
Stalin, who hated Churchill, finally managed to piss Churchill off to
the point where he stomped out of the room.  De Gaulle's sociopathic
behavior nearly resulted in France being left completely out of the
later war.  Chiang Kai-Shek was more interested in fighting Mao than the
Japanese.  The chain of dumb-ass ran all the way down.


-> Besides, which would you rather have?  Russia fighting arm in arm
-> with Hitler or having them as secular allies?  I know what my choice
-> would be.

If Hitler had given Stalin that extra year, the face of the world
would be *much* different today.



Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 13:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhhh
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> That right.  Now describe any entity who has, without nuclear nation
-> assistance, had refined any quantity of U-235.  There ain't one.

True, but I suspect it's because it's cheaper to just buy the stuff
from someone else than it is to make your own.

Groves' people couldn't predict which of various methods would produce
useable amounts of U-235, so he started projects trying all of them.  In
the end, all of them worked, though the most efficient ones required
snotloads of electricity, like at Oak Ridge with all that Tennessee
hydroelectric power to play with.

Most countries don't have that kind of hydro to play with, so to get
commercial extraction you need a nuke plant to start with.  You could
spend decades doing chemical separation or some other method, or you can
just go to the French and buy a turnkey plant on national plastic.
The Japanese extraction plant was in North Korea, lots of hydro there.
It got sucked up by the Soviets after VJ Day.  Korea still has lots of
hydro to play with.



Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 14:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Hidden risks of earthquakes
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Are those Risks guys paranoid, or what?

"Why do you ask?"


Back when those messages were posted Risks was mostly system admins and
telco admins; admins are *paid* to be paranoid.

Once you have firewalls, redundant UPSs, multiple loops on the WAN, and
hot spare fallback servers, you worry about things like fire, flood,
terrorists, earthquakes, and hostile aliens from Proxima Centauri.

Read some Carroll Smith and you'll see another take on paranoia.

Frankly, I think paranoia is a fine attitude, unjustly maligned by the
happy-carefree luser types.  But who do they come screaming to when they
stupidly delete an important file?  Us paranoids, that's who.  And we
have the backup tapes.

"That backup server was a waste of money, eh?  This year's
profit-and-loss spreadsheet, hmm.  'kin you SQL lakh a pig, boy?  How
about some nekkit peekchurs of your seester?  I'm going to rub these
tapes all over my body and laugh.  How bad do you want that file?  How
about you do a handstand for me?  C'mon, I'll even let you use the wall
to keep from falling over."


"I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that
the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days.  Congress is
thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists
broadcast signals to alien beings.  This would be a large mistake.
Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons.  You cannot cut off
their federal programs as if they were merely poor people ..."
-- Dave Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE COMING!"

[...and they're after your servers! - dlw]



Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 14:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Matt's tickies
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> >-> he is, after all, Sir Elton John.

-> I never did understand what he did to deserve that.

I think some of it had to do with paying British taxes.  Or maybe the
Queen just likes his music.  A lot of people were knighted for less.



Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 17:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhh....Proof
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I've been following this thread because it interests me and I have
-> very little knowledge of most of what you guys have talked about.
-> That last bit threw me for a loop.
->
-> The last two books I've bought concerning US or world history went
-> over the mechanics of past events but not cause and effect.

You can find lots of "who, what, when, where" history books; dealing
with recorded facts is easy.  The reasons for a lot of things are
sometimes obscure; it really *was* a different world back then, and
people thought a lot different about many things then than they do now.

I had read William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" some
time ago, and a few odd books here and there, but I got hooked on WWII a
few years ago by reading William Manchester's "The Arms of Krupp."
One thing Shirer and others had presented as a mystery was Hitler's
timing of the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland; Hitler apparently
delayed things needlessly, only to suddenly order immediate attack.
Manchester showed how Hitler was waiting for Krupp's armaments factories
to produce the needed materials.  As soon as the guns, Panzers, etc.
were on hand, Hitler attacked.  Simple, except too many historians had
wracked their brains trying to figure out what political advantages
Hitler thought he was getting by the dates he set.

Krupp was a major arms manufacturer in the Reich.  German industries
tended to be giant corporate or family holdings, much like modern
Japanese zaibatsu, or Standard Oil or AT&T before they were broken up.
Manchester showed how much of Hitler's battle planning was based on
just-in-time logistics; sometimes Panzers didn't even get painted until
they were in a combat zone!  The book was an eye-opener for me, because
it showed me that generals and tactics came second to what that old
Confederate general called "getting there firstest with the mostest."

I then lucked on to a translation of a Japanese biography of Admiral
Yamamoto shortly afterward.  Yamamoto was the guy who planned the attack
at Pearl Harbor.  There was a lot in there about how the severe lack of
fuel oil caused problems for the Imperial Japanese Navy; after 1943 they
were so short of oil they weren't even able to field full battle fleets
in many instances.  Those short fleets didn't last long against the
Americans.

The next thing was Churchill's History of the Second World War, in six
volumes.  The kind of enormous thing I hate to start, because I hate to
give up on something before it's finished, and if something that size
sucks, it'll take forever to grind through.  It turned out to be quite
interesting, though I took short breaks between volumes.  Churchill took
great pains to point out the political reasoning behind what went on,
and he also showed how battles occurred in certain times and places
*not* because of any great military suitability of position, but because
that's where they could concentrate the most men and materials, and how
various battles on both sides were lost because critical materials
didn't make it to the battleground.

The politics and logistics are heavily intertwined; by contrast, the
military actions are very simple.  I found more stuff and read it,
following the political and logistic reasoning, fitting odd bits from
one book to the other - things like Roosevelt's interpreter at Yalta was
Charles Bohlen, who was Krupp's cousin, for example.

After you read enough to establish a basic framework, everything new
starts filling in the gaps.  Someone relevant said:

[of reading] "...each little piece of knowledge thus gained must be
treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into a mosaic, so
that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces and particles
that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of the reader."

- Adolf Hitler, in "Mein Kampf"


What happened in WWII shaped the world we live in today more than most
people can imagine.  Other wars changed the faces of nations; WWII
changed the world.  The microprocessor in your computer is a direct
linear result of Truman's decisions about the Soviets in Potsdam; so is
the network that carried this message.  Your job, and Eric Kaempfer's,
are direct results of the Marshall Plan and postwar American military
policy.  You probably own thousands of dollars of products made in a Far
East that was created by the decisions of Harry Truman and Douglas
MacArthur.

Most people can look at the world and see it as it is; if you learn
enough about the Second World War, you can look at the world and see
where most of it came from.  The war was a break in the continuity of
history; the six-year jump from 1939 to 1945 spanned fundamental changes
in how people thought of themselves and their world, a *small* new
world, jammed in fast forward with spinoff technology from the war, an
unstable, Mutually Assured Destruction Cold War world where "future
shock" became a reality as societies fragmented off in all directions.

History is pretty much the study of wars, but WWII was *different*,
something that even most military historians don't seem to grasp.  The
world didn't just pick up and carry on; the world *changed* and zoomed
off on a different track than it was on before.



Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 17:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: shhhh....Proof
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The same problem that allows some "rebels" in the other countries to
-> take Americans hostage and murder them.

...and the same thing that makes American governments kiss up to such
scum.

My proposal for dealing with the Iranian hostage thing 20 years ago was
to send a B-52 over and obliterate a village, just to get their
attention.  Then tell them they have 24 hours to deliver their hostages.
At the end of those 24 hours, sent the B-52 back over and take out a
small town.  Then, for each day they're late, take out successively
larger towns.  And one or more for each prisoner who was "shot while
escaping" or "died in captivity."

After getting all of them or their bodies back, send the Air Force over
as many times as necessary to turn Teheran into a smoking hole in the
ground.  If they complain, the President could tell them, "that's
Pentagon policy, there's nothing I can do about it."

But no, Unka Jimmuh wrote them a fat ransom check, which got the other
ragheads all excited about the American hostages for profit game, which
meant Ronnie had to stomp the shit out of a bunch of people before they
got the hint that American policy had changed once again...



Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 17:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: "The Man Who Came Early", Poul Anderson
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I have requested ILL for the book.  No excuses, the subject line is
-> right there?
->
-> Am I likely to enjoy the story?

Dunno, I haven't read that one... but almost everything he's written
since 1980 or hasn't been worth much in my opinion.  I read "Operation
Luna" a few weeks ago and was unimpressed.

The book had a red-headed female space pilot with the exceedingly
awkward name of Curtice Newton.  It had been a *long* time since I'd
read any of Edmond Hamilton's "Captain Future" series, but Captain
Future was a redheaded *guy* space pilot named Curtis Newton.

Did I unravel some secret fen in-joke?  Or was Anderson just going
senile?  Or was it only coincidence?

- Dave "coincidence upgefucks causality" Williams



Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 06:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Procrustus
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> >My kids have hyphenated names.

> Loser, dude, your children are not goats.  Why did you curse them,
> and then blame the world?  Eh, loser?

When I encounter a hyphenated name I tend to instantly tune out further
input.  At best it is pretentious; at worst it is fraudulent.  Lots of
women do it now, appending their maiden name to their married name, or
vice versa (there doesn't seem to be any real pattern there).  Besides
implying a lack of commitment, most of these women don't go through a
legal name change to become Ms. Hypenate-Name, though they start using
the name.  This causes major confusion in credit records, billing, etc.

Women also have a habit of arbitrarily changing their first names
without legal sanction, again possibly to avoid credit problems.  I
think they ought to just tattoo their Social Security numbers on them
somewhere.  I'd hate to come home some night and find out I was married
to the wrong woman...



Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 16:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Saw a Downunder falcon
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> You know, those 3 Mad Max flicks are worth having on DVD...
->
-> Well, the first two, anyway.  The third was a little too cartoony for
-> my taste, although Tina Turner was amusing.

For some reason it seems that, although almost everyone has seen "The
Road Warrior", almost nobody has actually seen "Mad Max", and of those
few, only a handful have ever watched it all the way through.  The Road
Warrior sucked, and spawned an entire genre of post-apocalyptic crap,
which includes "Beyond Blunderdome" or whatever that horrible thing was.

"Mad Max" was basically a simple story; a basically honest cop caught
in a rotten system; so rotten it can no longer protect his friends, his
family, or even himself.  It was set in an indefinite future, which
tweaked the SF types; it had cool Australian cars and fast motorcycles,
which tweaked the gearheads, but its major characteristic is it's one of
those movies where, if you cut almost anything out, something else won't
make sense down the line.  Modern Americans don't *expect* movies to
make sense or have continuity, so most of them watched butchered
versions and never knew.

The "sequels" kept the outline of Gibson's character, but have
essentially zero to do with "Mad Max."



Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 16:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Eyeballs
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> 'bad eye.'  And getting used to contacts has made me generally immune
-> to sticking my finger in my eye.

My allergist kept coming up with excuses for me to visit his office
once a week to get injections for $30 a hit.  I told him I could do it
myself.  He said "very few people can actually stick a needle in their
body."  I said, "I can stick my finger in my eye to insert a contact, a
dinky little allergy hypo isn't a problem."

I was fully prepared to stick one in my arm and walk up to the
cashier's window with it dangling while I filled out the paperwork, but
he caved in after the eyeball comment.  Dang.



Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 11:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Saw a Downunder falcon
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> A buddy of mine complained about _Mad Max_, saying "shit, he doesn't
-> get mad until the very end." ;)

That's one of the points a lot of people fail to get.  People evidently
keep expecting something like Dirty Harry in a supercharged Falcon.

Even as simple as the plot line was, it was probably a little too
subtle for modern American viewers.  I guess the Australian directors
expected people to pay attention to what was going on...



Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 12:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Eyeballs
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> My dentist thinks I'm a loony, a masochist, or a former dental
-> student.  I always ask him to describe, in detail, the procedure
-> before hand, and then to give me a play-by-play commentary during it.

I have a stainless steel rod in my left shinbone.  Installing it
involved separating the knee and ankle joints with hydraulic equipment
anchored to lugs in the floor (it all looked EXACTLY like what you see
in an auto body shop)  grinding a big slot in the side of the bone,
ramrodding the marrow out, hammering in the rod, and running some screws
in to keep the rod from moving around.  Then they reset the joints and
sewed all the incisions back up.  It took six hours under anesthesia; it
was supposed to take two or three, but "the OR got contaminated", which
I assume means one of the dozen-odd people hanging around in there
spewed their lunch all over the floor.  Hopefully not on me.

The orthopedic surgeon wanted me a watch a video of this before going
in for surgery.  Not ME, buddy!  I'm more like Jerry Lewis in "The
Disorderly Orderly", where he's double up with stomach cramps listening
to a woman talk about her ovary problems.



Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 18:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Eyeballs
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> You don't think that Dave Staring Down Various Pretenses To Authority
-> episodes are amusing?

They'd be amusing as hell, except the best ones consisted more of
intent than execution.  It sucks to be unbucking your pants to make a
Statement and the authorities suddenly get conciliatory.

- Dave "hangfire" Williams



Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 18:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: URGENT -- C++ source code analyzer needed...
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> - No detailed requirements documentation
-> - No design documentation (none -- period, not even decent comments
-> in the source.)
-> - Author was the company founder who's now too important & busy to be
-> bothered with this.
-> - Other engineers who've worked on it have moved on to other projects
-> and are too important & busy to be bothered with this.

I've been in that situation before, except everybody else quit and I
was handed the baby.

I'd reach for the phone and call a couple of local head hunters...

Failing that, I'd put a purchase order in for a Gimpel's 'lint' or some
similar logic analyzer, and smurf for a 'ctags' utility that would at
least pull out all the function names and which source files they're in.
There are probably other analysis tools out there to track function
references and the like, but I don't know what they'd be.

Since the code has been through so many hands that are all "too busy"
to finish it (meaning it's been pissed in by a bunch of people who
couldn't finish it) the first thing I'd do is sit down and write my own
requirements document.  Write it and submit it as a memo, informational
brief, whatever your corporate structure calls it.  Don't ask for
approval, just announce what you plan to do.

Next, I'd work up a rough guess shedule of some sort, and I'd put down
at least 1/3 of the hours as "documentation" and another 1/3 as
"testing."  Milestones are good; details are bad.  Details invite
micromanagement.  Remember meetings, being micromanaged, change orders,
and other crap come out of the code 1/3, not the documentation or
testing 1/3s.  For every hour unscheduled bureaucratic crap steals from
your work, add one working day to the timeline.

If none of those wizards had a spec and none of them documented
anything, I wouldn't use any more of the crap they wrote than I
absolutely had to.  Once you break it out by functions, print it all out
on paper, put it in binders by function, and use it for reference - it's
usually not too hard to write your own if you have a model to peek at.
In your own code you know you're not doing any weird hacker d00d shit
with typecasting or pointers.

Projects without specifications are never finished; projects that are
never finished are failures.  Since you weren't given a spec, it's up to
you to come up with one.

Resist feature creep.  No matter how important the pleading luser is
(company founder, was it?) or how trivial the function, tell them you'll
put it in your working notes for Version 2.0.  Don't change your spec or
add features unless it was something that was overlooked and the program
won't be useful without it, or you're liable to be fired for not doing
it.

Of course, as a programmer you probably know most of that stuff
anyway...

Writing code is the easy part.  It's the bureaucratic crap that causes
all of my trouble.

- Dave "management problem" Williams



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 10:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: URGENT -- C++ source code analyzer needed...
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> No, it's about as bad as it gets -- C++ classes with NO OO design or
-> analysis before hand.  Yep -- hacked C++.  A nightmare.  No one else
-> wanted to touch it, so it got dumped onto the new guy.  I swear I
-> heard the guy who had it previously giggling on his way out of my
-> office...

Uh-oh.

Use the existing code to generate a spec, then shitcan it all.  Or it
will come back to haunt you.  I guarantee it.

- Dave "trust me, I'm a consultant" Williams



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 06:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Cannonball Run 2001
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The saddest part is that Car and Driver was in on iot somehow, it is
-> in their latest issue.

All of the Car and Driver, Automobile, Road & Track, and Motor Trend
group are absolutely interchangeable crap anyway.

They're not even about cars; technical content approaches zero.  It's
just a bunch of half-ass journalist types writing about the "car
lifestyle," best as I can figure.

I have some Car and Driver magazines from the 1960s that would bring
tears to your eyes.  Then you would take a match to all your new ones
while screaming, "Burn, baby burn!"



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 10:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Automates Fast Food
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The "Hardee's" script logo had some touch of class. The star looks
-> like something from a bad afro-american fried chicken store.

Most of the fast food places have changed their logos to really crude
cartoons.  About the only thing I can think of is that they'd reproduce
okay as low resolution desktop icons... but I can't think of any
particular use for a KFC or Hardees icon...



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 14:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Can'd ball & Run
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Yup, apparently a short run series, only 5 or so episodes. They took
-> the worst the current "Survivor"-type reality TV crap and tried to
-> apply it to the old Cannonball cross-country race genre.

"Survivor" is the one where they drop a bunch of people on an island
and wait for them to turn cannibal, right?

- Dave "living in a slightly different universe" Williams



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 15:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Lenin lives..shhh!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> *furtive look*  I've been in contact...with
-> my...."associates"....they will provide the......."merchandise"
-> after their return.....

 heh, heh, heh... 

I can just *imagine* the expression of some Customs inspector opening
that box...


BTW, right now I'm reading a somewhat amusing book called "The Coming
Russian Boom", printed in 1996.  It's supposed to be a guide to how
things work in the Russian Federation (circa early 1996) angled at
Western businessmen and investors who might be interested in dealing
with the RF.

It's... ah... I'm having a hard time with it, as the authors apparently
have filtered everything through an AI replica of J. Edgar Hoover.  All
of the problems of the Russians were caused by the Communists.

Democracy replaced Communism and is making everything better, no matter
how much worse things superficially appear to be.  Parts of it remind me
of the Holy Grail "but I'm not dead yet" skit.  The Russians have no
money and their economy is propped up with matchsticks, therefore they
should import foreign goods at the maximum possible rate to stabilize
the ruble.  There are occasional no-intellectual-value paragraphs that
look like what Engels might have come up with if he'd been an Adam Smith
type free market type.

Do you want this thing when I'm done?  You'll probably get the hiccups
laughing at it.  If you don't fly into a rage and gnaw the corners off,
of course.

- Dave "we're all bozos on this bus" Williams



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 14:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Eyeballs
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> That just blows my mind. I don't see how you could get steel tools
-> sterile. The autoclave would be hell on them.

Autoclave?

I remember when they just swished the tool in some alcohol and shook it
off.  I guess they figured your mouth was full of germs to start with,
and they were breathing in your face anyway, so why get all excited
about sterility?



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 16:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Automates Fast Food
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The pap running through the restaurant trade rags when KFC fucked
-> their logo was that they wanted to make it "more hip" and "appeal to
-> the younger generation".

Sounds like ex-post-facto ass-covering to me.  Which usually means
either it was a senior management decision (at a "senior moment") or
they paid Big Bucks to some consulting firm, like Chris Slaw's
company...  when I think "concrete" I think of big manly things, like
dams, runways, or precast wall panels.  "Slaw Precast" was an entirely
appropriate name.  The new name, which is so lame I can't even remember
it, sounds like the manufacturer of a feminine hygiene product.



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 16:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: URGENT -- C++ source code analyzer needed...
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> on the existing code while actually rewriting it from scratch.  This
-> does, of course, mean loooong nights and sleeping under the desk on
-> some occasions but when you actually pull it off you're the hero.

I did that sort of thing for longer than I should have; after a while I
realized I was lucky to even get an "attaboy", much less cold hard cash.
And when you pull a rabbit out of your hat too often, they expect you to
do it all the time.

Stuff like Robert got handed reeks of poor management.  Not just that
he got handed crap code and a short deadline, but that those managers
have passed that crap code along through several programmers with no
documents or review.  Robert will probably wind up living in his cube to
complete it, and when it's done they'll bitch because he didn't take
care of all his other usual stuff while working on the crap code in his
spare time.

Banzai zombie coding and poor management may be the industry norms now,
but I'm no longer willing to put up with it.  Which is one reason I'm
unemployed and Robert is driving a new 4wd Audi...



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 16:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Automates Fast Food
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Occasionally, you'll still see some Kentucky Fried Chicken
-> franchisees in rural areas with the old spinning bucket lighted sign.

Hah.  There's a McDonald's in Little Rock that's so old it only has ONE
"golden arch."


-> have a model to follow.  Some of his early guys made up their own
-> franchises, too (Wendy's, for one).

Wendy's is interesting.  For a while a nearby town had several
fast food restaurants - Wendy's, Bullock's, Judy's, and Andy's.  Might
have been another I don't remember.  They were *all* "Wendy's"; same
store layout, same menu, etc.  Just different names and slightly
different decorations.  I guess they were some sort of market test
scheme to see which one sold the most stuff.

My sister-in-law lives in Wichita, which is used by several chains as a
testing area, apparently.  You'll occasionally see *strange* items on
the menus; McDonald's was selling spare ribs and BBQ in Wichita in the
mid '80s, and Pizza Hut was trying to find someone to buy orange pizza.



Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 18:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Lenin lives..shhh!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> >have filtered everything through an AI replica of J. Edgar Hoover.
-> All >of the problems of the Russians were caused by the Communists.

> Nope -- It's caused by greed and corruption, same as under
> Capitalism.  I *do* think the Soviets did a better job of refining
> it.

Perzackitly, but that's not the slant the authors took.  Basic power
politics no matter what label you slap on it; the Revolution merely
replaced the Tsar with two dictatorships and an ogliarchy.

There was an old Russian joke - Eric probably knows it - about the
ghost of Khruschev meeting the ghost of Nicholas II.  Nicholas asks
Khruschev how things are going now.  Free elections?  Well, no.  Honest
police replaced the Cheka?  Um, no.  Got rid of the camps in Siberia?
Er, no.  Got completely rid of the Romanovs?  Nope.  (several were high
in the Party structure)  Well, what then?  Khruschev thinks hard, then
brightens.

"Well, in your day vodka was 92%.  Under Communism it's 94%!"

The Tsar put his arm around Khruschev, pinched his cheek, and said,
"Ah, Nikki, all that death and bloodshed... for a mere two per cent?"


-> The Russians should step back and figure out what they have, and what
-> they can DO.  THEN do it better than anyone else in the world.

They don't need to worry about being best at anything; they just need
to worry about staying afloat until they can get their shit together.


Though the book I'm reading has covered various parts of modern Russia
in tedious detail, it doesn't mention what happened to all those nasty
Communists and the Party structure when they got overthrown.  The reader
is led to believe that they just evaporated or something.  I suspect
most of them moved right over to the Duma and the civil service, doing
pretty much what they'd been doing all along.

The other thing I've noticed is, though the authors keep harping about
"privatization" of the Soviets' national property, they're chary about
explaining how this was done.  I'm about halfway through the book at the
moment, and it's just mentioned a "share" system... and that much of the
citizenry redeemed their shares for cash to buy luxuries like food and
rent, so many of the shares had already wound up concentrated in a small
number of hands by 1996.  I'm curious about what system was actually
used; Mack Reynolds wrote about a bunch of variants of corporate states,
which would have been interesting had something like that been planned.

From what the book says, Yeltsin and the Duma just kicked the props out
from under the whole works and hoped the pieces would fall into some
useable pattern.  I *love* the slant the authors put on things - "it is
true that inflation has rendered many of the Russian retired elderly
homeless and without regular meals, but retired elderly comprise a
smaller fraction of the populace in Russia than in America."  Yeah, and
if you kill 'em off fast enough you don't have to support them... 



Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 20:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> <<"Where was the charge of the Light Brigade" >>
->
-> Crimean War.

Right-O, old chap.

I just finished an interesting volume from the British Crown Stationery
Office, - an official British history of the Commandos, circa 1943, with
a forward by the Commandos' commanding officer, Lord Mountbatten.  It
was highly censored, being 1943, but it had an account of the infamous
Mark Clark "no pants" expedition to Africa, among other things.

Mountbatten seemed to be, by and large, a decent sort.  I still think
he got shafted when he was put in charge of the Pacific theater.
MacArthur and the others simply ignored him and reported directly to
Marshall, bypassing the entire official Allied chain of command.

Anyway, the Commandos were drawn from all different British, Dominion,
USA, Free French, and other forces.  Where names are given, the book
usually identifies the "home unit" of the soldier.  The first Commando
raid described was on a German installation on one of the Channel
Islands, and the very first Commando identified by name was one
Sergeant R.J.F. Todd, of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.



Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 20:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> one of Russia's worst issues is that no Western-style rule of law
-> exists as we understand it, esp not in the areas of property rights
-> and the sanctity/enforcement of contracts.  People/companies feel
-> free to disregard flimsy laws and ignore contracts they signed just
-> previously, in order to financially/legally screw someone else.

The idea of a binding contract is alien to a lot of cultures.  Even
here on fangle (a handpicked elite, no less) contracts and treaties (the
same thing, except between nations) have been referred to as "just
pieces of paper."

Uncle Adolf would be pleased.




"Vladimir Ilych, what would you do in this situation?"

"Comrade Eric, I would sign anything they wanted, and then do as I
pleased."

"But Vladimir, if I am shown to be an oathbreaker, no one will take me
seriously any more.  It would cause problems negotiating contracts or
making alliances."

"Eric, Eric... an oath can only be binding in a specific situation.
What is true now may not be true tomorrow.  A wise man is not bound by
the past.  If they want to constrain themselves by expecting certain
things from you, it is their problem, not yours.  The New Soviet Man
must be flexible and adaptable to changing circumstances."

"I understand this, Comrade Lenin... but the running-dog capitalist
moneylenders will reposess my car if I don't continue to make my
payments."



Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 21:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: dentistry
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Yeah, but then you are scardy of the dentist...nerny, nerny,
-> nerny.....  ;-)

Yeah, and his *brother* is a dentist...

"Hey John, remember when we were little and you drew all over my
coloring book?  *I* do!  And now it's TIME FOR REVENGE!  BWA-HA-HAAAA!"



Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 22:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "The Road Warrior" Saw a Downunder falcon
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> different places, with weak keys, with differently shaped keys - but
-> hey! - it was the best that 7.95$ plus tax could buy

My keyboard is the output half of my PC interface, therefore I have the
best that there is, or was: an IBM PC/AT 84-key, circa 1985.  Mechanical
switches spring-loaded over-center, almost like power steering.
Function keys on the left where the belong, cursor pad next to the enter
key where it belongs.  It weighs as much as some pizza box computers;
the bottom and innards are thick steel.  You could kill someone with an
old IBM keyboard if you hit them over the head with it.  The weight
keeps it from sliding around the desk.  Fifteen years down the road,
Baud alone knows how much use - just *mail* averages a million
keystrokes a month, for most of that fifteen years.  Each key still
works perfectly.  When the key snaps down, the character appears on the
screen, no falses like those crapball foam pad or rubber dome body
snatcher keyboards.

IBM only made the AT keyboard a few years; in '87 the AT became the
AT/339, jazzed up to a ripping 8 megahertz, and they "upgraded" the
keyboard to this wierd-bastard, lopsided, one-handed, 101-key surfboard
which the klones have slavishly copied ever since.  I guess if IBM had
wired a fresh dog turd to the side, every new keyboard would still have
a dog turd wired to the side...

The switches on the AT keyboard have close to 3/8" travel, lots more
than most clone boards.  The mechanism damps the travel near the end
so your fingertips don't get beat to death on the stops, like on the
rubber dome keyboards.  But you get to where you seldom bottom a key on
the IBM board; once a key snaps over-center, you just lift and go to the
next one.  Focus and Cherry OEM'd similar but lesser keyboards for a
while, but most of the new ones are still the poke-a-puppy-in-the-eye
rubber domes, even the new IBM pieces of crap.


Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 18:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: eCar
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> OK, another question -- Who shot Kennedy?

After actually boring through most of the Warren Commission's report,
and an analysis of the Zapruder film, it's pretty obvious that whoever
it was, it *wasn't* Lee Oswald.  The Commission's own records are at
great variance with their official findings.

Jim Garrison's analysis is probably correct - unless some new evidence
drops out of nowhere, we'll probably never know.  The death rate of
witnesses and people peripherally involved with the assassination was
worse than that of Klinton business partners.  When Congress reviewed
the Commission's findings in the 1970s, they found that almost everyone
who could have told them anything had died shortly after the Commission
released its report.

The sheer confusion and amount of contradictory evidence on the Kennedy
assassination makes it a wonderful playground for the conspiracy-minded.
Just the cluster-fucks by Dallas PD make LAPD's showing at the Simpson
trial look like real professional police work...

- Dave "reads almost anything" Williams



Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 07:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: welfare
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> But those companies are getting tax write-offs and tax write-downs to
-> encourage such development.

That's sort of like the argument I keep getting that US gasoline costs
are "subsidized."  I eventually managed to track that one down to the
root.  The idea is that other countries pay, say, $4 per gallon of gas,
so if it's only $1 per gallon in the USA (of which about half is tax...)
than the US Government is "subsidizing" gasoline to the tune of $3 per
gallon in "lost revenue."

Democrat accounting, I think...



Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: HTF, TEA-21, etc
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I remember a few years back being shocked to find out that the
-> MAJORITY of Americans don't own a car.

An artefact of licensing, probably.  You might have a family of five or
six with three or four cars, but they're all likely to be licensed to
the same person.

Then you have people like me or Dan or Sean, who overcompensate for
people like Mike...



Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 07:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: mass transit welfare
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I have walked, I have hitch-hiked, I have ran, I have scooted, I have
-> skated, I have rode my sickle, I have rode my H2, I have driven
-> four-wheelers, I have fared a taxi . . . I have gone on 'the bus'.

I remember seeing the streetcars in San Francisco in the '60s.  They
mostly ran in the center of the street, between the lanes.  The ones I
saw moved slowly all the time; you just hopped on the moving streetcar,
rode it until you were near your destination, and hopped off.  I thought
it was a fine system; you could park someplace easy to get at without
fighting the downtown crush and hop the streetcar to where you wanted to
go.  Not real fast, but they were "free" and I thought they were a lot
of fun.  Hell, I was six or seven years old, almost anything was fun...

Nowadays I imagine the Safety Nazis would shit at the thought of
passengers jumping on and off a moving vehicle.  Then they'd have to
wall the sides up, air condition them, put in a driver and a couple of
armed security guards, stop at marked areas to load and offload... I can
see why they say the streetcars would cost too much nowadays.



Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 14:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: mass transit welfare
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> FWIW--the cablecar system in SF was only topped by the LFB Petaluma
-> for fangle points. If you're not aware, it's all waaay old school
-> stuff

Who could expect anything less from the capitol of Norton I, Emperor of
the United States?

I would've traded Joshua Norton's moldering bones for Bill Clinton's
"leadership" any time...



Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Dials!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Yeah, you llama bastard - have you forgotten that you had no instinct
-> or intuitiveness for this?  Llama, have you forgotten theat you
-> screwed up your first tries?  Llama, have you forgotten your parents
-> teaching you?

Hell, I *always* had problems with them.  Either I wouldn't get the
little rotary dial moved all the way, or my finger would slip and botch
the call, or some damned thing.  Pushbuttons were much better.  (and
THAT for the Luddite comments!)


-> >What if he were confronted by the
-> >"anti-drug" pay phones with dials and had to dial 911?
->
-> A telephone that confronts?
-> Well, that must be like a gun that kills.

I admit, the whole line of reasoning was a complete mystery to me.
Schools have rotary dial drug phones, perhaps?  Some media thing?  Now
being tuned in to the videodrome teat, I fail to grasp many of these
things.


-> Damn straight!
-> He'd be stuck with a llama parent like you.

"You mean we got a kid that doesn't know how to dial a rotary phone?
That's clearly a product defect.  Can we take him back to the hospital
and exchange him?"

The kid probably can't drive a stick shift or use a manual choke,
either... at least, not until he's lucky enough to get someone to show
him how, since his parental unit is apparently clueless... maybe he
thinks the school is supposed to teach the kid everything?


-> >In designing UI's we make assumptions about cultural norms or icons.

I had some FAX sofware once that had some inexplicable icons.  No
directions, no "help" file, nothing.  I finally had to call tech
support.  After a couple of days of phone tag, a voice explained to me
(as if I were severely retarded) that those buttons were exactly like
the ones on my VCR, and did the same thing.

In return, I explained that I bought my VCR in 1982, and all the
buttons are clearly labeled STOP, PLAY, REWIND, PAUSE, and EJECT, and I
didn't see anything resembling them on their product.

Their response was to suggest I buy a new VCR... I dumped their crap,
it didn't worth worth shit anyway.



Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 18:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Public transit Re: HTF, TEA-21, etc
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Almost everything I see that people call progress, makes life in the
-> area of th progress worse overall.  Moving the _jobs_ to the places
-> people live is progress.  Moving the people long distances between
-> work and home, is not progress.  It is wasteful bullshit.

That's the work of "zoning authorities", who want all the jobs *here*
and all the houses *there* and all the stores *yonder*.  All neatly
separated.  Then they connect each area with minimal roads, and then
point at the horrible traffic congestion - "gee, aren't those cars
*terrible?*"

Colorado Springs was nice; apparently in the old days people built
wherever they damned well pleased.  It didn't really have a clear
"downtown" or "business district" like most cities; stuff sort of
diffused widely.  Then the Californicators started moving in in hordes,
and they started zoning things off.  Last time I was there, it was
turning into another traffic nightmare like anywhere else.


Zoning commissioners.  Put them on the death list with the insurance
agents and lawyers.




Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 20:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Public transit Re: HTF, TEA-21, etc
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> There is only one plan for the future to help the traffic situation.
-> Wait for this....they are going to...ADD a stoplight!

Why, sure!  That's about the only solution the various highway
departments seem to know anything about.  Too many wrecks?  Add more red
lights!  It'd take too much effort to add a turn lane, or improve the
signs, or cut down that underbrush making blind corners, or...



Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 04:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Another 100-year computer saga
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> >  If I was 96 years old I'd be a crotchety bastard myself...

> Some days I getthe distinct impression you COULD arrive
> even sooner  :)

I'm a marvel of forebearance and tolerance, compared to what I intend
to become!



Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 10:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Public transit Re: HTF, TEA-21, etc
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Amen! The net will make transit largely unnecessary for all but blue
-> collar grunt work. Data entry and paperwork jobs will increasingly
-> telecommute.

Technically, most white collar jobs could've been done by telecommute
ten years ago.  But you're dealing with managers here.  Managers feel
disadvantaged and lonely without flunkies to micromanage.

I don't see telecommuters ever making a noticeable percentage of the
workforce.  It would require major and fundamental changes in management
practice, and as has been proved over and over again, American managers
are stupid and inflexible.



Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 10:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Egghead Files For Chapter 11
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> And the investors have turned away because they invested in some bum
-> ideas.  What needs to happen is that these people need to invest
-> wisely rather than with the scatter gun method.

The personal computer industry has been getting a ride on investors and
venture capital for 25 years.  Everyone wants to get rich quick, even if
they lose a fortune doing it...

It's interesting to see the average computer company searching for
money - they start pleading for venture capital, issue more shares, or
sell off chunks of what's supposed to be their business to their
competition for quick cash.

It seldom seems to occur to the (mis)management of these companies that
they could make money selling hardware or software; I guess that looks
like work compare to easy investor money.  Write yourself some huge
bonuses, cash in your stock, and file Chapter 11 or sell out.  Works for
just about any company, from DEC to mon'n'pop resellers.



Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 14:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Public transit Re: HTF, TEA-21, etc
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> There is an important synergy created when people work together.

Backstabbing, rumor-mongering, petty office wars, silly domination
games, meaningless meetings...

I'd just as soon work at home.



Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: I'm a good ole' boy?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> tax, by the way.) Other example: Lots of farmers take the government
-> subsidies, and at the same time decry the whole program.

It's hard to complete against subsidized competition.  Sort of like
your Chinese slave labor vs. American industry; bad money drives out the
good.

Farming is a low-margin occupation; if *nobody* got subdidies it would
even out, but if you're not on the subsidy wagon you better be farming
something with a little more profit margin than soybeans or sweet
potatos, like marijuana or opium poppies... whoops, the same people who
pass out the subsidies frown on that...



Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 19:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Vic-to-reeee!!!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Excellent, congrats!  It is frightening that the police can get away
-> with things like that as often as they do.

Many people don't believe such things happen.

Others believe it only happens to people who deserve it.

Most of them don't believe it can ever happen to them.


My mother believed all three, until the sheriff came to the door and
took her away in handcuffs one evening.  A white van had been involved
in a hit-and-run.  The witness had three digits of the plate, so the
piggies ran a search for all white vehicles with those digits, somehow
decided my Mom's white Mustang notchback fit the description, and hauled
her away.  My Dad had to go to the bank and get a loan to ransom her
back, then mortgage the house to get a lawyer.  It cost a lot of money
they couldn't afford.  When it eventually got to court (her right to a
fair and speedy trial meant it was about six months later, where she
would have been rotting in jail without bail, which is just State
sanctioned extortion) it was dismissed in about three minutes.  My Dad
wound up out of pocket several thousand dollars, though.

Justice.  It's the American Way, baby.  I worry a lot more about being
mugged by The System than by some hoodlum.


She used to think the "Bad Cop" TV shows were just WONDERFUL, watching
the piggies bust heads and violate civil rights.  The crazy thing was,
she STILL thought they were wonderful afterward.  My mother wasn't very
bright.



Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 04:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Sleepers was Re: [Fordnatics] Mustang styling, old
Sender: owner-fordnatics@www.mustangworks.com
To: fordnatics@www.mustangworks.com

-> (427, 429 CJ), upgrading the suspension and shipping it to Germany so
-> I could scare the heck out of BMWs on the Autobahn. I could just
-> picture myself blowing by BMWs, fake wood siding and all...:)

Fake wood siding is just soooo... American.  Tacky, but American...

A friend's mom had a '73 Ford full-size wagon.  The fake wood applique
started to peel, so she peeled the rest of it off, went to the hardware
store, and bought some vinyl wall paper in "red brick" pattern.  I
spotted it as soon as I pulled up and started laughing.  She came out of
the house, laughing.  I hope I'm that cool when I'm 75!



Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 11:48:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: E-mail risks: appalling grammar/notoriety (mathew,
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> > professional setting.  How one chooses to express one's ideas is >
-> indicative of the value one places on them.

> Amen to that 100%!

I cut slack for typos and occasional brain death, but the aggressively
bad spellers - the ones who spell the same word four different ways in
the same message, use no punctation, no caps, etc... if they can't be
bothered to write it, I can't be bothered to read it.  As soon as I
notice, KILL and on to the next message.

Fuck 'em iffen dey cain't spikka da Aingleesh... anything that's smart
enough to run an IP stack has more than one freeware spelling checker
available for it; they look like idiots because they want to.



Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 12:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: comp.risks - SAGE - part 1
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> "National paranoia"? I know it's trendy now to look back on the 50's
-> and 60's and laugh at the little minds which guided us through the
-> early Cold War. Hahaha, what simpletons they were.

The official Pentagon party line was "The Russians Are Coming, And We
Better Do Something About It."  That was the line all the way up to the
Reagan Administration.  Uncle Ronnie knew better, and he was right.

The Pentagon's main purpose in life is to perpetuate itself, the
Nuclear Russia On The Way was a great bogey-man.  Unfortunately, it
never was true.  The maps of the day painted the USSR was a monolithic
block, but even in the '80s less than half of the Union could speak
Russian.  Big chunks of the USSR were raghead territory, troublemakers
from the days of the Tsars.  Fully half of the Red Army was deployed
with an eye to suppressing internal insurrection.  And finally, there
was never any way the Soviets could have *afforded* to take on America;
they were stretched so thin they couldn't even digest Eastern Europe,
much less provide housing and food for their own people.  They needed a
bunch more undigested, hostile territory like they needed a veneral
disease.  And when they sent the Red Army off to Afghanistan in a
cluster-fuck of the first order, it became impossible to hide the fact
that the Soviets were in such a bad way they couldn't even take over one
rinky-dink little country right on their border, much less be a threat
to the United States of America.

What's best for the Pentagon isn't necessarily best for the United
States, something that far too many people don't seem to realize.



Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 03:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: comp.risks - SAGE
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Wow, now that I read  (what I deleted)  I see that I was born and
-> spent decades in the blast zone of the McChord ABF SAGE.  I never
-> knew.

I was impressed at what they were trying to accomplish, and the very
primitive equipment they were trying to do it with.  Not even integrated
circuits when they started!  "Biting off more than they could chew"
would be one description, or the civilianized "stretching the limits of
the state of the art."

Tom Jennings (FIDO) has some pointers to some similar projects on his
web page.  Using neon bulbs or mercury tubes for data storage, all sorts
of bizarre dead-end technologies.  Some of them, I really doubt could
ever have worked in any useful way, but millions were spent.  Why?  It
might have been the SAC equivalent of Leslie Groves' shotgun approach to
separating U-238, but I suspect many of those strange ideas were
someone's pet project snapped up by a Pentagon overflowing with
appropriations money and no clear idea of what to do with it - rememebr
Feynman's story of the Pentagon trying to hire him to lead a project to
make tank engines that would burn dirt.

One of the reasons I posted so much of the thread was, the SAGE system
was revolutionary in many ways, but as far as I can tell, it was itself
a dead end.  MIT was reckoned to be at the forefront of computer science
back then, but it took them at least a decade to catch up, because SAGE
was secret, and apparently its developers were outside of the normal CS
clique, so there were few or no information leaks to the outside world.

SAGE also seemed to develop in a peculiarly relaxed fashion, if you
read between the lines.  If I wrap myself in my paranoid-conspiracy
cloak, I could wonder if the Pentagon really expected it to succeed.
They might have been pretty surprised when it finally made it, like the
computer industry when General Electric and Honeywell finally shipped
MULTICS.  Something as ambitious as SAGE was at its inception could have
been some sharp predictions about technological development coming to
the rescue... or it could have been a red herring to send the Soviets
bounding down yet another trail, like Star Wars was.  I can imagine the
reactions of the upper echelons of the Soviet Rocket Defense Force when
the KGB slapped their gleanings about SAGE on their desks.  The Soviets
never quite entered the computer age; Stalin and Khruschev didn't like
computers, so computer science in the USSR was repressed like physics in
Nazi Germany.  That attitude lasted all the way to the end of the USSR;
if the KGB had computerized like the Americans and British, the Party
would likely still be in power.  But the Soviets were hooked on power
politics and not all that enamored of Western-style "efficiency"; your
flunkies always knew what to tell you or not tell you, but those damned
computers might tell you things you didn't want to hear.  Better to
avoid them entirely...



Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 17:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: More eBay weirdness
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> mirror images of each other. One went to Belgium, $10.50 surface
-> shipping. One went to Canada, $20.19 surface shipping. WTF?
-> Canada now costs more to ship to than Europe? That's the USPS for ya.

Not at all.  You're dealing with the intersection of *two* postal
systems; ours and the ones you're mailing to.  Some countries this works
fine; your postal fee gets split depending on who pays to ship it across
the ocean, etc.  However, dealing with Canada, you're talking about a
"privatized" system that's considerably more expensive to operate than
ours is, plus the Canadian government is yellow-shit-terrified of
untaxed contraband coming up from the USA, so they add a hidden surtax
on packages from the US, burying it in their postal fees.  Mexico does
something similar, but they're not as greedy about it.



Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 18:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Funny, considering that rule of law and the sanctity of oaths is a
-> social legacy of Germanic origin.  Just another reason to get pissed

The Romans and Scandinavians probably had more to do with it than the
Germanic tribes.  The Romans didn't invent the rule of law, but they
sure as hell spread it far and wide.  Oaths to the northerners were
deadly serious; about the best a known oathbreaker could hope for was



Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Ammo, chapter 2
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> PS - Tom, Boyer's stocks the Kel-tec P32 pea shooter you were looking
-> for. It i *really* small, and very cheaply made by appearances.

Sure they're cheap.  But as long as it reliably goes bang, does it make
a difference?  It doesn't have to have any more range or accuracy than a
spitwad, and it will have to shoot while full of sweat, dirt, and pocket
lint.


Part of the US Army's acceptance testing for the M1911 service pistol
was to tie a rope to each of the test pistols and drag it through dirt
and sand behind a horse.  It still had to fire after this.  Most of the
revolver candidates didn't pass the test; revolvers have lots of
precision bits in them, and don't take kindly to sand.  Browning kept
opening the clearances on his automatic until it would pass; that's why
Army 1911s are loosey-goosey.

I don't think the Pentagon's Beretta would pass that test.  Lest you
think it was unrealistic, see how many combat zones US troops have
fought in during the last, oh, hundred years or so, that *didn't*
involve crawling on their faces through sand, mud, or both.  Plenty of
everything at the Somme, Verdun, Omaha, the Bulge, Iwo Jima, Kwajalein,
Sicily, Libya, Egypt, Da Nang, Chosin, Desert Storm...



Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 18:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: name that movie
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> to develop (1975!), just a few minutes before I was.  When I heard
-> the state goon call the name, "cam-uh-ly Lynne", I realized that we
-> both bore those Satanic curse names that can be neither pronounced
-> nor spelled by the typical idiot.

I had to change my name when we moved to the South; "David" is a
perfectly ordinary (Jewish) name, but in Suth'run it translates to
something like "Duh-hay-vee-uhd" in four syllables.  So I trimmed it to
just "Dave".  I usually have to repeat it two or three times before they
catch on, but two consonants and one long vowel are hard for even Arkies
to mangle too badly.

I tried using my (Chinese) middle name, Lee, for a while, but it almost
always came out "Lay" to the cornpones.

- Dave "Hey, you.  Asshole.  You talkin' to me?" Williams



Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 16:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Hands-free cell phones show no benefit
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The authors concluded that the distraction is caused by concentration
-> on the conversation itself rather than the physical act of dialing or
-> holding the phone.

As a motorcyclist long before the day of cellular phones (or even the
CB radio craze), I soon learned that any car with two or more occupants
was *much* more likely to do something stupid than a car with a single
occupant.

It's not the phones that are the problem; most people are too stupid to
talk and drive at the same time.



Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 17:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us
Subject: Re: Sidevalves, back to the future?
To: mc-engine@yahoogroups.com

-> >That's half the reason that turbines are so good. They can run at
-> very high >temperatures.

> and the other half is that they don't reciprocate.

...and when the compressor wheel disintegrates, the resulting explosion
is *glorious*!


I never quite understood why a turbine cascade of up to 200 individual
components counts as "only one moving part", but every separate piston
ring, wristpin circlip, rod nut, and bearing shell in a piston engine is
counted as a separate "moving part..."



Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 07:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Sports car bloat
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> On an 84 Firebird, I managed to get 340 pounds out of it, and that
-> was with going to AL heads.  That's scraping all the sound deadening

[when lightening a vehicle] "...you don't look for one place to save a
pound, you look for sixteen places to save an ounce."  - Gordon Jennings



Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 07:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: AC-DC
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Hmmm... maybe you should go high tech.  Laser light bouncing off of a
-> rotating bumpy disk should hit different targets related to the bumps
-> amplitude.

There was one of those in production in the early '80s.  A stereophile
friend of mine still denies it, but I've already documented other
oddities he didn't believe in, like VHS-format "Digital Audio Tape" and
the Elcaset system, which was sort of like an 8-track with two internal
reels.  He did remember 4-track tape and quadraphonic 8-tracks, though.

I'd sort of like to have copies of some of the media for my collection,
which has a 2" floppy disk and various oddball optical storage disks,
including 14" write-once glass platters.

- Dave "strange interest in exotic storage media" Williams



Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 19:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Several Factors Killed Earnhardt, Report Says
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Sure, maybe some sarcasm, but I see RISKS here  (and why are they
-> capitalized?):

The comp.risks digest came from software called LISTSERV running on a
VAX; it's so ancient that my earliest snips (which I haven't posted yet)
are flat-space bang paths, no new-fangled DNS aliases.

Back then, lots of machines only handled uppercase addressing, a legacy
of mainframes that didn't have lower case.  Back in the days when men
were men, and computers ran on three phase 440V...

(ask a rhetorical question, sometimes you get an answer)



Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Urban Zoneing
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Why stop there?  Outlaw prepared food, electricity, and running
-> water...

You've been talking to those Amish missionaries again, haven't'cha?



Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Sound of the Fury, Part II
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The technology used included off the shelf DSP units (From TI?).

Like I've been saying, if the Party could have held on a few more years
for the KGB to get all the latest spy toys, the Permanent Revolution
would still be a reality...

"1984" is starting to look dated compared to the potential of modern
technology to create and maintain a police state.



Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: 1-Petaflop Computer Being Built
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> PETAFLOP
-> MANDELBROT
-> GOOOOOOOOOOO TEAM!!!!!!!!!!

My reaction to the Mandelbrot, Julia, and other sets is still the same
as it was many years ago when I first encountered them:  kinda pretty,
but "so what?"

I guess it's the visual equivalent of an endless loop.



Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 20:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Lapping valves part II
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> "People need to take control and be responsible for their
-> [computer] architecture and the choices they make," says Gartner
-> analyst David Smith. Needing an advanced function for one task,

Ri-ight.  In most companies the people who make the purchasing
decisions operate on an entirely different chain than the people who set
up and use the equipment.

Reminds me of an old Dilbert cartoon.  The Pointy-Haired Boss tells
Dilbert they need to add a relational database to their product.
Dilbert asks him what flavor he'd like?  PHB says raspberry has the most
RAM.

That's pretty much how most places I've worked for have acquired new
equipment...



Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Japan developing micro nuclear reactor for apartment
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> >I wrote up a DOE SBIR proposal to investigate this several years
-> >ago.  The silence was deafening.  Pisser.

> So why not go to private enterprise?

There's not really any "private" enterprise with nukes; you have to
hang off the appropriate government tit *and* be one of their small
group of approved contractors.

Those companies don't want to hear about subdivision-size
mini-reactors, nor do their primary customers, the power utilities.  For
anyone else to become "of the body" would require so much paperwork that
it would probably be economical to just build a coal-burning plant and
convert it over to wood pulp, which would be supplied for free via the
boxcarloads of Federal paperwork leading you around in circles.

Automobiles, aircraft, and other industries are being strangled by
government regulations now, but the nuclear industry was strangled in
its crib.



Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: more JFK
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

I just finished "High Treason" by Robert Groden and Harrison
Livingstone.  Another JFK assassination expose, circa 1989.

The first half wasn't too bad; it made detailed and repetitive
statements showing differences in the autopsy report at Bethesda and the
attending physician's notes and testimony at Dallas.  Also some
interesting stuff about the Congressional commission of 1976, which
re-opened the Warren mess.

From a source-and-documentation point of view things were looking okay,
though the authors had an obvious political bias from the very beginning
("the Republicans did it.")  The second half of the book degenerated
into loosely-categorized allegations and "evidence" that blew away the
credibility they had built up in the first half.  Specifically, they
tried to show Richard Nixon, his "CIA buddies", and Big Oil collaborated
with the Mafia to make the hit.  The careful listing of testimony and
evidence is abandoned in favor of 25-year-old recollections of
unavailable memoranda, anything by Jack Anderson or Dan Rather accepted
as gospel, gratuitous name-calling, and an interesting attitude toward
Warren Commission, FBI, DPD, and CIA information - anything that agreed
with their theory was fact, anything which disagreed was forged by the
conspirators.  Yeah, buddy.  I think they use lithium and Prozac for
that...

Much of their "evidence" against Nixon was supposed to be direct quotes
from his book "Six Crises", referred to as "My Six Crises" in the text.
Unfortunately (for them) I just read that book a few months ago, and
since I'm a minor assassination buff I'd certainly have remembered their
supposed quotes.

The whole book is written in the usual strident journalist tone; in the
book "Games People Play" it's identified as the game "Ain't It Awful?"
And the forces of the Free Press are the only thing defending us from
the police state...

Lots of autopsy pictures of JFK's brains hanging out, if you're into
that sort of thing, though.  And despite their supposed attention to
detail of the hospital and coroner's actions, they failed to answer a
few of the questions I've been wondering about, like:

With a baseball-sized chunk of brain missing (the motorcycle cop
diagonally behind the limo, the sidewalk, and some of the Secret
Service men in the following car were liberally sprayed with
brains and blood) JFK was driven to a hospital (so far, none of
the books I've read has mentioned the transit time) and was
rushed into ICU, where (again for an indeterminate time) the ER
people worked on him, including performing a tracheotomy.

With that much of his head missing, if he wasn't DOA he was one
tough sumbitch.  What made them treat it as a trauma case instead
of just filling out a death certificate?  And why the tracheotomy?

Lots of people who were apparently little more than casual bystanders
are vaguely accused of being part of the conspiracy, including one
"Robert Anson."  Claims were made that during the 1976 re-investigation
that some of the photographic evidence had been forged by a
quasi-Federal outfit named Bolt, Baranek, and Newman.  Took me a minute
to remember who they were; they were one of the original Internet
"Backbone Cabal."



Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 18:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Several Factors Killed Earnhardt, Report Says
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> IMHO, NASCAR's hopelessly mired in the past.  Do they have *any*
-> equipment on these cars that's not at least 30 years old?  OK, maybe
-> cool suits and radios.

Richard Petty ran the first cool suit I know of, back in the '60s.  And
the Keikhafer Mopars in the late '50s or 'early '60s used radios.  There
was in-car NASCAR video in the '70s.

Remember, NASCAR vehicles look like they do because of the rules, which
are secret, by the way.  Only available to the teams.  How do you get to
be a NASCAR team?  You have to split off from an existing team, or offer
Bill France a cooler full of money.

The much-lauded Formula 1's ban list is impressive - no four wheel
drive, no turbos, no superchargers, no turbines, no exotic fuels, no
antilock brakes, no traction controls, extremely limited use of
non-aluminum and non-ferrous materials, no "living hinge" suspension
members, no more than four wheels, no vacuum traction, no aero
underpinnings, no moveable aero devices, no fenders, no roof, no active
suspension, no carbon brakes, no beryllium brakes, no...  other than
more cylinders, mid engine, and not being reguired to use carburetors,
not a hell of a lot different from a NASCAR, come to think of it.



Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 17:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: more JFK
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Hopkins?), they try to get you to draw the same conclusions.  I
-> personally think Nixon was our last great hope, hence the portrait of
-> him on my wall.  Gee, Nixon on the wall, potentially Lenin on the
-> desk what a fun life I must lead!

The portrait on my wall is of Churchill, but if I ever find a good one
of Nixon I'll put it up.  I wonder what happens to all those pictures in
various Federal buildings when the administration changes?

Tricky Dick has a special place in my heart - he reminds me of... me.
Are you paranoid if they really are out to get you?  And he would have
been a beautiful example of "now not to lead" in my ROTC classes.  Nixon
had a very odd mindset which is very evident from his writing - his idea
of chain of responsibility boiled down to "Pointy-Haired Boss" and
"toady."  He toadied to anyone over him, and expected people under him
to do the same to him.  Unfortunately, when he reached the Presidency he
was surrounded by people who thought they had plenty of power of their
own, and didn't agree with his extreme ideas.  A great man with feet of
clay all the way up to the hipbones.  

If our slow droshki from Russia ever makes it in, we'll all have Lenins
on our desks!



Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 17:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Funny post from the XJS List!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

>Bigcat, that's a laffer, man. Idea for you: Email him back and say you
>also saw Big Al Unser promoting PTFE-oil (DuraLube?), and drive a
>Corvette several laps at a racetrack on TV, so why doesn't he run some
>through his Jag motor, and then drain the crankcase!!!  No more oil to
>buy, no sloshing mass, no more leaky stem seals, or rear main leaks,
>etc etc. No oil solves lots of problems. Norm

Technospam.  This kind of crap is presented as fact, just like ozone
science.  With an ordinary public school education (zero) the average
schmuck has no background to imply plausible doubt to advertising
claims.  Besides, wouldn't the FCC or FTA prohibit lying ads?  Well, no,
but they don't know that either.

Sure, that particular jest sounds ridiculous to any of us, but to
probably 1/3 of all Americans, it sounds perfectly logical.  
I really should have kept some of those old K&N ads from the '80s, the
ones where the only contact information was a 900 number.  Their claims
toed the line from outrageous to fraudulent; they did everything
possible to make the reader think he was going to get something like a
Paxton supercharger, not an air filter.



Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2001 18:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: more JFK
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Have you ever read "Reasonable Doubt" by Henry Hurt?
-> That is the best JFK book ever IMNSHO.

Not yet.  There are only a couple hundred books on the JFK
assassination, after all.    I wonder if that's the same as "Harry
Hurt" who did the Hurt Report for the NHTSA back in the '70s?


-> It presents several theories but doesn't try to push any of them
-> (since there is no theory that is not somewhat filled with holes).

Jim Garrison's book is similar; mostly a level-headed recital of the
investigation he ran when he was prosecutor in New Orleans.  His take is
that there's enough meat for lots of theories, but too many witnesses
died; many of them within hours after Garrison's deputies served
subpoenas.  He's a bit bitter about the treatment he got from the Fed
and the various media smear attempts at him, though.


-> I personally think the JFK was doomed the minute Bobby kidnapped
-> Carlos Marcello and dumped him into the jungles of panama with only

That whole Jack/Bobby thing has always bugged me.  Kennedy's brother
was basically an enforcement arm for the White House, answerable only
to... the White House.  Nice and circular.  I've not seen any good
attempts at proving Bobby's DOJ people were JFK's private SchutzStaffel,
but they were certainly in a bad position, check-and-balance-wise.
Caused a lot of grief with the FBI, CIA, and the rest of the DOJ.  Bad
juju there.  Lots of people in DC considered themselves more powerful
than Presidents; and they proved it.


"High Treason" was interesting mostly because it started off okay, the
Skeptic Meter didn't even quiver.  Then they not only stepped in the
shit, they got down and rolled in it.  Oops, I think the meter bent the
needle...



Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 09:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: ROTC  more JFK
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Dave, you and ROTC?

Yep.  Me, in trouble with the authorities all the time, frequently
expelled from school, doing just fine in ROTC.

The difference was, I signed up of my own free will with a good idea
of what I was getting into, and I actually learned some useful stuff.

Not like being incarcerated as a non-person in the school system.  I
owed the school nothing but a hard time.



Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 10:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Thermo King
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I recently saw a Thermo King on top of a school bus - the first such
-> that I have seen.  It seemed like a Death valley solution.

I had to ride the Hell Bus a few times as a kid.  115F outside,
aluminum bus.  Windows that only lowered about 2 inches, so the lusers
wouldn't climb out of them.  Probably 140F inside, with people passing
out on the floor.  1-1/2 hour ride to get to your house 5 miles away.

In the winter, the windows frosted over.  Most of them couldn't be
closed because they were broken.  The only heat was for the driver, who
usually wore a parka and mukluks and drove around with the door open
anyway.

"Look at all those horrible people, wasting gas to pick their kids up
at school when there's a perfectly good school bus to do it!"
Yeah.  Right.  Asshole.  Try riding the fucking bus yourself some time.

- Dave "school sucked" Williams



Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 10:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: grok'ed it
Sender: owner-diy_efi@diy-efi.org
To: diy_efi@diy-efi.org

-> I know the proper usage in a sentence like "It's in the middle of
-> Bum-f**ked Egypt", but what's its origin?

In Britlish, it'd be "North of John O'Groat's."

In Tagalog, it's be "bundoc," absorbed into American English as "the
boondocks."



Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 20:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> > I'll probably get the ISO argument. This ain't Europe people! >
->
-> The rest of the world, actually...:^)

The USA has been metric since 1789.  Unfortunately, the ISO has crapped
up the metric system into stupid gibberish.

They can shove their Pascals, Pferdestarke, and Torr; they'll change it
to something else next week anyway.  I'll stay with US Customary, where
I don't have to worry about getting up in the morning and finding out
all my basic units of measure have been changed.  Again.



Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 07:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us
Subject: steam engines
To: mc-engine@yahoogroups.com

-> You really wouldn't want to have a spill with a steam powered bike
-> roasted nuts anyone:-)

Yeah, and a crash with a gasoline-powered internal combustion bike
could be a real problem - the gasoline could explode, and you'd turn
into a human torch.



Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 08:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> >The USA has been metric since 1789.

> What?
> I can hardly believe it - another person quoting this legal issue?  I
> had fallen to believing that I was the only one to read and believe
> this historical Frog fact.  Dave, again, you surprise!

Not a Frog fact.  One of the specific provisions of the new
Constitution was to create a Bureau of Weights and Measures.  The
pre-Federal Confederation of states was a mess, with each state having
its own weights and measures - a New York barrel was different from a
Virginia barrel, etc.  Made inter-state trade a real pain in the ass.

Rather than pick one state system and piss everybody off, or create a
Federal system to confuse the issue further, the new Bureau adopted the
new-fangled metric system from the French, who were a major world power
and our allies in the recent American Revolution.  The French had only
recently standardized on the metric system, which was actually a Dutch
invention, but the French were the first to adopt it.

The Bureau then defined a "US Customary Measure" using the same names
as the various states' units, but defined in terms of the metric system.

All the states abandoned their own measures (not without some
grumbling, I'm sure) and went to the Federal inches, pounds, etc.  And,
in the old English tradition, kept using them as fractions.  Decimal
inches didn't start appearing until the automobile industry in Detroit
moved from fractions to decimals to simplify things.  During WWI the War
Department made a major concession letting subcontractors use decimal
inches instead of the fractional ones.  However, it wasn't until WWII
that decimal inches really replaced fractions as part of the Unified
National system, which standardized measures and thread systems among
the United Nations (now called the Allies, after they created a "United
Nations" as a specific organization). Even then, holdouts like Ford
Motor Company still *designed* in decimal inches - take a look at a
Y-block sometime and you'll notice everything is in 32nds and 64ths.

When I make nasty comments about ISO metric, I *do* have some idea what
I'm bitching about.

Even in the old mks/cgs system, most of the units were redundant -
nobody ever used hectometers or deciliters.  (well, ISO fruitbats use
deciliters, Heywood is full of that kind of crap...)

I'm surprised the Bible-pounders don't make a big stand for rods and
cubits, come to think of it.



Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 08:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Alright, how could a citizen of the one country of the world design
-> in metric?  It is almost impossible to even buy metric measuring
-> tools here. There are no round numbers in metric.

They design in even millimeters to absurdly close tolerances, and it
comes off the CNC machine with whatever tolerances the machine and its
tooling stack up.  I seldom come across any manual stuff done in metric.

Most designers are clueless about tolerancing, it's apparently not a
big part of the ME curriculum nowadays.  Bad tolerancing not only makes
stuff that won't fit together, it makes stuff that can be much more
expensive than it needs to be.  One place I worked, one part was a knob
made out of fluted bar stock.  The hole was drilled, reamed, and roller
burnished to .377 +/-.0001, as I remember.  Turned out it the assembly
it went on, it mated to rod made out of ordinary 3/8" stainless steel
rod, whatever size it happened to be from the supplier.    Those
knobs took a *long* time to make... for something that they *should*
have bought from McMcaster-Carr for $2 each.

My electronic instruments all do metric fine, and you can buy metric
micrometers and dial calipers from any real tool supply place.  But you
lose resolution unless you play the fractions game.


-> This is a serious question, one that I have pondered often, thinking
-> of a new design, all metric.

"Metric" threads and their tap drills suck.  But no matter what
weird-bastard sizes you use, they're all "metric" as long as you
dimension them that way.  My Australian Leyland service manual has
metrified inch specs - everything is 11.5mm diameter bolts, etc.  But
it's no worse than stuff designed in metric to start with.


The metric system was better than the chaos that ruled before; no
question about it.  But it's not a *good* system, and its flaws are
many, except to the metric zealots.



Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 14:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Floor Mats
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> all peachy keen happy. Thanks, Kemper. (Ever since rascally DW stuck
-> the notion that you look like an evil Colonel Klink into my fertile
-> mind, I can't shake it. I'm sorry, but I feel like I should be
-> "heiling" you too!) Norm

I walked through the living room the other day, AB was watching the
"Mirror, Mirror" episode of TOS, with alterSpock and the evil
Enterprise.

Leonard Nimoy looked positively fiendish with the goatee, tilted
eyebrows, and pointy ears.



Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 14:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us
Subject: Re: Ricardo book
To: mc-engine@yahoogroups.com

-> Its absolutely magic stuff
-> The guy must have been brilliant
-> To work out all these fundementals
-> with out any formal training

He didn't need "formal training", he was doing basic research, much of
it backed by the Admiralty and Air Board.  The stuff he did is where
"formal training" *comes from*.

Compare Ricardo's stuff to, oh, Heywood.  Heywood is considered a basic
text for engine design nowadays, but it's all highly abstracted from the
originals.  I have the stuff Heywood cribbed from - NACA papers, Heldt,
Schwietzer, Glassman.  The stuff written by people who turned dyno
engines to smoking wreckage, like Ricardo, not armchair engineers
collating other people's reports.

Credentials are the icing on the cake; many people assume credentials
are the same as ability.



Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 13:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: BasicX project dies
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> support issues that don't need to exist. In the long run, it makes
-> more sense to just use a format that is widely available and not deal
-> with worrying about how clients are going to read it.

That's right.  And that format is plain ASCII.

I don't give a flying fuck about their fonts, pagination, headers,
footers, margins, hanging indents, or arty use of white space.  All I
need is the data.


-> Been there, done that. All documentation I release is in PDF format,
-> regardless of what I use to create it.

Yep.  I've already been pointed toward a few products that
unfortunately had even their *sales* information available only as PDF;
not just instantaneous no further interest, but another entry on my
personal black list.




Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 14:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Study Shows That Tire Underinflation Is Common
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> possible tire.  Ford knew the Explorer rolls over easily but kept
-> making them.  There's lots of blame to go around.

Before the Explorer it was the Suzuki Samurai.  Before the Samurai it
was the Chrysler K-cars.  Before the K-cars it was the Corvair.  There
was probably something before that.

"Roll over and collect big bucks" is a memetic thread programmed into
the media subconscious; looks like every seven years or so it pops back
up and they stick the pitchfork into another hapless victim.

What goes around, comes around.  And around.  And around...

This has probably been the Big Secret of media pundits and major
newscasters.  There's only a certain amount of news; after a few years
they recycle it.  And since the mass mind is made of Teflon, nobody
remembers it (usually not even the pundits!) so if you're slick, all you
have to do is recycle the same crap you put out last time.



Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 20:53:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: BasicX project dies
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> There's nothing magical about ASCII, it's just a standard.

"Just" a standard?  The only things that can't read ASCII are some
funky IBM mainframes that talk EBCDIC.


-> The only drawback (if you could call it that,) is that they require a
-> somewhat more sophisticated reader than ASCII to put the letters on
-> the screen.  Given that readers for all of these formats are free,
-> there doesn't seem to be much impediment to using them.

I don't want a "reader"; you might as well distribute the "documents"
as .GIF images, which are even more "capable" and portable than PDF.
The choices of editors for PDFs are limited to, what, two?  And both of
them gigondomondous, and both requiring some sort of GUI to use.
-> And I'm sure that's keeping their sales & marketing guys up at night.
-> ;-)

  It's my money, I'll spend it - or not - as I please.



Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 08:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: BasicX project dies
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> text.  There's that bad old paper again, the stuff that Dave hates so
-> bad :-)

I *love* paper.  Fast random access, readable anywhere there's light,
cheap too.  But even after spending a couple of weeks arranging and
building an index notebook, it took forever to find something.  And
then there was water damage after the roof leaked, and the fact that
it's only accessible when I'm at home.

You mentioned some stuff in a storage room; fat lot of good that does
you.  And even after dumping 35 years worth of car and motorcycle
magazines, I still have four or five times the paper you do.

Paper is great.  But being able to find what I'm looking for is really
nice, too...



Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The only frame if reference that really works is a mathematical one.

Ballocks.  I've never had any trouble with mass gain or time
contraction, or with the basic concepts of relativity in general.  We're
talking third grade science class here; it was in the same chapter as
Newton the the friggin' apple.

You don't need a mathematical model; it's no different than
non-Euclidean geometry, which (used to) be high school stuff.



Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.

-> be a sheep to THEIRS?"  Me: "Hon, when 45 straight reviewers say a
-> movie sucks, it SUCKS.  Trust me".

Oddly enough, when 45 straight reviewers say a movie is wonderful, it
almost always sucks.  Particularly if they're pumping it hard in the ad
channels.

Why put any effort into making a good movie when you can just budget to
buy favorable reviews?



















Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:31:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I still don't believe in action at a distance.  Ether, ether,
-> everywhere.

Some of the newer theories about "potential mass" start sounding a lot
like ether to me...  not that I care much, but all Michelson-Morley
proved was that their send and receive times were the same *to the
limits they could measure*.  They didn't "disprove" ether; they simply
proved that if there was an ether, it was thinner than a politician's
campaign promise.

- Dave "phlogiston" Williams

Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Newtonian Physics is an attempt to describe the world we observe.

And a damned good model it is, too!  There's nothing you can touch or
see with your own hands and eyes that doesn't obey Newton's laws as
described.  The resolution of Newton's laws is finer than that of the
human-observable universe, and there was no instrumentation in Newton's
day fine enough to observe otherwise.

You have to build substantially micro and macro measuring tools before
you can measure out to where your observations show deviation from
Newtonian predictions.

Science is the art of successive approximation; as new data become
available, new approximations of reality are created.  But Newton's
approximation is more than close enough for
reality-as-you-can-fondle-it.

Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> <>

> "But I dont WANT lunch....I want.....breakfast"

Gack, that sounds like me!

Unless you go to a Waffle House (DON'T YOU LIKE TO EAT WHERE IT'S
*LOUD* AND ECHOEY?), there's no place in central Arkansas you can get
food before 11 AM.  All you can get before that are "breakfast
merchandise" consisting of eggs, sausage, or shit-on-a-shingle.  Since
I don't eat any of that crap, it's either buy and cook my own, or wait
for the magic number to come up on the clock.


Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 21:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Again, true enough, but it does fall apart at some point.

Of course.  Though each time a major model is replaced, way too many
people who should know better start getting all freakazoid over it.
Getting emotionally attached to theories you *know* have holes always
struck me as rather stupid.

Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 21:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Heavy air
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> If light waves propagated through the either as water waves propagate
-> through water, the speeds would have been different in the two
-> directions. Earth goes around the sun at about 9 miles/sec compared
-> to light at 186,000 miles/sec.  The difference would have been
-> measurable with their instruments.

Uh, not if the resistance of the ether was below the limit of their
instruments.

Experiments are *always* limited by the resolution of the instruments;
if we could just measure stuff directly to arbitrary absolutes,
chemistry and physics would be plain old engineering, not a hybrid of
math and philosophy.


Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 18:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: I LOVE AMERICA
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> The most wound up I've been is when after paying into the system, and
-> needed it, I got next to nothing.   Pregant gals with 6 kids in tow,
-> got the royal treatment, relatively speaking.

That's because there are a hell of a lot more of baby-spawning young women
than crotchety bastards with medical problems.  And their brainless
votes count just as much as yours... actually, more than yours, since
they figure the breeders will be around longer, and will program their
spawn too.

Letting people on public assistance vote undid several centuries of a
previously-stable Republic of Rome in a few short decades.  But
enfranchising the masses to buy votes always looks good in the short
term.
The Founding Fathers had damned good reasons not to extend the
voting franchise to everyone.

"Those who fail to learn from history will have to take it again next
semester."


Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 18:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: dooring
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> >I thought just having the door fall on on the ground was cool.
-> >"Dragnet."

> Yes, oh, yes - cool.  No fun though, when I have no crew to reinstall
> it.

Yes.  Too bad how so many really cool actions wind up self-defeating in
the long term.

"Hold my beer and watch this..."

Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2001 19:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Counterfeit graduation tickets
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> HANOVER, N.H., June 14 (Reuter) - A former Dartmouth College
-> student was arrested for selling counterfeit graduation tickets for
-> the event at his Ivy League alma mater, police said Tuesday.

What interested me about this story was, any place I've ever seen, the
stands or auditorium were mostly empty at graduations.

The idea of a graduation so packed that admission was by ticket only is
very strange.  Counterfeiting the tickets is even stranger; as for being
arrested for it...
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 06:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: red/green color blind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Dave, is that the correct way to put it?

Yep.


->   What do you see of a red light?

If I could see it, I wouldn't be color blind.

Sometimes all I can tell is that it's a "medium" color.  Other times I
can see "red" or "green", but they're not always the same.  People tell
me things that are "red" or "green", but what is one color one day may
be the other color tomorrow, if I see it at all.

Green-brown, red-orange, blue-purple are all unreliable.  "Pastels" are
usually gray, or indeterminate "light."

Rainbows have two colors - blue and yellow.  With a dark stripe in the
middle.

Some web pages come up blank to me.  "Red" and "green" text?

There are more people with red/green color blindness than are probably
in the Republican Party; something like 10% of all males have it.  It's
a sex-linked genetic defect.  But the moron lusers keep color coding
everything.

Traffic lights are often a serious problem.  Luckily we don't have many
of them here.  Traffic lights in urban areas, particularly at night, are
invisible against the street lights.  I have to watch traffic flow.


Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 21:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Transplantees
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Ray the other guy I vistedwith alot early this month, got a heart
-> last night, obvisously still in ICU, but things are sounding good.
->
-> Ya know, I just get a warm feeling hearing of good news like this.
-> Getting a second chance is a special gift

This is where someone like Charles Manson or John Wayne Gacy could
actually do something to pay back something for their crimes.  Break 'em
down for spare parts!  Once you've used everything you can before the
meat spoils, you cremate the remains and use them to fertilize one of
the fields at the prison farms.

There have been societies with justice systems based on restitution,
not punishment.  The old "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" thing.
Some of the Middle Eastern city-states in Biblical times used that
system, but the most recent societies I can think of offhand with that
idea were ancient Denmark and ancient England during and after Danish
rule, though I'm certain it hung on *somewhere* far longer.

Somehow the idea of punishment got precedence over restitution,
possibly because it was simpler to codify and make decisions by rote.
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2001 22:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: red/green color blind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> unless I pay CLOSE attention.  HPS lighting on streets must be one of
-> the stupidest things the traffic boys have come up with ever!!

Wait until you see the "light racks" in Little Rock.  I forgot to take
my camera with me last time.  They're, oh, 5x8 grids of lights, put in
during Klinton's governorship as some kind of civic beautifuckation
thing.  At least I can sometimes tell if a light is ON or OFF even if I
can't see what color it is... except the light racks might have two or
three greens, ambers, or reds, and who knows which is what?

Some outlying areas have some sort of weirdball "reflector lights";
unless the sun is just right I can't see that they do anything at all.
Judging from the traffic, a lot of other people have the same problem.

Some areas hang regular three-element lights sideways.  I can guess the
middle one is amber, otherwise I have no idea.

In a few isolated places (Dumas, Arkansas is one) there are lights that
are hung with "green" on top and "red" on the bottom.

The Arkansas Motor Vehicle Code (I have it, on dead trees) talks only
of color; the arrangement of colored lights is up to the individual
highway departments.

If you see an old movie from the '20s or '30s you'll see most lights
have metal shields that say "STOP" or "GO".  I guess that's
discriminatory against the non-readers now.  Probably not ISO road sign
compatible either.  But it'd sure be nice if they were still there...


Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 19:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: red/green color blind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> True, but at a distance, shapes are difficult to distinguish as well.
-> I suppose you could make the red light flash as well.

Arkansas statutes specify flashing red as meaning the same as steady
red.  Okay.

There are some flashing yellows around here.  The Statutes don't say a
damned thing about flashing yellow.  ?Que pasa?  I ignore them.


-> Many of the red lights at dangerous intersections here in Dallas have
-> a tiny white strobe light in the center which flashes at about 1 Hz
-> when the red light is on.  It *does* grab your attention...

Great.  I'd probably drive right through while trying to figure out
what the fuck *that* meant.

Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 19:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: red/green color blind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> The only problem with that is it could be easily mistaken for a
-> circle at that size and distance. Especially when you're dealing with
-> a grid of LEDs. A square would be a lot more distinguishable.

I'd vote for a plain English STOP in caps.  Fuck the picture-goobers.

If you can't learn "STOP, GO, NO PARKING, SPEED LIMIT xx, YIELD" and
half a dozen other simple English words and phrases, you have no
goddamned business driving on American roads.

I wouldn't expect to go to Thailand or Saudi Arabia and drive around
without having to learn their rules of the road; they can damned well
learn ours if they come over here.

As for the illiterates... if they're too stupid to read, they're too
stupid to drive.  Q.E.D.
Date: Tue, 04 Sep 2001 20:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: red/green color blind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> aren't red :)  I sometimes check the "Walk"/"Don't Walk" signs when
-> they're available,

I never quite understood those.  The way they're wired in Little Rock,
you're only supposed to cross the street when cars are turning in from
the cross-street.  You can't see those well, nor can they see you - the
exact opposite of walking when traffic is moving on the street you're
trying to cross.

Little Rock also has a law against crossing the street anywhere except
at intersections, and only when the lights tell you.  I had to look that
one up when I heard about it; that's some of the damnedest bullshit I
ever came across.

There used to be "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" signs, which made it easier to
keep track of their insane street-crossing rules.  Those have been
largely replaced with mystifying icon lights - "HAND JIVE" and "LOWER
BACK PAIN."  At least that's what the universal, non-mystifying
iconography tells *me*.  They're not quite the same color; I suspect one
is "red" and one is "green", though I'm damned if I can figure out which
is which.  Or why.


Nutscrape and Exploder have hugely oversized button bars.  They have
icons and text by default.  You can turn off the text, but you can't
turn off the icons.  The icons for Nutscrape (which is up at the moment,
since I've been puttering with FangleBase) are, in order:

Christmas tree ornament, Christmas tree ornament, backpack, house,
rocket, table radio, toilet paper roll, wilted plant, migraine, and
Christmas tree ornament.

Boy.  That really tells me a helluva lot...


I get a kick out of the graphics-heads and their jabber about
"universal meaning."  They are so clueless they don't even know they've
missed the boat.
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 18:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: red/green color blind
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> >  Arkansas statutes specify flashing red as meaning the same as
-> steady > red.  Okay.

> Ouch.  In NC and CA, at least, flashing red is equivalent to a Stop
> sign.

Right.  Steady red, flashing red, and stop sign are all the same under
Arkansas statute.  Stop, yield, continue.  Lots of dummies sit there at
a red light with no cross traffic, but you don't *have* to.


-> Haven't checked CA, but NC flashing yellow is essentially equivalent
-> to Yield.

Steady yellow simply means "caution."  That is, meaningless.
Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 16:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: pnp
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> mechanical design) and for what I did I'm not sure that CAD is an
-> improvement even now.  I could whip out a schematic using a drafting
-> machine and templates in probably half the time it takes to do it on
-> CAD.  For small projects, it's a loser.  For large projects where
-> BOMs, lots of revisions and such were needed, yeah, a winner.

I've been saying that for years - for stuff that gets revised, or a lot
of people have to work with, or sees a lot of wear, yeah, CAD is fine.
But most places where I worked in a machine shop (or in the drawing
room) 75% of all drawings could have been done freehand on notebook
paper and duplicated with a cheap office copy machine.

The main thing about CAD stuff that bugs me is the "peering through a
knothole" issue; for big drawings - the kind CAD is actually useful for
- you have to either shrink it enough to lose detail, or pan around to
look at small sections.

Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 08:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: There's a Harley in my living room
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> My brother came over last night, and today we put his Harley in my
-> living room.  It will probably stay there 'till he comes to live with
-> me in October or so.

I used to park my Kawasaki in the living room, and I've known other
people who did it.  In Don's case, remembering him get a Honda up two
flights of steps makes me regret there were no cheap camcorders back
then...

Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 09:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Risks ... to the quality of science (Tobis, RISKS-15.77)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Would IBM have attempted to sell to the private sector had Microsoft
-> not made it feasible?

Sure they would.  They *did*.  The IBM PC was designed from the
beginning to run the "industry standard" operating system - Digital
Research's Control Program/Microcomputer, otherwise known as CP/M.


-> industry what Ford did for the automotive industry: allowed the
-> common person access to technology not otherwise attainable.

Digital Research did it first; Microsoft is just a me-too.


-> matter, Microsoft is the primary reason the 8080 legacy lived so damn
-> long (too damn long IMHO).

Motorola is the reason the x80/x86 architecture rules.  The IBM PC
prototyping was at the wire-wrap stage when Motorola finally admitted
the 68000 was just sample-ware, and they weren't tooled up to actually
make any in quantity.  So IBM went to a vendor who could actually
deliver - Intel.  Well, sort of deliver.  Intel was ramped up okay for
8088s, but the IBM PC was designed to take the 8088 CPU and the 8087
math coprocessor.  Intel had major fabrication problems with the 8087,
which weren't solved until about the time the 80386 shipped.  IBM
shipped the PC with an empty socket where the 8087 was supposed to go.


-> What of the Amiga and Commodore?

Both of them were too busy shooting themselves in the foot to move out
of the consumer electronics market.  Same with Atari.  Apple *just
barely* made it - don't forget there have been infusions of cash from
both IBM and Microsoft to keep them afloat.

In 1982, the IBM PC was the weak sister in the personal computer
market.  16K of RAM and a cassette port on the base model didn't stack
up well against a 64K Commodore or Apple.  Not to mention the installed
software base of the others.  What put the PC architecture in the lead
was that it was simple, thoroughly documented by the manufacturer (even
schematics and BIOS sources in the IBM PC Technical Reference Manual!),
IBM didn't try to sue people who cloned the system, and it had for-real
SLOTS, that you could put expansion cards in, for exotic hardware like
hard disk controllers or even network cards.  And a big, roomy box to
hold your slots and peripherals, instead of stringing boxes and cables
all over the desk.

The importance of an open architecture was made clear when IBM itself
bit the big one with the PS/2.  Seen any Micro Channel machines
recently?  The Micro Channel fiasco put IBM out of the picture as a PC
manufacturer.


-> There's good and bad in the way Microsoft has directed the industry.

Microsoft was just fine until 1993 or so, when they used their profits
from DOS to bribe the computer magazine industry into pimping for
Windows.  A few expense-paid trips to Redmond, some fancy dinners, a
chance to hobnob with Bill, and that was about all it took to convert
your average editor or columnist into a Microsoft believer.  So they
started writing like Windows had won out in the market... when at the
time it had less than 10% penetration.  Windows was good, everything
else was bad, you keep pumping the party line, and eventually it'll be
true.  Their "direction" was cheap bribery.


-> What if Microsoft had never made it? What would the industry be like
-> if Microsoft had failed and died a miserable death in it's early
-> stages?

The average computer luser wouldn't think Microsoft Office *was* "the
computer"?

- Dave "Pravda" Williams
Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 21:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Risks ... to the quality of science (Tobis, RISKS-15.77)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> This is not meant as an arguement, but just a statement.  I accessed
-> the technology as a young kid, before there was microsoft, before
-> windblows.  Hmm, perhaps I am, uncommon?

Yes.

I've been in repair shops where the SENIOR technicians have never seen
Windows 3.1 or a 286 computer.

Probably 90% of all current computer users have never seen anything
earlier than Windows 95.

The newbies are by far the largest group; that's why almost everything
is slanted toward the clueless new user.

A large proportion of computer users have no clue what the "operating
system" is, and would be hard pressed to understand the difference
between "Microsoft Windows" and "Microsoft Office".  Few of them have
ever seen a naked Windows install.

Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2001 21:59:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: cool million
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


I managed to social-engineer a uucp account at the local university
back in early 1992.  The CS department even did the software
configuration and domain registration for me, such a deal!  Best social
engineering I ever did...

I purchased a utility program that took the uucp input and imported it
into PC Board BBS format.  I was running a paid-for copy of PC Board on
The Courts of Chaos, so it was only reasonable to just stick usenet mail
in there.

I'm still running the *same* install of PC Board 9-1/2 years later.  It
ran 24x7 for 7 years as a public system, with my personal mail on a LAN
node.  It has never crashed.  Most of the configuration files are still
dated 1992, though I'm running it under Weiners 95 locally instead of on
a DOS LAN station nowadays.

UALR said next time the uucp box goes down, they're not going to bring
it back up.  The free ride is over.  I can't really complain, except...
remember I'm still running the same 1992 install of PC Board?  The
message area (conference, in PC-Board-ese) where my personal mail goes
has climbed steadily over the years... right now it's just over 966,000
messages.  I really wanted to see it click over the million mark, but I
have a sneaking suspicion the link will go down first.  (no, I
appreciate it, but you don't need to sign me up to any spam lists to run
the message count up...)

No pick-a-burger subject line menu.  Every one of that 966,000 got
read in the order received.

34,000 short, but percentage-wise, that's pretty close to a million...

Back in '93 or '94 I was visiting jgd and he mentioned he was archiving
all his outgoing mail.  I figured, heck, I could do that.  Just add
another line to the batch file and add the outgoing messages to a
compressed archive.  Took about three minutes.  Since then, I've filled
a big stack of 1.44Mb floppies with outgoing mail.  Part of my new
mailer project is to recover all those old messages and populate the
outgoing mail archive; hey, disk space is cheap enough now...  I can
admire my old flames from the Denizens of Doom days.  Maybe.

When the uucp link goes down and I have to go to the POP3 account, I
think I'll initialize the message count in Ringmaster to whatever PC
Board's last message number was. Continuity and tradition are important,
you know...

Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2001 20:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Risks ... to the quality of science (Tobis, RISKS-15.77)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Sure, there have been other factors: games, the "internet", home
-> financing software, etc... but most of those were enabled by (sad to
-> say) Microsloth technology.

Uh... other than "internet", which Microsoft only embraced relatively
recently, all that stuff was available on the Apple II and the Commodore
PET, before Billgatus of Borg even founded Traf-O-Data, much less
Microsnot.

Just about everything you can do with a computer, someone has been
doing for at least 20 years.  It might be BASIC on paper tape, it might
be Windows XP, a Cray or a Palm, but it's all the same old shit -
editing, sorting, storing stuff, communications, graphics, sound.
Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2001 20:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.

-> the biker in "Animal House" rode his bike up and down the stairs and
-> didnt seem to have any problem ;)

Oh, I have no trouble with stairs per se.  Neither did Don.  His
problem was, there was a narrow flight of stairs, a very small offset
landing, then another narrow flight of stairs... and spring-loaded
screen door at the top.

Don had to ride the bike up and put the front wheel against the wall at
the far side of the landing, then, standing on tippytoe on the stairs,
sort of hooch the bike over at an oblique angle and then heave it up by
brute force, since applying power to the rear wheel when the bike was
kinked over merely slid the rear wheel over against the railing.

He eventually learned to wire the screen door open; before that he'd
roll up, grab it, roll back while holding it, then do this complicated
lean-bump-throttle-bump-elbow maneuver to get past.

Did I mention I regret there were no cheap camcorders back then?

Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Risks ... to the quality of science (Tobis, RISKS-15.77)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.


-> One fine day Commodore announced the Colt - an overpriced
-> underperforming IBM clone - sort of, and promptly discontinued the
-> C-64 and the 128 production.

Gack, I'd forgotten that!  Though I remember Atari's
not-very-compatible with weird Atari EGA...

Not all that long ago I read that Gateway Computer had bought the
remains of AmigaCorp and was going to re-release the A1500 with firmware
to use as a "set-top box".  I'm not exactly sure what a "set-top box" is
supposed to be, but a few years ago the computer weeklies were really
into the idea.  Something to do with television, home shopping, mice,
and "the Internet."  A foul brew...

Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 12:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Risks ... to the quality of science (Tobis, RISKS-15.77)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I always thought the 68K was available _before_ the introduction of
-> the PC... I didn't realize it was a candidate for the first PC.

It was "available"... but Motorola wasn't tooled up to make more than a
handful at a time.  IBM was talking tens of thousands, and Motorola's
salesmen probably threw themselves on their swords after having to admit
they couldn't supply the parts in quantity.

I've seen lots of electronics guys run into that problem over the
years, even as an electronic bystander.  They'll pick something out of
a catalog, then try to buy one... only to find that the OEM made
probably a few hundred samples, which aren't available at any price,
though you can sometimes get them for free if you find the right person
and they have some left.

Just to provide a further kick in the ass, the IBM PC was designed in
about three months.  The entire development team - hardware, BIOS, from
writing specs to the wire-wrapped prototype machine - was about a dozen
people.  Nowadays, with ISO 9000, no major company could design so much
as a new mouse ball in the same amount of time.


Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 17:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: ROMless ECM
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> 3 weeks ago, I would have let this slide by, but I agree with you
-> now. trouble is some don't realise it, and just think they are
-> experts on everything.

Lots of professionals get the same problem - doctors and reporters are
particularly prone.  If you're a doctor, you're operating in an
environment where others will shape reality as you desire; if you're a
barking head, you just describe the reality you want and shortly it will
be.

- Dave "Let it be so." Williams
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 17:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: cool million
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> It really did.  Zelazny twigged into something fundamental.

Viewpoint.  All the way through, from when he takes up in the hospital
to when he creates the second Pattern, he's still narrating via his
persona of John Corey, '60s beatnik and laid-back dude.  Even when he
reconstructs his past, recovers some of his memories, and rejoins the
court at Amber as Lord Corwin, he's *still* John Corey, impersonating
his previous self.

Old hat now, but new and original back then.


-> I have
-> dreams where my subconscious pulls a lot of detail switches a la the
-> Chronicles.

I would also enjoy recalling - just slipped my mind for a few hundred
years is all - that I was an immortal with godlike powers to shape
reality as I desired.


-> Ron "Random" Rader

I used to have a whole Unix server array with machines named Corwin,
Random, Benedict, Gerard...

Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 19:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Zepplin travel lives!
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> here).  A German company, Zeppelin Luftschifftchnik, started regular
-> commercial zeppelin flights on Aug. 15.  The airship Bodensee flew

The "Zeppelin NT" as they were calling it last year.  It's a semirigid;
that is, it's a fucking blimp, not a true Zeppelin.  And it's tiny, and
only carries 19 passengers.  Of course, it has a lift problem, since
it's using helium instead of hydrogen...

I was real excited when I found out about it, but after reading the
specs, I was mostly saying "Huh?  Why dey do 'dat?"


Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 07:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: See cop.  See cop run.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Ya, we need 160 mph cruisers (their claim in previous article), lets
-> see talk on the radio and try to concentrate on the suspect and
-> driving.  Sounds like death certificate for the cops or some
-> citizens.

Lots of jurisdictions don't allow pursuit any more for just that
reason.  Use the radio or call for air support, or just let them go
before someone gets killed.


Back in high school, the girl who sat across from me in English class
didn't show up one day.  Turned out she'd been with some friends coming
back from a party in the next town.  The guy driving got spooked by a
trooper doing the "ride up on the bumper and push" bit.  The official
story was they were "fleeing arrest"; the trooper (cops only run as
singles around here) stuck his .357 out the window and starting firing
at the car.  Blew Janice's face out the windshield.  The driver got a
piece of glass in his eye, and pulled over.

The trooper was in the usual Ford "police special" LTD.  The kids were
in a Volkswagen Beetle.  The "high speed pursuit" took place at whatever
a loaded, elderly Beetle would do.   The trooper got a reprimand for
excessive force.

In retrospect, I think that was when I first got the inkling Officer
Friendly was a psychopath with a gun.


Of course, now the decision has to be made, "do we let them go, or do
we call out the news and the police chopper, and hope some of the
footage makes it to that nifty "Watch Real Cops Violate Civil Rights on
Grainy Video" TV show?



Read a novel by Owen Sela the other day.  Sela is an expatriate
Russian living in England, usually writes Soviet cop stories.  Pretty
damned good, usually.  This one was about an ex-CIA agent in the USA.
It was written in 1988.  In one section, someone is requisitioning a
car:  "...we got you one of those hot-rod Buick Regals the FBI was
selling off."
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 07:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: cell phones at 160 MPH
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> If cell phones reduce your attention to driving, reduce your driving
-> level to that of a drunk, where does that leave a cop driving with
-> one hand keying his radio while driving one of them there 160 MPH
-> Camaros?.

Worse than that.  They're supposed to be listening to the cop radio
while they drive one-handed, using the other hand to key license plate
numbers into their cellular terminal, checking plates against DMV data.
My brother got pulled over on his Harley; the cop behind him had keyed a
search and it came up "Honda."  Wrote him a ticket for it, which the
state of Delaware made him pay, even though it was an operator error at
the DMV.  Even if their data is wrong, you still have to pay.  Law
enforcement is a for-profit business, you know.

In between all this, they're usually on their cellular phones, talking
to their girlfriends or cop buddies.

My friend's wrecker service hauls a bunch of bent police cars.

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 07:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: cell phones at 160 MPH
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I wouldn't necessarily agree, its just like talking to people in the
-> car.

A hell of a lot of people can't do that either.  I give extra space to
vehicles with more than one occupant; they're much more likely to do
something idiotic.

Apparently most people use their cellular phones to talk to God,
because most of them look up (and to the right) when they're talking.
Or maybe they're just talking to the passenger side sun visor.

I find this interesting, because most people on a regular telephone
at the house will do the *exact opposite*, and look down and to the
left.  Just watch for a while and you can see the trend for yourself.

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 07:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: cell phones at 160 MPH
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> conversation with someone you know on the phone.  You will have an
-> addition task of wonder what the body language would be saying.

Must be those "visual" guys.  You know, the ones who can figure out
what the Christmas tree and toilet paper icons on Nutscrape do.

Me, I see everything in 80x25 text mode...

Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 07:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: a test
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> numerology expert.  he had never even heard of it, until his
-> schitzophrenia (WTF would any idiot spell any word even 1% like
-> this?????????????????????)

You get words like that when you make new English words out of old
Greek words.

If you think that's bad, I suspect Japanese is worse...  Chinese
loanwords, you know.


The Euros had this big thing for Latin; England taught it in the
public schools until the middle of this century.  If you were a
collegiate, you added Greek as well.  Why?  Because a couple of thousand
years ago, Greek was classy.  Colleges are nothing if not
conservative...  and somehow the ignorant, antitech Greeks got
associated with science, so "scientific" things got named in Greek, or
occasionally vulgar Latin, and (in instances that gave the purists
near-seizures) a combination of both.

About the only subject that didn't get Greeked was chemistry.  Even
today, a working knowlege of German will give you a leg up on chemistry
The Germans *owned* that branch of science for a long time, and being
sensible, they named their discoveries and inventions in clear German
instead of dead yuppie languages.


- Dave "repository of useless trivia" Williams


Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 12:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Now it's DC getting hit
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Read that Salon.com article I emailed the link to. Bush was reading
-> to childern at a FL school, kept on going after hearing the news. My
-> president should leap up, and run back to DC.

And do what?  Run around in circles flapping his arms like a chicken?

The FBI and the (officially does not exist) Delta Force are supposed to
be set up to respond automatically to this sort of thing; Bush shouldn't
have to stand there breathing down their neck.

Waving bye-bye and charging back to the motorcade wouldn't prove a
damned thing.  I'll give him credit for behaving in a calm and sensible
fashion.  As long as he promises to have the culprits publicly executed.


Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Now it's DC getting hit
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> The Pentagon attack said to have occurred near a helipad at the outer
-> ring. The National Command Center bunker inside and underneath the
-> Pentagon is still up and running. This according to FOX News. Norm

I'd hope so!  The Pentagon used to brag the NCC was proof against
anything short of a direct nuke hit.  If one lousy airliner took it out,
we'd know they got their armor from the same source the Imperial Storm
Troopers got theirs...
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 07:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Black glass
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Let us remember that that other nation that used to be a superpower
-> spent a whole lot of time in Afghanistan in past years, part of the
-> reason it ain't one no more.

Armies represent a concentration of force... but concentrated force is
only decently effective against concentrated targets, like cities.  When
your enemy is too primitive to have concentrated his resources into
convenient targets, it gets damned difficult to do much against him.
Conquering each individual village isn't cost-effective - the Britons
drove a whole series of Roman generals to distraction, and the Britannic
wars were a contributing factor to the end of the Republic of Rome.
Hadrian finally herded as many of them as he could up into the north and
built a big wall, but it took decades, which the Soviets didn't have.

The USA's experiences in the Philippines, Korea, and Vietnam *should*
have reinforced the lesson to the Pentagon, but the brass hats always
seem to be more interested in politics and appropriations than the
precepts of war.


Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 07:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: My View of Today's Events
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Well, being a member of many mailing lists....our answer as Americans
-> seems to be unilateral.  Retribution is required.  However, I saw the
-> same thing w/ the USS Cole debacle, and we did nothing.

Unfortunately true.  Well, the captain of the ship got a commendation,
while I felt he should have been court-martialed, but given who was CIC
then, that's par for the course.


-> What ever happened since Thomas Jefferson said " -- and here, sir,
-> the people govern"?

They *do*.  And they're a great multitudinous Beast of drooling idiots.
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 07:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Black glass
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> We need to quit sponsoring foreign countries, and let them do their
-> own thing.

But, Bruce!  It's so easy and fun to meddle, and all it costs is money!
We have all the money we want; just tax it out of the populace and buy
all the friends we need.  Dollar diplomacy is much better than actually
*doing* anything about problems.  Besides, we can rake off a little here
and there for ourselves and our friends if the electorate is so
ungrateful as not to vote us back into office next time...



I think the United States would have a more rational foreign policy if
we just abolished the Department of State and turned diplomatic
functions over to, say, the Hell's Angels, who would be paragons of
simplicity, consistency, and logic by comparison.
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 07:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Black glass
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> 24 hours, your kiddin right?.
-> 24 months would be a miracle.
-> this will be analysed for years, and every lawyer in the world will
-> have a different option even after all the *facts* are known.

Remember 1980?

"Oh, those are just students barricaded in the US Embassy.  It's not an
official act of the Iranian government."

"But they're wearing Iranian Army uniforms and carrying military
weapons!"

"Oh, dear.  We have no idea how that happened, but rest assured,
they're not really military, just students."
"Oh, okay.  Who should I make that ransom check out to, then?"





I'd like to see Uncle George send Jimmy Carter over as an envoy to
whoever he decides is responsible for this mess.  It's not necessary
that Mr. Carter be removed before we start bombing.


Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:13:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: LARGO: Commentary on the Pledge of Allegiance by Red Skelton
Sender: owner-largo@chambana.com
To: largo@chambana.com

-> As a schoolboy, one of Red Skelton's teachers explained the words and
-> meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance to his class. Skelton later wrote
-> down, and eventually recorded, his recollection of this lecture. It
-> is followed by an observation of his own.

I had to learn to recite it in elementary school in the '60s.  As
presented, it was just more nonsense, like the little ditties about
colors or spelling:

"Apejuleeja toodafah
d'yunidda staysamerica
foderepubbic fowhichistan
wunayshun undagah
wlibiteeajussisfoah."

I don't remember having to perform it by the time I was in high school,
but all the previous years were essentially meaningless,
propaganda-wise.  It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I happened
to stop and figure out what the words probably were.


-> Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country,
-> and two words have been added to the Pledge of Allegiance: Under God.
-> Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer, and that
-> would be eliminated from schools, too?

Those two words *do* make it a prayer, and we had plenty of *that*
rammed down our throats too.  Enough to make a rabid athiest out of me,
courtesy of attending too many schools who were going to convert me to
their particular brand of Babdeez, "or else."

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Black glass
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Well, that's a problem.  See, the Palestinians got their
-> country yanked and it's called Israel now.  Forgetting the
-> Brits and the Balfour Declaration for the moment, the Palestinians
-> have way more to lose from this than we think.

They're just the next-to-latest in a whole series of people who've
claimed that patch of land.

Maybe they can wait a couple of thousand years and get it back, or they
can just all die, for all I care.  Where I'm sitting used to be Ouachita
Indian territory, but I'm not getting upset over it.  No Ouachitas
around any more to complain, either, as far as I know.

Who *used to* control land is about as relevant as how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin, though it hasn't stopped people from killing
each other over the issue.

Israel ain't gonna give up Palestine, and the Palestinians have shit
their own rice bowl to the point where the Israelis are no longer
inclined to share it, either.


- Dave "give Japan back to the Ainu!" Williams

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:28:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Dignity & Respect
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> To send a message like that, we have to speak in term that they
-> understand.  And their world is vastly different from ours.  I'm
-> afraid unless the message is barbaric, it won't work.

As I've said before, with certain mentalities, you can't just show them
the stick.  You have to hit them with it every now and then to show that
you will use it if you need to.
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Embry-Riddle Training Ground?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> They went after what they take to be the symbol of our power. Why is
-> it inappropriate for us to retaliate in kind (along with other
-> strikes)??

I'm not seeing a clear message with the choice of targets.  The
Pentagon, yeah.  The World Trade Center, yeah.  One or the other, but
I see them as opposite extremes - the Pentagon is the symbol of the
United States' military power, the WTC was full of Eurocrats trying to
turn the United States into a second-class satrap of the EU.

If they'd hit the Empire State Building, yeah, it'd be personal... a
symbol of US power, though old and obsolete.  But the WTC symbolizes
something entirely different, at least to a lot of Americans.  If they
were striking at "the West", I would have expected synchronized attempts
in Canada and Europe, but I haven't heard any reports of anything so
far.


Me... my first thought when I heard the WTC had been struck by a
suicide airliner was, "someone's getting revenge for Seattle."


Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Black glass
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Kitchener did a fair job in South Africa, but it takes a huge force
-> and a willingness to treat civilians as combatants.  A change of
-> British government eventually disavowed his tactics.

"Kill them all, let God sort them out." as Richard the Lion-Hearted
said.  He was really good at murdering hostages, noncombatants, women,
and children, those that weren't suitable for being sold off into
slavery.

Kitchener was a cataclysmic screw-up, but in the finest British
tradition, managed not to get too much of the smelly stuff stuck to him.


-> "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics"

"...firstest with the mostest" - J.E.B. Stuart
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Who hates who?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I've got to set this straight. First of all, I don't know what the
-> Persian Empire (which one?) has to do with anything.

All this entertainment, and you want relevance too?!

We're burning bandwidth!


-> As best I can tell, Muslims didn't begin to particulary hate Jews
-> until the Jews turned up in about '47 and began kicking them out of
-> their land.

Well, technically, the British Empire was claiming that land at the
time, and felt it was theirs to give as they saw fit.

If I'd been driving the Empire then, I'd've tried to give them one of
the larger islands in the Malay archipelago; bigger and richer than the
land Israel sits on, and comfortably far from Britain and Yurp in
general.  Plus Malaya was/is about half Moslem, so neither side would
feel short of enemies to antagonize.

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 16:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Dignity & Respect
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> sense.  It would be such a waste to descend to hand to hand
-> fighting.  Perhaps all we need is a half dozen of us (the GN rat
-> patrol?) headed to DC to help Junior unlock the Football and

It'd be fun to unlock the light of ten thousand suns, but we have a
whole bunch of active-duty military guys who signed up and have been
training for years, just waiting for the day when they could uncork the
whoop-ass on somebody.  It seems a shame to just push the button and
disappoint them.

Besides, there's probably *somebody* from the Pentagon or WTC who is in
need of some transplants; it'd be hard to do live vivisections on TV if
you've quick-roasted all the donors, you know.

- Dave "we *have* the technology..." Williams

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: i think we've been had
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> WND.com reports that Isreali intelligence is pointing a finger at
-> Saddam. Lots of good reading on WND.com btw; not any more or less
-> conjecture than the rest

You have to remember the Israelis are, collectively, bugfuck crazy, and
they'll point the finger at whoever they think it will do Israel the
most good, not necessarily whoever they might have information might be
guilty.

I admire the way they built a country out of sand and long-term loans,
but I would be *very* leery of information from them, particularly in a
tense situation like this.
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 16:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Knives and box-cutters?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> commentation, i can't believe noone has decided to put on fully armed
-> and armored person on the front rear facing seat of every flight and
-> get thigns moving again.  whats the big deal with that?!?!

Back in the late '60s when skyjacking became a popular pastime,
Israel's El Al airline did exactly that.  Mossad pulled vets out of
retirement, issued them uniforms and firearms, and told them to blow
away anyone to started any trouble.

They took a shitload of flak over that policy, and finally went along
with the usual metal detectors and passenger harassment systems other
nations went to.

I have this sense of deja vu, like I've typed something very similar
not long ago...

Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Pentagon info from the net
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Thank God for a building from the WPA era when concrete was good and
-> cheap!

And we all know who was in charge of building the Pentagon, don't we?

He's the fat guy standing next to Oppenheimer in that famous picture.


- Dave "I just love the gleam of Trinitite in the morning..." Williams
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 06:26:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: my only statement (long)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.


-> American society is forever changed.  We will, in ways not yet
-> determined, have to live a little as the Israelis do every day of
-> their
-> lives....careful, watchful, taking precautions against sudden and
-> random death which can occur at any moment.  Our new "civic
-> responsibility' will include taking an interest in anything
-> suspicious when it was easier to MYOB before.  Sadly, the
-> security/police/military presence will be greatly

Internal passports, more FBI snitch lines, ID and signature to enter
any public building and most private ones, national ID cards, blocking
the roads and streets for periodic security checks, guilty until proven
innocent, streamlined court processes with confession adequate to prove
guilt, ration cards for fuel and inflammables, video cameras in most
public places, national watch lists and black lists of suspicious
persons, plainclothes police with extended powers in the interest of
public safety and national security...

I think I've see that movie before.  I didn't like it much the first
time, either.

- Dave "New Soviet Man?" Williams


Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 07:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Dignity & Respect
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Why risk the news crews? ;-)

Risk?

First you announce the location of Ground Zero, complete with detailed
maps and local hotel accomodations neatly pointed out.  The barking
heads will then rush to the site en masse so they can do live on-site
coverage.

*THEN* you drop the Bomb.


I ought to get some of my brother's reporter stories down from when he
was in Somalia and Haiti.  The barking heads apparently don't understand
the difference between "treason" and "news", and couldn't understand
that soldiers aren't cops, and were neither obligated nor inclined t
save them from their folly.

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: No peace for a while
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> example) by taking someone's "specific" example, "generalizing" it,
-> and turning it against them.  I admit that _I_ started to fall into
-> it, until I re-read his posts and saw what was going on.

Relax, Cat.  It's only ones and zeros!


-> Oratory is a lost art.

Hard to fit much into a five second sound bite.  Your constituents are
channel surfing, you know.  So everything gets broken down into simple
for/against predigested issues.  "Nuke Afghanistan Y/N?" is about as
complex as it gets.  Too many details (did they do it?  what about
fallout?) confuse the issues.

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Embry-Riddle Training Ground?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> In Iran, the shah was toppled by a populist movement against his
-> terror tactics. But soon the Iranian revolution was supplanted by a

Uh... the US Government helped the Shah get into power, supported his
government with cash and political backing, and even trained his
military and secret police at discount rates.

Then Unka Jimmuh, for no believable reason I've ever encountered,
kicked the props out from under the Shah's regime and watched it all
fall down. Then was apparently surprised when the ayatollahs moved in
before the Soviets did.

The US giveth; the US taketh away.  Or, "when eating with the Devil,
use a long spoon."

-> Egypt, struggling against the radicals ever since they killed Sadat,
-> who was treated by some home-grown pan-arabists as a traitor to the

Sadat, in retrospect, looks like a veritable paragon of statesmanship,
at least in comparison to a Froot Loop like Menachem Begin.

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:01:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Structural Designs of Buildings
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> NO, I am NOT wrong here. The guilt of the design professionals is
-> called "accessory after the fact" or "felony murder" under the law!
-> It's not quite the same as the guilt of the perps, but it IS GUILT!!

"Sue them until they squeal?"

If the designers and builders complied with the building codes, didn't
trim any blatant corners, and generally complied with what was
considered "reasonable and prudent" design *at that time*, I don't see
that they're liable for anything.

Of course, that's why engineers and contractors carry liability
insurance, for the sheeple who'll sue anything that looks like a likely
target.

Might want to file on the architects and city planners, too - if the
towers weren't so tall, they wouldn't have been such obvious targets,
now would they?

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: FangleBase?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


Excerpted from an essay titled "As Way May Think" by Vannevar Bush,
in The Atlantic Monthly, July 1945:

"Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of
mechanized private file and library.  It needs a name, and to coin
one at random,`memex'' will do.  A memex is a device in which an
individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and
which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed
and flexibility.  It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory."

It goes on to describe something like hypertext and bookmarks,
something eerily like the DbFH or FangleBase...

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:17:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Structural Designs of Buildings
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Ferro-cement hulled sail boats have one of Lloyd's lowest insurance
-> ratings, Dave! :-)

Well, not that there are many of them out there, last I heard...

You knock I'm a sucker for the bizarre, though I thought Churchill's
pet iceberg/aircraft carrier project would have likely been more
important in the long run than that "Tube Alloys" project he unloaded on
Roosevelt.  We *needed* some unsinkable carriers guarding the Atlantic
supply lines against the U-boats; I'd venture it would have advanced the
supply picture at least six months.  Couldn't have carried D-Day off in
the winter, but there was a lot of pressure to open a second front in
South France, and those same unsinkable carriers could have kept the
route to Murmansk open too.

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Structural Designs of Buildings
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> What I'm trying to figure out is why you're arm-chair quarterbacking
-> on 30+ year old design decisions.  By the same vein, should not we
-> hold all the designers liable for something for not peering 30 years
-> into the future and building fortresses where airplanes ply their
-> trades?

Ah, John!  Your innocence is so refreshing!

We're talking about the US court system here, remember?

One of the primary precedent cases is the Bliss Press Company, which
was successfully sued for about a zillion dollars by a guy who managed
to mangle his hands in a Bliss press.  His suit was based on the fact
that the press in question did not have all the usual modern,
OSHA-recommended guards and interlocks, therefore Bliss was negligent in
both design and construction.

Bliss' defense (laughed out of court) was that the press was
state-of-the-art and considered perfectly safe when it was made and
sold.

In 1907.


"One pill makes you larger
and one pill makes you small
and the ones that Mother gives you
don't do anything at all.
Go ask Alice
when she's ten feet tall..."         - Jefferson Airplane

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:37:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Embry-Riddle Training Ground?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> I really think a small (5 kiloton - Is there smaller?) nuke on a
-> terrorist camp would be a fine deterrant.

Besides being political suicide for any administration (and likely
political party) that uncorked that particular genie, some of the
target nations bandied around have nukes of their own, homegrown or
store-bought, and would likely be inclined to play tit for tat.

They don't have ICBMs, but a rusty old freighter could steam right up
to the shore anywhere along the coast.  Noo Yawk, Norfolk, New Orleans,
Houston, Corpus Christi, or (if they were patient) San Diego, Los
Angeles, or Seattle.

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Something no-one else has mentioned
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Looks like the AOHellers are routinely intercepting email.  wonder
-> how many federal laws that violates.  Yet another reason to NEVER use
-> the big ISPs.

Hell, John, they don't even need the ISPs to do it for them - all they
need to do is monitor the NAPs.  And most of the East coast gets routed
through the NSA anyway; they were part of the original backbone.

Nothing that moves over the wires or airwaves is private.  As for
cracking the codes... say "one-time pad."  It's a hassle, but no
algorithm-based system even comes close.

- Dave "JE4@45W46)6tgh!th@h6yth@hnnJ6DN 5@@***@8882jh3" Williams

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Vlad
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.

-> All I want to know is where is Vlad the Impaler now that we need him?

After the Romanians finished their political indoctrination, they put
him to work for the secret police.  After Romania split with the USSR,
he went private and opened a small chain of convenience stores near
Bistrita.


Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 06:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us
Subject: [capri-list] (unknown)
To: capri-list@yahoogroups.com

-> we are praying down hear in New Zealand
-> and as small and useless as we are we are prepared to fight..

I dunno, Freyburg and his Zeds purely uncorked the whoop-ass on
Rommel's Afrika Korps in WWII.  There are several recorded cases of the
Korps refusing to engage after identifying their opponents as Zeds.

The Zeds put in more days of actual combat than any other part of the
Grand Alliance, mostly on point or as shock troops.  And when they
finished up in Africa, they marched all the way up Italy too, against
Kesselring's divisions.  And when they were done with *that*, they were
crammed like sardines into troop ships and were on their way to the
invasion of mainland Japan when Harry Truman uncorked the light of ten
thousand suns on the Son of Heaven.

Try Winston Churchill's "The Second World War" if you'd like to read
more about how small and useless the Zeds are.

- Dave "those who fail history are doomed to repeat it" Williams
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 21:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Structural Designs of Buildings
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Isn't JP7 just about the same as kerosene?.
-> Granted there was alot of it, but I don't see where the fire would be
-> any hotter then a regular house fire.

It's kerosene, for all practical purposes.  It's no hotter than a house
fire, but the stuff in an office building is all regulated by law -
flooring, wall covering, carpets, ceiling tile, wiring, ductwork, even
furniture.  There's only so much stuff in an office building that will
burn, with only so many BTUs available.  The fire codes allow for this,
add a fudge factor, and specify the fire resistance ratings of the
building materials.  They figure the fire will go out long before the
support structure is too damaged to hold the building up.

Pouring many tons of kerosene in the building and lighting it is a
whole different deal.  As far as I'm concerned, the quarterbackers can
bark 'til they're blue in the face, but I don't think it's even
*possible* to build a skyscraper-type structure you can guarantee will
still stand after such a thing.

- Dave "the sky is falling!  The sky is falling!" Williams

Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 22:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: These guys are amazing
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Hard to imagine that happening in a civilized society.
-> Working in a situation, where a rescuer might so easily be killed.

Same thing has happened several times in Mexico City, except it was
earthquakes, and the damage was all over the city.  Probably similar
during the Blitz, or Berlin, or Stalingrad, or...


Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 22:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Training Air Marshals
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Do you think a hijacker will ever again, NOT be attacked?

Yep.  They'll probably start strip-searching people before they let
them on the plane, the flight deck doors will be reinforced, and the
stewardesses will wear police type body armor.  All passengers will
watch anti-hijacking videos before they board, to tell them exactly how
to kiss ass and bring them to a fine state of pre-hysterical paranoia.

I'd like to see some armed marshals, but I bet the pussy factor will
win out, just for the cost savings and media image if nothing else.


Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Training Air Marshals
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I always thought being downrange was a good practice activity for
-> learning about auto weapons and what they can do on rock and roll.

I don't think an air marshal needs a squirt gun; a plain old pistol
ought to be plenty.  It'd be interesting if they could come up with some
12 gauge loads that would be a good compromise between lethality and
damaging the airframe.  Pistols are nice, but nothing says "Game Over"
like a nice 12 gauge...


-> to see what *training* these instant marshalls get.   Or have one
-> panic, and start shooting innocents, that would be a real headache.

Probably no more training than, say, a sheriff or deputy gets - none.
Cops of all sorts blow away innocents all the time, nobody seems to get
too excited about it other than the families of the victims.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Were they just stupid?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> terrorists were freaks, but I didn't know that high clerics had
-> addressed the matter officially.

One difference between Islam and Christianity is that the Koran forbids
an established "church", in the sense of the Roman Catholic Church,
Church of England, and the umpty-dozen other Christian church
organizations.  There is no real Islamic equivalent of the College of
Cardinals or other Christian clerics.

Islam is a religion of the laity; each mullah, ayatollah, or imam
theoretically only serves to call for prayers and to settle points of
law.  Traditionally, the only law in Islamic states was that of the
Koran, as interpreted by each individual mullah, who also served as
judge, jury, and if needed, executioner.

There are probably organizations and associations of mullahs, but
they'd be more like professional organizations, not a ranking of power
like in Christian church organizations.  Each imam is responsible only
to God, and their God forbids the existence of structured religion.

"High clerics" may mean that some number of famous or powerful
ayatollahs agreed with what was being said, but their influence over an
*other* Islamic clerics approaches zero.


Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Murdering Rat Bastards.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Instead of taking a life, they would have saved a real redneck, that
-> would be really ironic

The Code of Hammurabi said "a life for a life"; a not altogether
unreasonable concept.  Our legal code is more closely descended from
Danelaw, "every life has its price."

Using the murdering bastards as transplant donors seems to cover the
bases either way.


Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Training Air Marshals
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> On the squirt gun, I mean for the Marshals to understand being on the
-> receiving side of some serious fire power, so they get clued in about
-> what a bad situation is like.  THEN see if they still want the job!.

The way I look at it, if airport security fails to the point where the
hijackers are carrying Uzi in their jockstraps, one air marshal isn't
going to help, unless he's Chuck Norris or Jackie Chan.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:44:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Were they just stupid?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Dave W and Neon have opposing views on this.

Right.  But because we're all grown up and everything, we can have
opposing views, and either ignore each other or debate them at length,
without getting offended or turning into assholes over it.

Eventually you learn you can't make everyone agree with you; you just
state your opinion and move on.
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Training Air Marshals
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> 38s went out before prohibition (or close to it).

Most PDs carried revolvers in .38 Special up into the 1980s, when the
9mm autoloader became more fashionable.  Various US military police and
intelligence did too, even though the .45 was the official standard side
arm.  For police use it was a decent cartridge.


-> Few doses of any good painkiller, and perps can absorb alot.

Some angel dust or any of a dozen street drugs, and sometimes you'll
see one still moving after a whole magazine of 12ga buckshot too.  When
I went to school for my carry permit the instructors stressed that
there's damned little that will reliable stop a druggie; nothing that
you can safely shoot where you might have civilians downrange, on the
with police ammunition, particularly the fad 9mm stuff, which won't
reliably expand.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Training Air Marshals
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I hate flying, but working for an international company and having
-> family spread across the US, it's very unlikely that I'll not need to
-> fly.

I hate to find any point in common with the railroad-brains, but that's
where a modern, high speed rail system would be really nice.  Some
300mph bullet trains connecting the major cities would be a lot more
economical in the long haul, and you can't hijack a train.

You can only go where the rails go, but a plane can only take you from
airport to airport, so there's no real difference there.
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: The Perp is ID'd - Do it.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I read ya, Bill. I guess I'm thinking that was Powell's way of saying
-> it was bin Laden, no doubt, but he couldn't reveal any more than that
-> at this time, due to sources and methods. The fact that he named bin
-> Laden, for such a cautious man as Powell, tells me they have it
-> nailed down. I could be all wrong. Just my read. Norm

You have to realize that Powell is a master of media manipulation.  It
was his job for a long time.  It was beautiful watching him do press
conferences during Desert Storm, particularly when the media was
broadcasting everything they learned as soon as they got it.  Saddam's
intelligence people got a majority of their information from the US
media, so the barking heads' actions were treasonous in my opinion.

Anyway, Powell would tell the barking heads one thing, and
Schwarzkopf's troops would be doing something else.  Unfortunately,
Saddam's generals were getting their intelligence from the barking
heads, who had the balls to bitch at Powell when they realized they were
being giving bad information.

Powell was a political general, and now he's a politician.  He's so
slick it's a pleasure to watch him do his job, but I wouldn't worry too
much about what he's saying.  He might know, but not be able to tell
yet.  Or he might be trying to put some pressure on them to flush them
out of hiding.  Or maybe they're trying to put pressure on someone
hiding them.  Or maybe something else.  Or maybe he's just lying; he
*is* a politician, after all.

Just because he puts on a good show doesn't mean you should believe
him; chances are, he's not talking to *you*, he's talking to *them*.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:16:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Know your enemy and then what? pt. 3
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants
-> to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. 41

The problem is, in the real world there are plenty of people who'd take
your tunic and cloak, and then they'd want your shoes too.  And maybe
your kidneys, if they thought they could sell them.

Matthew et.al. would be fine if everyone was reasonable, but
philosophies based on appeasement don't work with Hitlers, Husseins, and
so forth, ad nauseum.

It doesn't mean you have to be paranoid because there are assholes out
there, just that you need to be able to differentiate between people,
not-nice people, and raving freakazoids.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: WTF
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> At this rate be cheaper to nationalise them, and have beuracrats run
-> it. And we all know what a mess that nonesense would be.

I've read a bunch of stuff about the Soviet air transport system.  The
old USSR was spread out quite a bit, so the only practical way to get
from Leningrad to Vladivostok was by air.

Unfortunately, Aeroflot's aircraft, maintenance, ATC, and pilots
were... well... Soviet.  So on a fairly regular basis Uncle Ilya and
Aunt Tanya would hop on a flight to Magadan and... vanish.

Since admitting the plane went down was unacceptable, the relatives
would eventually just get a confirmation that whoever they were
enquiring about probably wasn't going to come back.

In the later days they did actually admit to crashes, but very quietly.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Were they just stupid?
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> >  Islam is a religion of the laity; each mullah, ayatollah, or imam
-> > theoretically only serves to call for prayers and to settle points

-> So there whole society works in "Cells" so to speak?

Not really; a cellular setup like the Communists used was very
heirarchical, with connections running up and across the tree.  The
Islamic setup is more like a collection of mostly-independent cells,
like a jellyfish.


-> an excellent biography of Chesty Puller, and a treatise on war time
-> logistics.

Let me know how it comes out.  I've been looking for Tuchman's
biography of Stilwell, and for something on "Chinese" Gordon.

What's the difference between a gang and an army?  Logistics!
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:27:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: WOW
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> The trench coat guys around the Pres are loaded for bear.
-> Coats must be weighting in a 50lbs..

The Secret Service's preference for squirt guns shows that they have
zero concern for any innocent bystanders in the area.  They've been
carrying them at least since the Reagan era; when Reagan got shot,
several of them whipped out MAC-11s just like mine.

I didn't think anything other than "neat!" at the time, but I've put a
*lot* of time and money down the spout of that squirt gun, and I reckon
I'm about as good as anyone with the selector set to rock'n'roll.  It's
a bullet hose, except a hose doesn't try to fight its way out of your
hand at 1200 rounds per minute.

I'll give you this advice for free:  you really, *really* don't want to
be near the President, Vice-President, or any government official who
has bodyguards.  Klinton's guys carried Mini-Uzis, which are about the
same as the MAC-11s.  The Secret Service's choice of firepower indicates
that all the decisions have already been made - "Kill them all, let God
sort 'em out."

Think about it next time you get the urge to attend any rallys,
fundraisers, or speeches in person.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:39:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Training Air Marshals
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> smart as any of us.  Whatever static barriers that are erected will
-> simply be circumvented.  If we make it impossible for towel heads to
-> take flight lessons or work on ground crews, the next batch will

Airplanes too hard to get?  Just hijack a propane truck and drive it
into the underground parking garage.  A small amount of explosive, and
you'll have some rollicking fun fireworks.

If you're dead set on aircraft, just steal a private plane and load it
with ANFO.  Not as good as a fully fueled jumbo, but it's still an
E-ticket ride to Paradise.

How about we just dispense with mass murder and go for the national
nervous system?  Anyone remember the discussions about how poorly the
NAPs and major telco exchanges are protected?  Everything from voice
phones, credit card validations, Milnet, Federal banking data, you name
it, goes through the routers.  A few hobos melted some fiber with a
campfire a few years ago and damned near shut down several major cities.

Lots of cities still depend on lakes or open aquifers for their water
supplies.  Dandy breeding environment for the nasty germ of your choice,
or even some of those flesh-eating worms like infest Lake Chad.

Maybe just infect a bunch of mice with rabies or that new rodent
plague, which sounds like the American version of mad cow disease.


Lots more things than commercial airlines to play with if you're
seriously into making trouble.

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Know your enemy and then what? - preface
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> John, What are Commandments #11 & #12? Norm

#11 is "Thou shalt not get caught."

#12 is "Leave the toilet seat UP!"

Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Training Air Marshals
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Oh, and thought the trains are running hereabouts, the bathrooms are
-> kept locked, "for security reasons", too.

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock was doing that when I
attended.  Had about 50 campus cops patrolling to catch anyone pissing
in the bushes.

"The most common things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity."
- Harlan Ellison


Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: [FIERO] miani herold says it best
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> temporarily killfile 'em.  No need to let the towel head bastards
-> create long term enemies.

"*I LOVE YOU ALL!*"  - Ozzy Osbourne, at Ozzfest '98

Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 07:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: What the airlines are doing
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> - Be sure to bring proper photo identification before you leave home
-> Acceptable forms of identification are a valid photo driver's
-> license, an active passport or an employee identification from a
-> county, state or federal agency.

So if you're a non-driver, didn't want to wait three months for a
passport (which cost $250 last time I checked), and you're not a
government employee, you can't fly.  Ri-ight.

Gonna be a lot of non-driving senior citizens mighty pissed about that.


-> will be permitted beyond the security check points. People without
-> tickets will not be permitted in the gate areas to greet arriving
-> passengers or see off departing passengers.

Fuckheads.  Who's going to hijack a fucking AIRPORT?

Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 10:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Know your enemy and then what? pt. 3
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> There is no such thing as negotiation.
-> Winner states the rules.

In this case, though, we're (likely) not fighting against a country,
we're fighting a group spread through more than one country, mostly in
hiding.

Chris' idea of bribing the host countries to turn them over looks
really good compared to any of the other options I've seen kicked
around.  Plus, done right, we'd get the perps *and* maybe break the back
of OPEC.

Even the Iranians are smart enough to realize they were better off as a
US satellite than under the ayatollahs, and the Egyptians, Saudis,
Kuwaitis, and others have made overtures for US good-buddyship for
decades.  They have things we want, like oil.  We have things they want,
like cars, aircraft, and Ronco Bass-A-Matics.  But the US policy in the
Middle East has been so heavily biased by our unreasonable support of
Israel that we've rejected useful relations with these countries.

Chris isn't talking about negotiating with the terrorists, he's talking
about negotiating with the countries they live in.  "How much do you
want to turn some of your citizens over for execution, and how can we
both benefit from it?"  We can both benefit a hell of a lot, actually.
It would show that the politicians on both sides have "done something",
they would have a moral high ground for finding and turning over the
perps, and we would have the moral high ground of executing them for
their crimes.  Everybody wins.  Well, except for a few scumbags, but
they've been officially dead most of the week already anyway.


I like the scenario.  It makes good political and military sense, and
it would show any potential imitators that not just the far-away USA
might not be pleased, but their own local governments would stomp their
asses too.

It sure beats the hell out of doing nothing, or indiscriminate bombing,
either of which would eventually cause more problems than they would
solve.

Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 09:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Know your enemy and then what? pt. 3
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> We have to negotiate interests rather than positions. Face-saving is
-> of paramount importance in positional bargaining. Each party normally
-> issues or defines a position in a negotiation. But behind the
-> position one will find a number of interests or needs that must be
-> satisfied.

Saving face, the Principle of Enlightened Self-Interest, and "What's in
it for me?" are the three pillars of successful negotiation.

I'd have no problem with bribing the local authorities to turn the
perps over on a silver platter.  I'd even turn a blind eye to any free
bonuses, like some of their dissidents, criminals, and other
undesirables they wanted to toss in.  The more the merrier.

The criminals would be in our hands, the fellow-travelers would be
chastised, and after harvesting any suitable organs, we take survivors
and corpses to Bikini, put them ashore, and let the nukies do a test to
make sure their toys haven't gone bad in storage.

Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: What the airlines are doing
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> > Just thinking.  The government ID would be about the easiest to
-> fake. >

> Always has been and always will be. With the minimum wage untrained
> immigrants, who they give the security jobs to, either can't tell the
> difference or won't care enough to really verify the ID.

No problem.  Every gun shop in the country is on the "Instant Check"
system; there aren't nearly that many airports.  I could see them keying
every ID number into a terminal by the metal detector, or even swipe
slots - if they use those, they could section everything off like some
of those department stores that make you swipe your card to enter every
aisle; then they would not only know who you were, they could tell where
you were, when you went to the bathroom, etc.

Not long ago, plain old cost kept crap like this from happening, but
now that you can buy most of it off the shelf from the local computer
store, only inertia is keeping us from being more rigidly oppressed than
the Soviets ever dreamed.

It's damned near enough to make me think the Amish have the right
idea...

Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 15:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Nuke their ass, take their gas...
Sender: owner-gmecm@diy-efi.org
To: gmecm@diy-efi.org


-> As horrible as it is ,the ONLY thing that brought Imperial Japan to
-> it's knees
-> was the Pay Load of the Enola Gay.

Not true.  The Japanese had been trying to open diplomatic channels to
negotiate an armistice or surrender well before the Potsdam conference.
Messages got passed to Truman via the OSS and State Department, but he
chose to get some return for all the money that went down the Manhattan
rabbit hole first, and then negotiate for unconditional surrender
instead of an armistice.

This is ordinary history; try Winston Churchill's "Closing The Ring",
Calvocoressi's "Total War", or Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb"
for more details.
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.


-> "The Iron Dream"

Lots of people liked that one, but I thought it was a crude '60s
acid-head pastiche trying to pass itself off as a self-referential
parody of a genre.  Mainly, it sucked black holes.


-> "Diaries of the Plague Years"

I haven't seen that one, though I've read "Little Heroes" and others.
"The Mind Game" isn't SF, but it's right up with "Bug Jack Barron",
though.  I got the impression that Spinrad might have butted heads with
some Scientologists and that was his revenge.

For those who haven't read "Bug Jack Barron" (it's a fairly rare book,
after all) the main character is Jack Barron, who is a "media
personality" with a TV show called "Bug Jack Barron."  "What bugs you,
bugs Jack Barron!"  The book was written in 1972 or thereabouts; think
of Jerry Springer or Howard Stern, except they're doing it on live
call-ins via videophones.  You know, with webcams you could do something
like that now.  Back in 1972 talk show hosts were supposed to be suave
and debonair, a calming influence.  "Attack hosts" like Donohue or
Springer didn't start showing up until 20 years after the book was
written.

Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Holy War
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I repeat my earlier request, can somebody please explain exactly what
-> "fundamentalist" means with regard to the muslim religion?

As currently interpreted:

Strict adherence to the Koran.
Prayer six times a day.
Women are property.
No secular law - all law and justice from the Koran and imams.
No tolerance for non-Islamic religions.


All in all, pretty much like England at the time of the US Civil War.

"The more things change, the more they remain the same."
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Scarey
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> It just dawned on me all the early nuke stuff was done with vacuum
-> tubes. Designed with slide rules, and little else.

Feynman has a humorous account of the competition between a roomful of
operators with adding machines vs. a computer the Army had procured for
them.  The calculators usually won, mostly because the computer geeks
kept *playing* with stuff...

Logarithms on a slide rule are a perfect example of "perfect is the
enemy of good enough."  In Real Life(tm) you seldom need more than a
couple of decimal places.  Being able to calculate things more precisely
doesn't mean shit when you're working from a whole collection of
by-guess-and-by-gosh data, like service factors in engineering design.

I read an article a few years ago about how theoretical physics and
mathematics have changed in the last thirty-odd years.  According to the
article, now more researchers are selecting problems because they look
amenable to solution by throwing lots of computer time, as opposed to
trying to figure a simpler solution via brainpower.

Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:25:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Scarey
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Definitely an amazing piece of brain work all around.

Remember the discussion of conceptual models and changes in the models
used in physics?

The guys at Los Alamos thought they were working with Bohr atoms...
hell, Bohr was a consultant there.  The physical models they were
working with were hopelessly wrong by modern standards... but they were
close enough.  The utility of a model is how well it predicts; their
model said they'd get a bomb, and so they did, which performed pretty
much as they expected.

One of the amazing things about the bomb project was how it stayed
right at the bleeding edge of both theory and practice.  Looking back on
the timeline, I don't see that Trinity could have occurred more than a
few weeks ahead of when it did, and a whole lot of ways it wouldn't have
happened until 1946, or maybe not for a whole hell of a long time if
they didn't get it done before mopping up the Japanese.  With no bomb to
show for it, Congress would amost certainly have shut off the dollar
firehose feeding the Manhattan Engineer District as part of their
postwar economy measures.


I've probably mentioned it here before, but one of the amazing things
about studying history is realizing how certain things were basically
inevitable, and other things were so outrageously unlikely you'd be
better off putting your money on the Super Double Trifecta at Vegas.

Leslie Groves doesn't get even a fraction of the credit he deserves.
All of us have seen projects that failed.  Now consider the size of the
Manhattan Project, which consumed a sizeable chunk of all the money that
went into the war.  Not only that, but when Groves (reluctantly) took
charge, there still wasn't even agreement among the physicists that it
would work, much less developed theory or a good idea of how to do it.
Groves had to fight for resources in a wartime economy; his project was
stuffed with key members who were legally enemy aliens; security limited
the amount of outside help they could rely on; he had to shotgun
multiple approaches to everything, "concurrent engineering" with a
vengeance, not to mention juggling prima-donna physicists on one side
and prima-donna general staff on the other.  The unlikely thing about
Manhattan is not that it succeeded, but that it did it with essentially
no problems.  Call it luck or call it planning, but everything fell
nearly into place, right on schedule... something that almost never
happens in Real Life(tm).

*Logistics* made the Project succeed, but logistics is like system
administration - nobody notices when things work as planned.

Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 21:45:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Holy War
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> The Chinese government has not been kind to Islam.
-> Come to think of it, are they nice to anyone?

Thinking further, do we give a damn?

They're welcome to shoot all the criminals, students, and protesters
they want.  I'll thank them not to interfere in the business of the
United States, and I'll grant the same courtesy to them.


Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 21:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Holy War
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> > Let's stop naturalization.  We have 1st class citizens; by birth,

Isaac Asimov was a naturalized American; he was born in Russia during
the reign of Tsar Nicholas II.  Willy Ley, Wernher Von Braun, Edward
Teller, Enrico Fermi, Albert Einstein.  (some of them might have been
"permanent residents" instead of naturalized)  Henry Kissinger.
(well...)

Winston S. Churchill was granted American citizenship by JFK.


Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: "But ours goes to 11!"
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


A long-time friend of mine started acquiring a bunch of black militant
attitudes some years ago.  He's a hell of a nice guy, except somehow
he's been stupid enough to buy into this "the honkies are oppressing us
poor black folk" bullshit, and sending me horror stories about how rough
some asshole had it in 1903 or some damned thing.

Today I got *three* forwarded messages from him, all on the same black
oppression/white guilt subject.  I got to the third paragraph of the
second message, where the author was bemoaning about how the USA has
fallen down on its job on stamping out racism worldwide, and I got mondo
pissed.

I'll swear by the diety of your choice I have never discriminated
against anyone by their race.  But I've *had* it with this crap being
pushed in my face.  I wrote back, told him the USA is the only country
in the world which has made any real progress in promoting racial
equality, and I'm pretty tired of listening to all the crap.

It's been a long time since I really vented on anything, but it was the
straw that broke the camel's back.  I turned the "Psychopathic Raving"
knob up past 11 and broke it off, and only gave up when I hit the limit
of the message editor.



If the Ku Klux Klan wasn't a bunch of loser wanker posers, I'd sign up.
Meanwhile, if I don't ever hear back from the guy, piss on him anyway.

- Dave "mad as hell and not going to take it any more" Williams


Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Lamborghini Wine
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Hey that Shelby chili mix is killer!!!!

Tasted like it was mostly oregano to me.

There are some foods that people to do some really bizarre things to -
chili, barbecue, potato salad, and spaghetti come immediately to mind.
Experience has taught me to be very leery about ordering any of those at
a restaurant, and to be cautious if trying any at someone's house.

"Potato salad" made out of a cup of instant potato flakes, ten pounds
of celery, and a jar of chopped pickles seems to be inexplicably common.

"Spaghetti" made of 20-minute-boiled pasta mush floating in tomato
sauce is another.
"Chili"... it could be almost any damned thing, either bland or so
heavily spiced you eat it to prove you can, not because it tastes good.

"Barbecue" that's just molasses is common enough, but every now and
then I've encountered some that was apparently made with road kill and
stewed gym socks.  Brr...


Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Ultralights and The next targets
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Got me thinking of other low tech terrorist ideas, how much
-> can an ultralight carry?

Hell, Hitler's SS used gliders when they rescued Mussolini.

I'm still amused at all the paranoia over aircraft attacks, compared to
the vastly larger number of car bombs and truck bombs.

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:06:12 +0000 (US/Central)

This was 1946; later, of course, damned near anyone who died of
anything had it blamed on the bombs.

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Letter to Congress
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> who want fast action) our focus needs to be shifted back to real,
-> ground pounding intelligence operations. We need to form a worldwide
-> network of anti-terrorism cells, anti-cells if you will.

I hope it would be more competent than the FBI's anti-Communist cells.

"Yo!  Anyone at this meeting who *isn't* an FBI agent or informer?!"


Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: "But ours goes to 11!"
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> It doesn't take Brad's Big Brain to figure out that race is
-> effectively used as a political tool, regardless of which secondary
-> characteristics earn your ire.

Yeah.  The Babdeez and their Original Sin put them on my shit list, and
the black power types have finally managed to do the same.  I'm not
guilty of one goddamned thing, and they can collectively kiss my
lily-white ass.

That kind of crap is cumulative, like radiation damage.  Eventually you
hit the limit, and all the shit rolls back downhill.

I realize it's all a whiner power trip, but it still manages to piss me
off.  If *I* tried spouting that kind of shit I'd be subject to hate
crime laws in a dozen states, which strikes me as rather racist...

-> > I turned the "Psychopathic Raving"
-> > knob up past 11 and broke it off, and only gave up when I hit the
-> > limit of the message editor.
>
> C'mon Unka Dave, share with the class!  You have a certain, medieval
> quality to your flamage.

Mm, maybe in a few weeks.  We're already embroiled in one horn-locked
stud poser thread; I'm trying to cut down to only one or two major
flamewars at a time.
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:56:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: New Weapons needed
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> should be used in good measure.  And I wonder what the modern
-> equivalent of Puff the Magic dragon is?

They replaced the C-47 gunships with C-130 gunships.  Some of them are
based at Hurlburt Field in Florida, which is a USAF Special Ops base.
My brother is stationed there.

All their planes are painted black, and have large artwork - skulls,
Grip Reapers, skeletons, and so forth.  I'll take some pictures next
time I'm there.  They're the psywar side of the USAF's fast-response
group.  They're strictly tactical, sort of an air commando for making
quick in-and-out raids.  They also have a bunch of air cargo and
logistics stuff; they're the guys who drop the Army grunts with the
Kawasaki dirt bikes and infrared vision helmets.  I've never quite
understood why the Army doesn't do it since they have planes of their
own.

- Dave "Peace On Earth - and Death From Above!" Williams

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: New Weapons needed
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> This is true for very low values of winning.  Sadam is still there
-> doing his nasty little deeds shooting at the NATO planes that overfly
-> his troops, and generally being a little shit.

That's not a military problem, that's a political problem.  The
combined forces would have blasted Iraq back to the Neolithic in short
order if the politicians hadn't decided on "limiting their objectives."


-> find the possability (near certainty) of allied injury offensive but
-> even with a pure airwar you do have to have someone on or near the
-> ground.

You can bomb and shell all you want, but sooner or later some grunt is
going to have to go in there personally and make it official.


-> Well thats a plus then, we had Churchill doing all manner of butting
-> in on WW2 decisions, dunno how much he helped or hindered,

Churchill was Prime Minister, *and* Minister of War, *and* held a
bipartisan mandate from Parliament, *and* held a carte blanche from the
King.  Churchill personally held more power than anyone except maybe
Stalin; certainly he had more than Hitler or Roosevelt.

As far as helped or hindered... a moot point, considering how unlikely
it was that Churchill ever came to power at all.


-> much one for intelligence and information gathering and I understand
-> that he LOVED covert operations - as do I.

He had his Commandos and ULTRA; few tyrants (in the original definition
of the term) have had such nifty toys.


Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Just the beginning.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.


-> The goods that do not move by rail move by freeway.  In the west and
-> many parts of the east, traffic is channeled to very narrow critical
-> spots with bridges.

Take out the bridges across the Mississippi on I-10, I-40, and I-70,
and you'll do a whole lot more damage than taking out some office
buildings.

There are remarkably few bridges across the Mississippi.  Curious,
that.


Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Donald Hamilton
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


Last week I re-read Donald Hamilton's "Assassins Have Starry Eyes".  It
was written in 1956, about a physicist at Los Alamos whose wife
disappeared after being identified as a member of a group of the sort of
people McCarthy liked to blacklist.  The story always reminded me of the
novelizations of the 57 Samurai; what the protagonist does, and why, are
absolutely clear within his cultural reference, and probably random and
mysterious by modern standards.

I dug Hamilton's "Line of Fire" off the shelf to re-read it.  1955.
It starts off on a Saturday, with the protagonist in a room on the third
floor of a mostly-empty office building, rifle sandbagged on a table,
waiting for a specific politician to move into the target zone.  Funny
I'd never really paid attention to that before, and I've probably read
that book half a dozen times.  1955...
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Don't hear this on CNN
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> > [US grants $43M to Afghanistan on May 17 2001, part of the
-> > War on Drugs]
-> >
-> Just in case someone was wondering where the Taliban gets it's
-> funding. Same as in Bolivia.....

The US was still pumping money into Nazi Germany even *after* we
declared war.  The Fed, to its credit, shut off the tap immediately, but
some of the multinationals had a hard time understanding that their
offices in Bonn or Munich were now in enemy territory, and transferring
corporate funds from the US to their accounts in the neutral countries
was treason.

Lenin said something along the line of, "the capitalists will sell us
the tools with which to overthrow them."  Hell, he never realized we'd
sell them on the Easy Payment Plan, or if their credit was bad, we'd
just *give* them the stuff...

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:33:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Just the beginning.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I truly hope NONE of this comes to pass....but if so, there will
-> STILL be whiners saying "we should not go after THEIR civilians, b/c
-> it's WRONG!"

Oddly enough, various London papers *and* some of the more clueless
members of Parliament were saying exactly that - *DURING* the Blitz.

The difference between genius and stupidity is, stupidity has no
limits.

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Greek comic link to WTC bombing
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> If true then how did our CIA and FBI *NOT* know about it?

I have a whole *stack* of books here, written by ex-CIA, FBI, MI5,
Mossad, and KGB agents.  Most of them were written by agents who were
less than pleased with their careers, which would slant things a bit,
but one common thread *all* of them talk about how the majority of
their work was office politics and pushing paper, and how they would
cherry pick potential work to make sure they didn't take on anything
that could cause political or career repercussions later.

Pretty much like how any other big businesses operate, come to think of
it.

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Just the beginning.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Canadians get along so well. I've always attributed it to their just
-> being pussified whimps in too few numbers to matter (and still do)
-> but perhaps it is the very weak national government that is a major
-> contributor.  Hmmm.

Well, on an international scale the Canadian government is weak, but as
far as relations between that government and its populace, they're not
far from a police state.  I'd say they're about ten-fifteen years
"ahead" of the USA along that path.

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: fanglers-digest V1 #4096
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> And manages to fire just when the politician flings up his arm, and
-> ruins a perfectly good plan ....

Gack!  Someone else who's read it!  

I think Hamilton and Heinlein had disproportionate influence on me as a
child...


-> Lord, I love DH.  I have all but about one non-Helm, and all the
-> Helm's from 1 to about 16 plus 3-4 in the 20's.  You wouldn't have a
-> line on any extras to fill in for me, would you?  You could just
-> deliver them in person, since it's so convenient :-).

I have "Line Of Fire", "Steel Mirror", and "Assassins Have Starry
Eyes."  And all of the Helms, even though I am quite certain the last
half-dozen or so were ghostwritten.  I had "The Mona Intercept", but I
think I got rid of it during one of the housecleanings.

After "Death of a Citizen" he got pretty formulaic, but that's okay, I
like the formula.  

Send me a want list and I'll keep an eye out; AB likes to hit flea
markets, which is about the only place you can find really old stuff
nowadays.

Hamilton stuff isn't as difficult to find as some; those Dean Martin
movies and the TV series were so projectile-vomiting horrible most
people automatically avoid any of the books when they encounter them.

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: New Weapons needed
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> BUT, if we can't find a neighboring country to allow us to develop a
-> logistics base, we can only realistically perform quick special ops
-> type stuff.

We don't need an adjacent country, just one within our strike range.
Which is pretty damned long - the planes that hit Khadaffi and the first
planes at Desert Shield flew from US bases in England and Germany.  And
those were *tactical* aircraft by US standards.  The ass kicking boys
are all intercontinental; they can fly out of Oklahoma City, refuel in
the air over the Atlantic if desired, and land in any reasonably
friendly part of Yurp, or return to the USA if they want.  All the
infrastructure has been there since the 1950s.

The Cold War is over, but we still have enough of the toys in
operational condition.  Most of those B-52s are older than their pilots,
but that's okay; the BUFFs are still ready to rock.

- Dave "still longs for a B-52 peace sign T-shirt" Williams

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Just the beginning.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.


-> You mean, something like the structure originally specified in our
-> current Constitution? Heaven forfend!! John, you're a dangerous
-> radical to propose something like that...    :>

I'm sure it's in his FBI file.  Constitutionalists are twice as
dangerous as Communists, you know.

All the Commies wanted to do was overthrow the government; a perfectly
reasonable thing.  But those damned Constitutionalists mostly just
wanted to be left alone, which was incomprehensible.  Crazy people who

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: New Weapons needed
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> How did they find those little caves and holes from the Japanese in
-> the WWII islands?

Mostly we just threw in human-wave assaults, and where our guys started
falling down in big bloody piles, we knew there was a pillbox somewhere
nearby.

Amphibious landings are always nasty; landings against hardened
defensive positions are even worse.  They made a recent movie about
D-Day, but the worst of that was a walk in the park to what happened
*many* times in the Pacific.  Old John Wayne movies are sanitized to the
point of irrelevance; anything that even approached portraying, say, Iwo
Jima with any accuracy would have been chopped off at the knees by the
censors of the day.

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:29:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Just the beginning.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Supposedly, that plane went over the White house and circled back
-> around. News-heads were saying that the White House would be

Cruise down Pennsylvania Avenue and all the heads turn to the White
House.  But if you look the other way you'll see a bunch of run-down
office buildings, some of them dating back to the 1800s.  Up through the
late 1960s at least (where my at-home sources of information stop) those
crappy buildings held most of the Department of State, part of the DOJ,
and other departments.  Usually just the "heads", or main offices, so
the bigwigs would be near the White House.

Most of the *real* paper-pushing work of the US government went on
there, and probably still does.  And they're a hell of a lot better
target than the White House.

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:03:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: We are all soldiers.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> media taught the entire world how to make a bomb like Timmy's.
-> This shit has to stop.  What ever happened to the phrase

Sure.  And every week they run those nifty "how to rob a liquor store"
programs.  And every now and then they whip the kiddies into enthusiasm
for shooting someone at school.

But that's "freedom of the press."  Their main freedom seems to be
freedom from responsibility for the things they broadcast.

I'd like to see the press reined in and made responsible for their
actions.  It's not like we got any useful news out of that pack of
pathological liars anyway.

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:06:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Just the beginning.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Read "The Nine Nations of North America" for a good analysis of how
-> to split up the continent along rational lines!

Personally, I'd like to see the map of North America all the same color
from the Panama Canal to the Arctic icepack.

And maybe we could buy another chunk of Africa to set up a little
nation for the Quebecois, and ship their fractious asses over there to
cause trouble for someone else for a change.

- Dave "?Habla Ingles?" Williams

Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bail-outs
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I vote republican 'cause I wanna be RICH!

The Republicans like nouveau riche just fine.  The Democrats would
rather you just stayed a serf.


Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:07:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bail-outs
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> It's the old "if I loan you $10, you're dependent on me; if I loan
-> you $1,000,000, I'm dependent on you" situation.

That's pretty much how the savings and loan mess happened.  The only
way they could cover defaulted loans was to loan even more money and
count "future income" to cover the gap.  Until they were borrowing money
at 18% to loan at 15%...

I used to be amazed at the mysteries of high finance, until I realized
that bankers and brokers are usually fucking idiots, like most of
everyone else.


Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:24:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: miscellaneous stuff
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


I saw two unusual things today:

First, an 18-wheeler with the trailer painted up with Japanese anime
style cartoon figures.

Second, a rather portly woman at the restaurant where I ate lunch.  At
first I thought she was dressed in biker garb, but after she passed by
several times I decided it was bondage chic.  Common enough in some
places, but the first I've seen here in Straightsville.


A friend who works for an airline called this afternoon.  He mentioned
some of the airlines are offering deep discounts.  Passenger count has
fallen off dramatically since last week.  Apparently it's no so much
that the potential customers fear being hijacked, as a whole lot of
people are unwilling to put up with the additional safety bullshit.
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Fangler birth and other news
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> > Trek fan, eh?  
->
-> Not really.  Not enough to understand the possible connection.?.?.?

One of the movies referred to an incident in Kirk's past, when he had
severely fangled an exercise while a cadet at Starfleet Academy.

The exercise involved a ship called the "Kobayashi Maru".  We're not
told what the scenario was, exactly, except that it was carefully
designed to be a no-win situation to see how the cadets handled failure.
Instead of playing out the exercise as given, Kirk hacked the system to
win.  His excuse was, "I don't like to lose."

A "Kobayashi Maru" has become part of geekspeak, to describe the sort
of software project that's doomed from the beginning.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 08:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Ratcheting down.....
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> to be able to LEGALLY prove it. I think the law is more flexible in
-> war, if not largely non-existent,

Dangerous thinking, as those on the dock at Nuremburg found out.

Churchill's stated purpose for insisting on the trials was to provide a
clear closing point for the war, to avoid another disaster like
Versailles.  As a spinoff, it put some real teeth into the idea of
international law.  It draw a line in the sand and said there were
some things you were going to have to answer for, no matter what kind of
speeches, declarations, or treaties you put forth.

NATO and SEATO came to exist because of the change in thinking at
Nuremburg.  They're not just treaties, they're a de facto form of
international police.  And oddly enough, if you look at their charters
and strip them of all the legal and diplomatic verbiage, they're
*exactly* the same as the doctrine of the Hell's Angels - an attack on
one is an attack on all, followed by collective retribution.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 07:57:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: 
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@buick.


-> thats how I see myself...biased, yet authoritative....

Aren't we all?  

Aren't we all?  
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 08:38:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: Don't hear this on CNN
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> We had heroin problems here since the time of the poet Shelly,

Yeah, but it was legal when Shelley was using it.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:10:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re:Arabic Language Speakers
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Afghanistan.  And of course how do you test their loyalty?

The same way we differentiated between Viet Minh and Viet Cong.

That is, poorly.


-> the Classics Department for courses in her undergraduate field and
-> found that they teach neither Latin nor Greek!

I took Spanish and French in high school.  I probably haven't even
looked at anything in either language for 20 years.  The other day AB
had a jones for a Big Mac, so I went off to get one.  "Fast food"
apparently means "sometime in the next 20 minutes", so after about 30
seconds I'm bored out of my mind.  Short attention span, you know.  I
remembered seeing a couple of those local-shopper type newspaper
dispensers outside, so I walked out to get one.  One was empty, the
other was "El Latino", and it was free.  I took one, went back inside,
propped up against the counter, and started reading.

20-year-old high school Spanish, cognates, portmanteaus, and a lot of
hand waving, but I was able to follow about half the articles in detail
and got the gist of the rest.  My basic vocabulary is still a little too
small to do a really good job, but I was feeling quite pleased with
myself.

From time to time I'd look up to see if the sloth-crew had deigned to
assemble the burger yet, and I'd catch people looking at me.  I'd
checked my zipper before walking in, so I put it down to the usual - for
some reason, people stare at me, even though. best as I can tell, I'm
perfectly ordinary looking, I even bathe every now and then, and I don't
have any overt twitching, jerking, or other entertaining
characteristics.  It used to bother me, but I've finally learned to put
up with it.

Anyway, at first I put it down to the unusual sight of someone
*reading* at a Big-O-Mac-O, but I finally realized it was the big red
"EL LATINO" on the front.  They were probably racking their brains
trying to find out what kind of Mexican I was...
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:02:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Lamborghini Wine
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> >    Waco (AKA Wacko TX)?
->
-> The same. I spent 17 of the first 18 years of my life there.

Here in Arkansas we had Tony Alamo and his "Sword and Covenant of the
Lord" group up in Alma.  Theologically pretty similar to David Koresh;
last days are here, get plenty of range practice, get the commune
stocked.

Unfortunately the Reverend Tony wasn't nearly as smart as Koresh, and
got into trouble with the IRS (no need to pay taxes when the end of the
world is near, you know), then some of his Froot Loops got into trouble
with the law, and then his wife died.  He kept her body in a glass
topped box in the living room and they held prayer meetings while
waiting for the rotting corpse to arise for the Rapture.  That got him
in trouble with the state health department since Arkansas has a law
on how long a body can be kept without enbalming.  Tony and a few of the
Faithful skipped out and eventually wound up in Florida, last I heard.
Probably voted for The Gorp.

Actually, I bet groups like those are pretty common; most of them
probably manage to stay out of the papers.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Powell's screwing the pooch again
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Just as I thought. Powell's the weak sister once again. He provided
-> Bush Sr. with exactly the wrong advice at the wrong time, and let the
-> Republican Guard run back to Baghdad.

*Powell*?  He was just the Pentagon's barking head; as far as I know he
didn't have any command authority over Desert Storm, at least no more
than any other back seat driver not in the direct chain of command.


-> off, and then we're going to kill it." That was all PR bluster.

Powell was a public relations general; his job was to say whatever it
took to build morale on our side and weaken it on theirs.  You don't
believe TV ads from Revlon or General Motors; why should you believe the
same thing from the Pentagon?  Belief in press releases is closely akin
to belief in the Tooth Fairy, no matter who is handing them out.


-> Powell pulled the plug on Schwartzkopf.

Funny, I thought that was George Sr. and NATO.


-> be given time for his silly-assed "coalition" to be peiced together
-> before we take any military action. More proof, he and Condie Rice

A coalition makes very good political sense; it allows our allies to
show they will "do something" in return for the support the USA has
given them over the last half century.  It makes good military sense;
failure to eliminate the problem by solely military means is quite
likely, so the blame for the failure won't rest solely with us.


-> Quite a different from Bush's flat pronouncement that we will draw no
-> distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them.

Pure rhetoric.  The United States didn't have that kind of military
clout on V-J Day, we didn't have it in Vietnam, and we sure as hell
don't have it now.  Of course, he might simply mean that we'll just
boycott the Olympics again, like Unkah Jimmuh did...

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:35:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: How we got here (Clancy in WSJ)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I've been cursed with major name brain fade this week.
-> Who was the Russian banging the podium with his shoe?

Nikita Khruschev, of course!

Supposedly he was bitching about the capitalist imperialist oppressors,
but later translations come out something like, "There's a monkey on my
foot!"

- Dave "grand gestures" Williams

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:55:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: A gruesome picture
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Who knows. That site make a good analogy that the Taliban
-> is similar to the Khmer Rouge in their treatment of the population.

Yeah, except colonial Cambodia was a fairly nice place according to a
couple of guys I knew who lived there.  The Taliban has a much easier
job than Pol Pot, because Afghanistan is already a lot like the "after"
part of Pol Pot's Year Zero plan.

Then again, it *is* their country, and they're welcome to make it as
big a shithole as they like.  As long as they stay there, anyway.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Stadium Deaths
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> "A memorial planned for Central Park this weekend was canceled
-> because of secur Instead, a memorial gathering will be held at 3 p.m.
-> Sunday at Yankee Stadium. event will be open to about 60,000 people."

Baaaa, little sheeple!  Baaa!  Baaaaaa!  The Big Bad Wolf is hiding
under the bed!  Baaaaaaaaa!


How long until you have to have a travel permit to cross town or enter
an office building?

Baaaaa!

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: How we got here (Clancy in WSJ)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Nikita Kruschev (?)
-> We will grind out the missiles like sausages....

Unfortunately, Soviet missiles *flew* like sausages...  well, they
claimed some of them could fly.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Powell's screwing the pooch again
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> By all the INTELLIGENCE accounts at the time, he was the lesser of
-> all evils.  That's why we backed out of trying to get him out of
-> there.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but look what we got when we ran the
Kaiser off to Switzerland.  Or who we got after kicking over the Shah of
Iran's government.   Just for two obvious examples; there are plenty
more.

You create a vacuum, something will fill it.  And unless you're very,
very careful, it'll be worse than what you got rid of.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:52:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: How we got here (Clancy in WSJ)
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Always wondered how that was considered a "victory". Now Castro gets
-> to thumb his nose at us and there's nothing we can do about it and
-> remain in good standing with the rest of the world.

Consider this:  Cuba has one of the most stable governments south of
the USA, *despite* the pulsating purple hard-on the State Department and
the CIA have had against it for nearly 40 years.

Yeah, Cuba is a pretty grim place by American standards... but most of
Latin America is a pretty grim place when they're not hustling for
tourist money.

By and large, Castro's revolution has been very successful.  Castro's
government periodically makes overtures to the USA, which are always
ignored.

What has Castro done to merit this?  He didn't step aside to let the
CIA's handpicked successor take over when the previous government got
kicked down.  Yeah, he's a "Communist", but his party has a membership
of one; Fidel himself.  Basic bread-and-butter dictatorship - just like
the kind the USA has installed in countries all over the world.

Consider this:  Hitler, Tojo, Qaddafi, and Hussein all got slapped
down, but for military and political reasons, we couldn't do it to
Castro.  Castro *won*, fair and square.  So Castro is an un-person, and
Cuba is an un-country.  Got any US-made maps of Florida and the
Caribbean?  I have several that show little zits like Grenada, Trinidad,
and some islands so small they're uninhabited... but Cuba isn't on them.
Ever since I noticed that, it has reminded me of the scene in "1984"
when they were revising all the history books and encyclopedias.

We've kissed up to the Chicoms, the former Soviets and their
satellites, Italy, Korea, Japan, and other former enemies, both military
and ideological... but not Cuba.  Not until Castro is finally dead, and
probably not even then, until we're quite sure.  It's okay to declare
war on the United States; we'll forgive you and send you money and
consumer goods.  But God help you if you *embarrass* the United
States...
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 21:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Lamborghini Wine
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I'd love to start one, except for the facts that A) I couldn't
-> keep a straight face, and B) I hate followers, particularly ones who
-> hang around, asking you to solve their problems and make
-> their plans.

Have you ever read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography?  I don't know how
he rated in his day, but he was a rather unsavory sort by his own
description.

In his book, he pointed out that starting and running a cult could be
quite profitable, and bemoaned that he didn't have the time to do a
proper job of one.

Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 21:47:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Stadium Deaths
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> >How long until you have to have a travel permit to cross town or
-> enter >an office building?

> Comrade Dave! Report for reeducation to the People's Ministry of
> Safety!

I would, Comrade Teixeira, but I seem to have misplaced my travel
permit and identity documents!  Wait, I think I see a black limousine
pulling up out front.  Gosh, the State is so considerate...

From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Ratcheting down.....
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Was there anyone tried in the Nuremberg that wouldn't have been
-> killed right off in an active war situation?

Krupp, Schacht and Speer that I can think of offhand.


-> I see the difference as, WWII was war first, trials after.
-> Osama and the terrorists seem to be a trial first, then a false
-> promise of war.

*Nations* go to war.  Assuming Osama is guilty, where's his nation?
Show me on a map.  Show me his capitol.  Show me his army.  Whoops,
looks like he doesn't meet any reasonable definition of a nation.

Hell, there's not much stopping Bin Laden from moving his entire
operation to the United States.  What would you do then?  Nuke
Cincinnati if you found some of them there?

Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Well, we're not the only ones
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> They left out the obvious. A single sky marshall will be an
-> identifiable victim and easily taken out.

Yes, but it establishes a clear line - they just wasted the marshal,
and your ass is next.  Unlike having the situation turn sour via a bunch
of little steps that, individually, didn't look like something worth
dying for.


Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 16:15:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> very annoying to hear her brag about the socialized medicine in the
-> UK. Until she got sick that is.

I had "free" medical care as a military dependent when I was a kid.

Take your worst HMO nightmare, and imagine the government running it.

I'll take a veterinarian or a witch doctor any time.
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 17:14:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> overthrow the management of the local county nursing home.  He
-> volunteered to do an audit that showed their hands in the till.
-> Anything to get rid of that management scum.

Hell, nursing homes are big business.  The Governor of Louisiana got
busted for nursing home fraud a few years ago, and there are periodic
cases of elected officials grafting off them.  Most of them just get
lost in the strident media noise.

And those are the *major* cases, that actually made it to an
investigation and inditement.  Think of all the lesser ones you never
hear of.

Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 17:08:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bush
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> used to want to be in it.  You don't want to know what I think
-> of the current state of psychology...

I think the Haitian houngans have a higher success rate.  But they
don't take Blue Cross...

Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 15:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: V8 Harley Project
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> We might talk to obsession to make a point, but in eye to eye
-> meetings, it's a blast when so many guys see eye to eye about so many
-> other items.

E-mail tends to emphasize differences.  In Real Life(tm) you just nod
or say "uh-huh" and the conversation rolls on.  You seldom get those
cues by mail; in fact, they're usually considered noise, so you normally
get feedback when someone disagrees with you.
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:12:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: novel fangleage
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

William Gibson is one of the most overrated authors around.  He wrote
"Neuromancer", which was okay, and then a bunch of real crap.  The
last thing of his I acquired was "Virtual Light", written in 1993.
It's about an ex-Knoxville cop (18 weeks on the force) turned security
guard, and some other stuff that got jammed into a book.  It's better
than "Count Zero", but that's not saying much.

The book sucks, mostly because though there's not much wrong with the
basic story, it suffers from the post-industrial downbeat cyberpunk
slant on everything, and being written as a series of vignettes and
flashbacks, which doesn't help *any* novel, particularly one as
fractured as this one.  A good editor could have made this one a
contender.  

Anyway, it has a few passages  that fanglers would appreciate.
Here's one, about Rydell's partner:
>>
Sublett was a Texan, a refugee from some weird trailer-camp video-
sect.  He said he mother had been getting ready to deed his ass to the
church, whatever that meant.

Sublett wasn't too anxious to talk about it, but Rydell had gotten
the idea these people figured video was  the Lord's preferred means of
communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush.
"He's in the de-tails," Sublett had said once.  "You gotta watch Him
*close*."  Whatever form this worship had taken, it was evident that
Sublett had absorbed more television than anyone Rydell had ever met,
mostly old movies on channels that never ran anything but.
<<

There are some other passages describing the video sect, but the
above covers the gist of it.  I think my wife is a member...


Now for one contiguous passage:

>>
The Glocks were standard police issue, at least twenty years old,
that InsenSecure bought by the truckload from PDs what could afford to
upgrade to caseless ammunition.  If you did it by the book, you kept
the Glocks in their plastic holsters, and kept the holsters Velcroed
to the wagon's central console.  When you answered a call, you pulled
the holstered pistol off the console and stuck it on the patch
provided on your uniform.  That was the only time you were supposed to
be out of the wagon with a gun on, when you were actually responding.

The chunkers weren't even guns, not legally anyway, but a ten-second
burst at close range would chew somebody's face off.  They were
Israeli riot-control devices, air-powered, that fired one-inch cubes
of recycled rubber.  They looked like the result of a forced union
between a bullpup assault rifle and an industrial staple gun, except
they were made out of bright yellow plastic.  When you pulled the
trigger, those chunks came out in a solid stream.  If you got really
good with one, you could shoot around corners; just kind of bounce
them off a convenient surface.  Up close, they'd eventually cut a
sheet of plywood in half.  If you kept on shooting, and they left
major bruises out to about thirty yards.  The theory was, you didn't
always encounter that many armed intruders, and a chunker was a lot
less likely to injure the client or the client's property.  If you did
encounter an armed intruder, you had the Glock.  Althrough the
intruder was probably running caseless through a floating breech - not
part of the theory.  Nor was it part of the theory that a seriously
tooled-up intruder tended to be tightened on dancer, and thereby both
inhumanly fast *and* clinically psychotic.

There had been a lot of dancer in Knoxville, and some of it had
gotten Rydell suspended.  He'd crawled into an apartment where a
machinist named Kenneth Turvey was holding his girlfriend, two little
kids, and demanding to speak with the president.  Turvey was white,
skinny, hadn't bathed in a month, and had the Last Supper tattooed on
his chest.  It was a very fresh tattoo; it hadn't even scabbed over.
Through a film of drying blood, Rydell could see that Jesus didn't
have any face.  Neither did any of the Apostles.

"Damn it," Turvey said when he saw Rydell, "I just wanna speak to the
president."  He was sitting cross-legged, naked, on his girlfriend's
couch.  He had something like a piece of pipe in his lap, all wrapped
with tape.

"We're trying to get her for you," Rydell said, "We're sorry it's
taking so long, but we have to go through channels."

"God damn it," Turvey said wearily, "Doesn't anyone understand I'm on
a mission from God?"  He didn't sound particularly angry, just tired
and put out.  Rydell could see the girlfriend through the open door of
the apartment's single bedroom.  She was on her back, on the floor,
and one of her legs looked broken.  He couldn't see her face.  She
wasn't moving at all.  Where were the kids?

"What *is* that thing you got there?" Rysell asked, indicating the
object across Turvey's lap.

"It's a gun," Turvey said. "And it's why I gotta talk to the
president."

"Never seen a gun like that," Rydell allowed.  "What's it shoot?"

"Grapefruit cans," Turvey said, "Fulla concrete."

"No shit?"

"Watch", Turvey said, and brought the thing  to his shoulder.  It had
a sort of breech, very intricately machined, and a trigger-thing like
a pair of vise-grip pliers, and a couple of flexible tubes.  These
latter ran down, Rydell saw, to a great big canister of gas, the kind
you'd need a hand truck to move, which lay on the floor beside the
couch.
There on his knees, on the girlfriend's dusty polyester carpet, he'd
watched the muzzle swing past.  It was big enough to put your first
down.  He watched as Turvey  took aim, back through the open bathroom
door, at the closet.

"Turvey," he heard himself say, "where's the goddamn *kids*?"

Turvey moved the vise-grip handle and punched a hole the size of a
grapefruit can through the closet door.  The kids were in there.  They
must've screamed, though Rydell couldn't remember hearing it.
Rydell's lawyer later argued that he was not only deaf at this point,
but in a state of sonically induced catalepsy.  Turvey's invention was
only a few decibels short of what you got with a SWAT stun-grenade.
But Rydell couldn't remember.  He couldn't remember shooting Turvey in
the head, either, or anything else at all until he woke up in the
hospital.  There was a woman there from "Cops in Trouble", which had
been Rydell's father's favorite show, but she said she couldn't
actually talk to him until she's spoken with his agent.  Rydell said
he didn't have one. She said she knew that, but one was going to call
on him.
<<

A 2000 PSI spud gun.  Wow...

That gets the squirrels in my head all excited!  Hm, too bad the
pressure of bottled propane varies so dramatically with temperature..


Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:46:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: novel fangleage
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> What is up with that ?Why can't they write full length scifi anymore
-> ?

I dunno, it seems like I encounter far to many endless 900-page word
processor wankings nowadays.  Two inch thick paperbacks that would have
been four or five volumes in the old days.

Remember when computer software went through the shelf space wars, and
packages with one floppy and a stapled manual were virtually empty cubes
a foot in each direction?  Much the same thing has happened with books,
partly to justify $65 computer books and $7 paperbacks.  Since the
customer can't judge by quality, they judge by volume.    So now
everything is big.  Even reprints.  I have first editions that were less
than a third of the thickness of the reprints; they bulk out the package
by using thicker paper (really!), larger fonts, and wider margins,
headers, and footers.

The publisher pays the author the same pittance no matter how many
words he writes; the cost of the actual book is well under a dollar
(closer to fifty cents for a high volume paperback), and the only losers
are the authors, who don't count anyway.

All this in mind, I've encountered a whole lot of books lately that
started off quite well, then sort of disintegrated halfway through.  I
suspect that's when the advance money ran out, or the editor demanded a
longer book.


Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 06:20:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Pilots want to carry guns in the cockpit.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> union envisions an armed pilots program that would be strictly
-> voluntary and would require extensive background screening and
-> psychological testing of pilots.

Baloney.  If anyone herding a commercial airliner around *doesn't* fly
through any "extensive background screening and psychological testing"
as a pure formality, there are more problems with the airlines than are
immediately obvious.

Hell, any schmuck can become an armed security guard in most states
just by taking a one-day course and having the local PD run a warrant
check.  And way too many security guards are losers wandering around
just dying to shoot somebody.  A commercial airline pilot is a greater
risk than some random weirdo off the street?


-> Pilots also would receive classroom
-> and practical training in the use of firearms that is the equivalent
-> of what armed sky marshals receive.

I hope they have better judgement than the FBI agents do...


Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 08:21:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: terminology
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


A buddy in England wanted me to pick out a carb and intake for his
Rover 3500.  I was flipping through the PAW catalog and saw, in the
Holley section, the Holley "Legacy" series carburetors.

I'm sure some marketing type thought it was a good name, but "legacy"
has bad connotations to computer geeks...  probably the same guy who
thought "Cross-Fire" was a cool name for a GM fuel injection system.
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:51:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: novel fangleage
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> But _Gaijin_ was pure wankery, and it was pretty obvious that the end
-> was a rush job where the editor said "hey dumbass, wrap it up
-> already.  We aren't giving you another 300 pages to tie your loose
-> ends."  I finished it for penance value.

Most of Lustbader's novels are that way.  They're also curiously
incomplete, like catching the middle episode of one of those three part,
made-for-TV soap opera movies.

A lot of Clavell and Lustbader's stuff is really good, it just doesn't
*go* anywhere.  Stuff happens, some more stuff happens at length, still
more stuff happens at even longer length, lots and lots of stuff doesn't
happen, the end.

Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:09:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: novel fangleage
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> There's a lot more to PK Dick than Blade Runner.  Trust me.  That
-> dude was messed in the head.

"Valis" even gave *me* the creeps...

Sort of made the whole concept of memetics jump into a whole new light;
take this idea as given, then this other idea follows, and you're off on
a perfectly logical, self-referential trip to Prozac, lithium, and
eating oatmeal with a rubber spoon.

Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:05:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: RE: novel fangleage
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> up Phillip Dick, but Blade runner was really a detective noir movie.

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" has as much connection with
"Bladerunner" as "Bladerunner" had with the Alan E. Nourse book of the
same name.  That is, zero.

I was unable to identify any similarity between the Dick novella and
the Bladerunner movie, except it happened in the future, and involved
androids.


-> as a Teen. Gibson changed the formula. No longer did the clean living

No, that's what I was getting at.  The genre existed before Gibson;
my objection is that his publishers promoted him as the originator until
most people believe it without thinking, like a lot of people believe
Henry Ford invented the automobile.

You should try Walter Jon Williams "Voice of the Whirlwind" or "Hard
Wired" if you liked stuff along that line, though.

Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Irish question
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> It's three.  Legend has it, Patrick used it to explain the Holy
-> Trinity to the pagans (not bad for a Unitarian, eh, wot?).

The Trinity.  That's Moe, Larry, and Joe, right?

- Dave "Frisbeetarian" Williams

Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:19:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Bogus License Upends Life
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> My wife works in Bank Of America's privacy department. She tells many
-> horror stories.
-> Many people have had to change their identity to finally clear things
-> up.

Some years ago I spent many months and a lot of hassle and frustration
cleaning my thoroughly-hosed "credit report data" up.  Their scam is,
they put any crap they want in there, then they want to charge you to
correct the data.  I finally got most of it fixed - removed the places
I'd never worked, credit cards I never had, etc.  Some of it I couldn't
fix; "number of times more than 60 days delinquent" data that came from
a creditor (JC Penney, in that case) when I'd never been late on a
payment, etc.

Anyway, about three months later I got another credit report, and all
the crap was back.  The bastards sell their data to each other, I think;
and it's just merged with no cares about whether it's valid or not.

What's interesting to me is the almost total lack of regulation on this
sort of thing.  I'd like to see them pull some of the OSHA and EPA
jackbooted Nazis out of their hassling-people jobs, wind them up, and
point them off in the direction of TRW Credit, Equifax, and some other
selected victims.

There's also a local "credit reporting agency" that's been trying to
blackmail me for years.  They claim I owe $2500 to some doctor I never
heard of, who has no record of ever having seen me.  "CRW Credit
Reporting" sends regular noticed of my "delinquency" off to the Usual
Villains periodically to keep it on my credit reports.  They get abusive
on the phone; eventually pissing me off enough to drive to Little Rock
to the address on their letterhead, which took me to the eighth floor of
an office building, facing a steel-sheathed door with a passcard lock.
Hmm... I bet I'm not the first one who showed up at their door.

Somehow, according to the county prosecutor's office, it isn't
blackmail if a company is doing it to you, though it'd be a big issue if
it was a private individual trying it.
Being then, I just turned around and left.  Nowadays, I'd probably
unzip and piss all over the door first, and give it an extra shake or
two for the (almost certainly present) camera.

One of these days I'll get back on that particular warpath; I've gotten
older and meaner since then.

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: fangler www pages and a request for advice
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I had this exact same discussion with the Germans at Bosch, and my
-> tastes appear to be specifically American.  Big road, big car, big
-> engine.

The Voices sometimes send a vision of a late '50s Chrysler or DeSoto
with garish three-tone paint, many square feet of chrome, and towering
tail fins.  Skinny tires and big chrome hubcaps.  Powered by a
thoroughly tweaked Street Hemi with overdrive, slamming down the left
lane of the Autobahn at warp speed, with the massive wake defoliating
nearby trees.

I don't know what the Voices are trying to tell me by this vision, but
at least it's not totally incomprehensible like some of their stuff.

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 21:58:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: interesting quote
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


In the light of the new "security" and "safety" measures being put
forth recently by de gummit and the Holy Media, I offer this:

from "Fifth Planet" by Fred and Geoffrey Hoyle, copyright 1963

"...there was something terrifyingly anonymous about the big city.

Still, when you considered that it seemed to be the aim of society
these days to reduce every individual to the status of a punched card,
perhaps it wasn't altogether a bad thing.  He began to speculate on a
future where every place, London even, was controlled by a gigantic
computer.  It would be obligatory wherever you went, every shop,
restaurant, or hotel, even when you walked down the street, to put
your own identification card into an electronic scanner.  It would be
a crime not to do this every quarter hour or so.  Then the computer
would know where everybody was at all times.  And you could ask it
questions: where is Cathy Conway right now?  A small tug hooted as it
swirled under the bridge at his feet.  Conway shivered as he walked
back to his parked car; he has a terrible feeling that he'd just had a
vision of the future.  It would be easy to justify such a system in
the interests of defense and security.  The way it would start would
be with a few selected individuals, individuals of special importance,
who would be flattered by the constant interest in their movements,
who would for the most part fall in with the system.  Then it would
work its way down through the social ladder.  People would feel it
gave them status.  Come to think of it, royal families had lived under
this system for centuries."

O /
(---X----[snip]------------------------------------------------)
O \

Of course, nowadays you could simplify the system by just issuing
everyone a combination National ID card/credit card/cellular phone/
pager/cash card/GPS transponder.  That way, the maximum safety for the
maximum number of people could be had most efficiently.  Mack Reynolds
described exactly that device in several of his novels in the 1960s, and
possible ramifications thereof.

1963.  I bet that passage pegged a lot of bogometers back then.  I
first read the book in the 1970s, and I remember thinking it was even
more far out than the rest of the story.  Little did I know...

Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 22:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: fangler www pages and a request for advice
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> My voices came up with a Studebaker.  I'm sure that reveals some
-> personality quirk, but I don't want to know what it is.

Unless you're talking about the rebadged Packards they sold for a
couple of years, Studebaker never made anything *big* enough to satisfy
the Voices.

Somehow, it's all tied up with conspicuous consumption, hula hoops, the
degeneration of Western culture, Naugahyde, drive-in movies, and some
other stuff the Voices haven't quite clarified yet.

Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:30:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: [Fwd: Afghanistan, from a Soldiers Perspective]
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Traditionally, the Afghan order of battle is very feudal
-> in nature, with fighters owing allegiance to a "commander,"
-> and this person owing allegiance upwards and so on and so on.

Oh.  Just like the United States Army during the Civil War era, or the
British Army up to the Boer War.

Not *that* feudal, and a system that served Western civilization for
around a thousand years...

Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 19:04:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: old from CNN
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


from CNN.COM 10/99:

> EX-SOVIET DICTATOR'S SON PASSES U.S. CITIZENSHIP TEST WITH FLYING
> COLORS

Sergei Khrushchev breezed through the U.S. citizenship test on
Wednesday, and next month will swear loyalty to a country and way of
life that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev his father promised to bury.
"We both passed," Khrushchev said with a smile as he and his wife left
the Providence office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service. "Our heart is here. We will be good citizens," said the 63-
year-old Khrushchev, who looks much like his deceased dad.

Khrushchev missed one out of 20
.... http://cnn.com/US/9906/23/AM-CitizenKhrushchev.ap/index.html

[dw: Stalin's daughter Svetlana also became an American citizen some
years ago.  Khruschev was hardly a dictator; he had considerably
less power than JFK, and was in fact ousted from the Politburo for
exceeding his authority during the Cuban missile screwup.  But
we're dealing with journalists here, who sling-a da Eeengleesh
fast and loose.]


> AMA VOTES IN FAVOR OF ORGANIZED LABOR

The American Medical Association House of Delegates voted Wednesday to
form a collective bargaining unit within the AMA. In a voice vote, the
494-member group agreed to create the new unit, which it carefully
avoided calling a "union," at the organization's annual meeting in
Chicago.

Congress is considering a bill
.... http://cnn.com/HEALTH/9906/23/doctors.union.03/index.html

[dw: "Doctor, this patient is hemorrhaging!"
"Don't look at me, I clocked out five minutes ago."]


> MCDONALD'S TO PAY $4 MILLION FINE

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has reached an agreement on a
multimillion-dollar lawsuit against fast-food giant McDonald's. Under
the settlement, the restaurant chain has agreed to pay the government
$4 million in damages for failing to inform CPSC of more than 400
playground injuries at its restaurants. Twenty suffered concussions or
skull fractures and 80 suffered broken bones. Federal law requires
companies to report incidents involving their products to the CPSC.

Questional equipment no longer at playgrounds
.... http://cnnfn.com/1999/06/28/companies/mcdonalds/

[dw: local schools lost their playground equipment 20 years ago; if the
Arkansas educational system wasn't safe from the lawyers, what made
McD's think they were safe?  Also note exactly what they were being
fined for, and where the money was to go.  Hmm...]
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 20:11:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: The foretelling of cell phones ... not.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> I was thinking back on the Sci-Fi I have read, memory of which is
-> fading some what, and I can't think of any stories with something
-> similar to the phenomenon of cell phones .  As in the possibility of
-> everyone having a mobile communication device on their person.

"The Joymakers" by James Gunn (original story 1954), lots of Jack Vance
of that era, and all sorts of Mack Reynolds and Larry Niven stuff in the
'60s come to mind immediately.  Those were all true point-to-point
telephone type devices, as opposed to Star Trek type "communicators"
which were (as far as were shown) basically multichannel walkie-talkies.

The cellular phone has put the hurt on murder mystery plotlines,
though.  Of the stuff I've read printed since the '80s, most authors
apparently simply ignore them.  Easy communication must make it hard to
put an acceptable story together.
The market for video telephones appears to still be near zero, despite
them being a staple of science fiction for 75 years.  Carol Burnett did
a hysterically funny skit about potential videophone problems on her
variety show many years ago, most of which still holds true today.
Hell, I know women who check their makeup before answering a *regular*
telephone...

Isaac Asimov once mentioned that SF writers had no problem inventing
giant electronic brains or planet-sized computers, but not one of them
had ever thought up the pocket calculator.  EE Smith's "Triplanetary"
(1948) mentions something along that line, but it could just as easily
have described a slide rule, so as far as I know Asimov was correct.


-> Dick Tracy doesn't count.

Why not?


-> (As-a-color-purple-gray, anyone know that sci-fi literary reference?)

Not me!
Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 07:00:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Wild Weasel Mission Aircraft
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> Too bad. Technology advances. There's just nothing in the sky that
-> says "macho air supremacy" like an F4 Phantom.

Ballocks, and that's *Mister* BUFF to you!

The B-52 has been the symbol and reality of US air power for forty
years.  There is no other.

Fighters and tactical ground support have their place, but the purpose
of the US Air Force is to bomb the fuck out of anyone we don't like, and
the B-52 is the instrument for expressing that attitude.

The B-1 was a sick joke from the very beginning; barely more than a
B-58 variant, and if we needed a supersonic bomber, we already *had* one
- the B-70 Valkyrie.  The B-2 is a mystery to me; there's nothing it can
do at 5,000 feet that the B-52 can't do at 50,000 feet.

- Dave "BUFF buff" Williams


Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 12:43:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: The foretelling of cell phones ... not.
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> > Asimov (As-a-color-purple-gray, anyone know that sci-fi literary >
-> reference?)
->
-> Christopher Stachov's book "The Warlock In Spite Of Himself."

I've read that book a dozen times, and I don't remember that reference.

Hey!  I think I have it!  Gerrold's "The Flying Sorcerers".  Purple was
the guy who broke his glasses.

Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2001 22:54:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chilling
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> The Pope and Cardinal Egan have both recently asserted that there is
-> such a thing as the moral use of military force to protect the
-> innocent.

Downright Christian of them, considering the Crusades, the extinction
of the Hugeuenots, at least one English civil war, a major religious
war between England, France, Spain, and Germany a couple hundred years
ago, the rather brutal "conversion" of various Scandinavian countries to
Catholicism, and of course the Church's actions in Central and South
America during the time of the conquistadores.

- Dave "kill them all, let God sort them out" Williams

Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 15:36:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chilling
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> and survive. I told him I was going to enlist in '73 and he went
-> ballistic.

I wasn't old enough for the draft when the war ended, but I grew up in
its shadow.  Even as a preteen it was pretty obvious to me that there
was no real effort being made to win the war; it was just being dragged
out endlessly for various people to make a shitload of money.

A quarter of a century later, it still looks that way to me.  And I
still think the Pentagon's rabid hostility toward Richard Nixon was
based on Nixon's determination to take their playground away from them.
Nixon saw the war was never going to be won, so he declared it a victory
anyway, pulled out, and cut our losses.  Which pissed a whole bunch of
people off.

I believe in supporting my country, but Vietnam wasn't about US foreign
policy, it was about a bunch of defense contractors minting their own
money.  I'd made my decision - Canada, vagrant, or jail, but I sure a
hell wasn't going to Vietnam.

Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2001 15:49:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Suspension
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Let me know what the Customs people ask when you ship that package
-> over the pond.  They always have something clever to say whenever

I've shipped a bunch of car parts over, new and used.  "Used auto
parts" have minimal duty compared to new ones.  So I've become adept
at artifically aging new goodies before packaging them.

Her Majesty's Customs officers apparently don't look closely at stuff
covered in slimy shop spooge.


-> They take their tariffs seriously over in the UK, I guess.

Customs duties (and some port fees) were the traditional personal
income of the King.  James II (the Bible guy, overthrown during one of
England's religious civil wars) had a little tiff with Parliament, who
refused to disperse monies for government, so James paid all of the
operating expenses of the English government out of his own pocket for
quite some time.  That's what they refer to as the period of "Personal
Rule."  Medieval English government was pretty much pay-as-you-go back
then; you bought a license or a permit, or paid fees to use government
services, like harbors or some roads, so all James actually paid for was
upkeep of the Navy, which partially supported itself by charging
protection fees to the merchant fleets, upkeep of the royal residence,
foreign ambassadors, and things like that.  The dukes and lords
maintained their own roads, militaries, and services, and collected
their own taxes, some of which got passed on, though I don't think I
ever knew if they went to the King as their feoff or to the Parliament.
James also collected some money by sponsoring treasure hunters, at least
one of whom was wildly successful at salvaging a Spanish treasure
galleon near Puerto Rico.


Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 06:23:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Unarmed military
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> a (quite friendly) history of RAND corp, was to initiate a
-> PREEMPTIVE first strike whenever >HE< and not the command authority

That was the sort of thing that made the Soviets even more paranoid
than they were to start with.  The US President had personal launch
authority.  He was supposed to clear it with Congress first, but one of
his aides still carried the 'football'.  Then there were guys like
LeMay, whose file probably occupied several drawers in a filing cabinet
at Dzerzhinsky Square, and the Navy's submarines, the U2s and SR-71s,
forward bases in Turkey and Iran, NATO, and the Western occupation
forces in Berlin.  Put the right spin on things and it was easy to make
it look like the US was right on the verge of invading the Motherland;
no doubt a majority of Soviets believed it implicitly.  Hell, I know I
once believed they were ready to invade *us*, back before I learned
enough to know how unlikely it was.  That's what they taught us in
school.

Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 06:32:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Unarmed military
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> subs took over the role of MAD deliveru vehicle of choice. LeMay had
-> SAC in the air 24/7/365. He always had them up there.

My Dad was a B-36, later a B-52 electrician in SAC in the '50s and
'60s.  SAC kept a few B-52s 'orbiting' around the Bering Strait area at
all times, and during alerts, most of the planes were in the air, loaded
and ready, so they wouldn't get caught on the ground like MacArthur's
air force in the Philippines in WWII.  Lots of people nowadays claim the
B-52s weren't actually carrying nukes, but that's a bunch of crap - Dad
spent plenty of time slithering through full bomb bays to get at wiring
gremlins.  B-52s had a snotload of wiring.  He says many-a-time he wound
up laying on his back on top of a nuke, tracing wires through the
fuselage.  And after many hours in the stratosphere in an unheated bomb
bay, those things were *COLD*.

Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 06:40:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Fw: Osama Joke
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Uncle Sam (A  former civil engineer), asks, "Before I make my

All RIGHT!  Herbert Hoover was always one of my favorite Presidents.

Hoover got shafted when an inflated economy collapsed during his
administration, as if there was anything he could have done about it,
back in those days when the Federal government wasn't today's Big
Brother.  Hoover initiated a whole set of policies and programs to
recover from the Depression, almost all of which were taken over without
change by Roosevelt and incorporated in his "Fair Deal" program.  Then
it became necessary not only to make the Depression look like Hoover's
fault, but to take credit for all of his work too.  One reason
Roosevelt's recovery measures looked so quick and efficient was his
administration would "create" a program by simply renaming one of
Hoover's, which was already up and working.
Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 10:34:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chilling
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Exactly what was the point of our involvement in Vietnam, other than
-> to give JFK a big woody and make LBJ and cronies a lot of money?

Originally it was the Truman Doctrine, to resist the encroachment of
communism wherever it tried to spread.  But the Truman Doctrine didn't
last long, and mostly it appeared to be the Department of State and the
CIA charging off independently into the morass.

Vietnam became a tar baby under the Eisenhower administration.  One of
the few decent things JFK did was turn to his advisors and say something
like, "How the FUCK did we get into this mess, anyway?"  This was
interpreted as an order for a detailed report, which wasn't delivered
until Nixon's first term, and was promptly leaked by Ellsberg in the
"Pentagon Papers" mess.  Nixon didn't really care how we got into
Vietnam; he was concerned about getting us out, which he gets damned
little credit for.

The Pentagon Papers are detailed, but what they detail is that nobody
actually made a decision to get involved in a war in Vietnam.  It was
a bunch of little decisions by little people, which accumulated over ten
years or so - old Roosevelt bureaucrats determined to carry on
Roosevelt's policy of smashing the French Empire, Truman bureaucrats
intent on implementing the Truman Doctrine, Eisenhower bureaucrats
wanting something to distract attention from Korea, Kennedy bureaucrats
who were clueless.  The various Presidential decisions are beautiful
examples of poorly-informed politicians thinking only of short-term
solutions.


-> I think we'd do much better to crib from Heinlein and tie the
-> right to vote in national elections to national service.  Don't
-> participate, then you don't get a say.

I thought it was a reasonable idea; I was surprised when I read a
comment of his, that he was still getting hate mail and threats over
"Starship Troopers" thirty years later.


Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 10:42:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Unarmed military
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@


-> assets at the ready. Dave, did you Dad ever tell you how fast they
-> scrambled, from sitting there playing poker in the mess to wheels up?

They were allowed fifteen minutes to get from the ready room to the
cockpit during alerts.  Non-alerts, when the aircrews would be at home
or pushing papers at a desk, was half an hour.

There were always *some* B-52s "orbiting"; not just Alaska, but I know
up and down the California coast, and I'd suspect from Germany and
Turkey.  Planes on training missions and pilots just getting time in for
their flight pay didn't carry live munitions as far as I know.

There were always *some* planes being repaired or undergoing routine
maintenance, but only a few at a time.
That's the Strategic Air Command as I grew up at various air bases in
the '60s and '70s, anyway.

- Dave "Peace on Earth, and Death From Above" Williams


Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 10:50:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chilling
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> rich/powerful can weasel out of social commitments in general more
-> easily. (Buy off doctors, get cake assignments, etc.) But a blanket

Historically, war has been the province of the wealthy; buy a
commission, make a splashy showing, and you could considerably advance
your social and political standing.

Vietnam, and to a lesser degree Korea, are probably the first wars
where the wealthier youth segments of society preferred *not* to fight.
I see a number of reasons for that, mostly wrapped up in the radical
social changes in post-WWII American society.  *We* don't think it
abnormal that someone doesn't want to charge off to get killed for no
particular reason, but the its a historical anomaly.

Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 16:41:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Chilling
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> also have to deal with a larger percentage of military personnel that
-> don't share the "traditional" attitude about chicks & homos.

The obvious solution is segregation.  The Army segregated women, blacks
and Japanese-Americans as late as WWII.  Prevented a lot of problems.

Whoops, segregation is a "bad" word nowadays...

Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 22:22:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Re: Luftwaffe Provides US Homeland Security
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> Other folks are sharing duties to give a
-> show of unity among NATO countries.
-> That doesn't make us a total charity case yet.
-> Pretty soon Russia will be over here in our skies too..

Soviet AWACS planes used to refuel at US air bases in Alaska, and vice
versa.  50 below zero brought a new definition to "Cold War."

Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2001 22:18:00 -0500
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams)
Subject: Read the article and the source data
Sender: owner-fanglers@
To: fanglers@

-> But in asymmetric conflicts with non-state belligerents

God, what a *beautiful* example of political doubletalk...