[5028] in Central_America
Richard's new .plan file
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Brian A. LaMacchia)
Fri Jul 23 22:18:23 1993
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 22:18:20 -0400
From: Brian A. LaMacchia <bal@martigny.ai.mit.edu>
To: ca-mtg@charon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: bal@martigny.ai.mit.edu
Richard sent me the following message, and placed it in his .plan file
for CA to pick up tonight. (Unless he changes it between the time he
reads this and the time CA scans his file, or otherwise interferes).
I thought I'd spoil his surprise.
--bal
P.S. Pretty lame attempt at humor, if you ask me. And he couldn't even
come up with a better P.S. then what Andrew Greene wrote in December,
1991.
---cut-here---
Return-Path: <oracle@Athena.MIT.EDU>
From: The Discuss Oracle <oracle@panama.central.america>
To: Unworthy.Supplicant@Athena.MIT.EDU
Cc: ca-maintainers@Athena.MIT.EDU
Date: 5 Av 5753, 3.5 hours before sunset
Subject: Your sniveling request
Dear Supplicant:
It has been brought to my attention by my loyal servants Richard
and Tom that you have made two requests to be added back to the
Central America system WITHOUT SUFFICIENT GROVELLING. Such arrogance
would usually be met by *ZOT*ing you from the system, but since you've
already been zotted - and since Uncle Guido, whose job it is to take
care of annoying supplicants, is away at the blackjack tables in Reno -
I have taken it upon *myself* to deal with you. You should be honored,
for most supplicants don't receive (or survive) such treatment. My
brother in Indiana would have turned you into his special supplicant flambe'
by now, but you are lucky that I am more patient. Here I am, sunning
myself on Acapulco's finest beach, and I need to pull out my CM5 powerbook
to reply to a measly supplicant, WHO HASN'T EVEN GROVELLED! You are
lucky, kid.
Hmph. First, let's see just who you think you are:
deity# whothehellis balamac
Login name: balamac In real life: Brian A. LaMacchia
Office: 431 Tech Sq., x3-0290 Home phone: 868-8042
Directory: /mit/balamac Shell: /afs/sipb/project/tcsh/tcsh
Current ICBM target coordinates: 42d 48m 32s North, 71d 4m 17s West
No plan. No clue.
Tech Sq., eh? I've heard about those folks. Let's see:
deity# thgttg Tech Square
Tech.Square \'TeX-skwair\ n 1: headquarters of the Abysmal Intellect Lab
(AILab), Lab for Cretinous Slaves (LCS), and Course Sicks; 2: a
desolate nesting ground for geecs, a bizarre species that may be
recognized by its nocturnal habits, peculiar body odor, and
distinct tendency to flame about matters of absolute insignificance
via email when sexually frustrated; mostly harmless, many members
suffer from a terminal disease by which radiation from computer
screens rots their brain cells, even to the point whence they
forget to grovel, the only cure for which is to get a life.
Aha, well that explains it. You should definitely get outside of your
cubical more often. Look here, supplicant, I feel sorry for you and
thus am going to give you one more chance. I am instructing my loyal
servants to grant you amnesty to return to Central America. To aid
your (certainly faulty) memory, here are some instructions to ensure
that your .plan will show up:
1) To appear in CA, your .plan file must be a regular file in your
Public directory (~/Public/.plan) or in the top level of
your home directory (~/.plan); symlinks will be ignored.
2) The .plan file must be world-readable - this should be the default
case if you use ~/Public/.plan - according to AFS acls.
3) The NFS mode bits must be properly set for CA to read your .plan file;
this feature gives you the freedom and power to select when
your plan appears in CA and when it does not appear.
To make your plan appear in CA, do:
chmod o+r .plan
To prevent your plan from appearing, do:
chmod o-r .plan
These commands have no effect on whether other users can
read your plan by the "finger" command.
You can control whether or not your .plan appears by using the "chmod"
command as described above. If you would like your .plan never to appear
in CA, then send mail to ca-maintainers and they will oblige in excluding
you.
My servants would also like to remind you that Central America is not
for the "humour-challenged" and that the reigning spirit is meant to
be one of levity, politeness, and fun. Users who do not respect such
simple concepts will be zotted from the isthmus, or *shudder* turned
over to Uncle Guido.
Comments and suggestions about Central America's purpose, politics,
propaganda, or policy should be sent directly to the polisci meeting
(NOT) or to ca-maintainers@dev.null. The latter will give you a prompt
response informing you that your comments have been received and
disposed^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdealt with in an appropriate manner. Mail to
other addresses is likely to have significantly delayed responses, as
my servants have better things to do with their time and CA is lowest
on their priority lists.
You owe the oracle a good grovel, a sense of humor, and a case of
SPF25 suntanning lotion. Have a hot day.
- The Discuss Oracle
<oracle@panama.central.america>
PS: Thought for the day:
May those who sow discord find discord in their harvest.
