[4999] in Central_America
New quotes for Sun Jul 18
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Central America)
Sun Jul 18 06:16:28 1993
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 93 06:16:23 -0400
From: Central America <root@charon.MIT.EDU>
To: ca-mtg@charon.MIT.EDU
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dpatrick (David M Patrick):
1st year Ph.D. student, Dept. of Mathematics
Office: 2-251, x3-7566
Address:
Room 307A
305 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 225-9715
I'm not logged in as of Sat Jul 17 16:52:19 EDT 1993
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eichin (Mark W. Eichin):
travel:
california in *october*, not august. The paper is *done* though!
hacking:
I can now get email *directly* at home -- eichin@paycheck.cygnus.com.
I've got a Solaris hosted Linux targeted cross-compiler working...
work:
I've somehow made a habit of getting to work by 9AM. This week,
I'm actually *accomplishing* things. Still working on the previous
plan ("Maybe I should find a morning person to sleep with") but
still not sure that I know any (so don't be shy, introduce yourselves
already...)
music:
Now everyone of us was made made to suffer
Everyone of us was made to weep
But we've been hurting one another
And now the pain has cut too deep...
Walking on Broken Glass
Diva, Annie Lennox
play:
hacking in the web. //www.mit.edu:8001/people/eichin for starters...
I just wrote a ten page paper in html... URL coming soon.
tk-klondike is getting better...
I just ordered a Compudyne Subnote. Let's see how soon I can get
it on the net :-)
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hch (Hernando Cortina):
I'm receiving a coded message from EUBIE BLAKE!!
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svalente (Salvatore Valente):
From: Brian A. LaMacchia <bal@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
To: svalente@Athena.MIT.EDU
You're receiving a copy of this message because you just received a
request from svalente@athena.mit.edu to modify your .plan file. I feel
required to give you some more information concerning the Discuss
meeting "Central_America" and your rights on Athena.
The short form: You can do whatever you wish, and svalente and
"ca-maintainers" can't complain. So you're free to ignore them or
appease them, as you see fit.
Let me rebut a few of the things svalente told you, while I'm at it:
There is a little system called "Central America" run by a few athena
users. Once a day, this system looks through all of the publicly
readable .plan files on athena, and logs the ones that were changed in
the past day. These logs are kept in a discuss meeting, so that
anyone can enjoy all the new .plan files.
1) The programs that scan users .plan files are run on SIPB
workstations, and the discuss meeting is archived on a SIPB machine.
However, it's not clear whether "Central_America" is SIPB-sponsored or
not, although everyone connected with it is seems related to SIPB. It
is misleading to say that it is run by "a few athena users," as
Central_America is at least "Athena-sanctioned" if not
"Athena-supported".
2) These compilations are made and published because certain people find
them amusing. Certain other people (myself included) find them
offensive and in violation of MIT policy. Not everyone agrees with
their operation.
This mail is being sent to people who change one line in their .plan
file every time they log in. You can create a one-line file in your
home directory called ".project" which will be sent to people who
finger you along with your .plan. I would like to ask if you would
please use the .project file to tell people when you last logged in.
That way, your .plan file would only change when you actually change
it, and the Central America logs would be more correct.
Note that when he says, "logs would be more correct" he means, "so I
don't have to see your (essentially) same .plan file show up every day".
There are other Athena users who change more than one line of their
.plan files every day, and they do not receive notices such as this one.
Basically, if the changes to you .plan file are "sufficiently
interesting," you don't get a note. Mr. Valente clearly doesn't
consider the changes you make to your ".plan" file sufficiently
interesting.
There was also a time when certain people, myself included, automatically
changed our .plan files once a day to protest the operation of
Central_America, something we consider an invation of privacy. We
received requests, similar to this one, to change our .plan files. We
refused. After a little while, the then-current maintainer of the
program removed us from the CA database entirely, so that our
"repetitious" .plan files wouldn't interfere with their viewing
pleasure.
If you don't want Central-America to ever log your .plan file, please
send mail to ca-maintainers@athena.mit.edu and they will tell it to
ignore your .plan.
P.S. The logs are in the meeting charon.mit.edu:/usr/spool/discuss/ca.
P.P.S. This is not an official athena service, it's simply something
a few people do because they want to, and you can happily ignore us.
As I mentioned above, the status of Central_America is unclear. It uses
SIPB resources and is run by people associated with SIPB, but is
evidently not a SIPB service. It is at least sanctioned by Project
Athena and I/S, since references to Central_America appear in the
official Project Athena on-line documentation. (Look under "help" for the
section about finger and the .plan file).
Again, you're always free to modify your .plan/.project files as you see
fit. Don't let "svalente" or "ca-maintainers" tell you otherwise.
--Brian LaMacchia
bal@martigny.ai.mit.edu
--- End of Central America ---
