From hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM Sat Dec 9 04:27:40 1989 From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: Callahan's on IRC Date: 9 Dec 89 01:48:59 GMT Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) Organization: The Cat Factory Status: O Where the Polymath usually sits there's only a terminal screen with the following on it: In article <1989Dec8.002645.5179@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> stadnism@clutx.clarkson.edu writes: }From article <44135@bu-cs.BU.EDU>, by austin@bucsf.bu.edu (Austin Ziegler): }> On 7 Dec 89 21:43:13 GMT, stadnism@clutx.clarkson.edu (Me) said: }me> Well, after playing around a bit, I'd like to propose an unofficial }me> Callahan's channel on IRC; ch. 25, staffed by whoever's around at the }me> time, open 24 hours, etc. Title is up to whoever's on... }> IRC, pester, bug, annoy, do *anything* you must to get IRC at your server. } ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ }Well, I had to go get it + compile it myself... it was worth it, though. I'm guessing that IRC stands for Internet Real-time Chat, or equivalent. Um ... folks, some of us aren't on the Internet. We can't talk in real time. We can't even ftp. Thanks anyway. Have a good time. I think it's a great idea, but I can only be here in alt.callahans, as usual, in my usual form. (Not that I'm complaining. It's one heck of a nice place to be). Probably just as well. If I had 24 hour IRC available, I'd _never_ get any work done. (-: -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Illegitimis non Citicorp(+)TTI Carborundum 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 450-9111, x2483 Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe From ckd@bu-pub.bu.edu Sat Dec 9 10:32:04 1989 From: ckd@bu-pub.bu.edu (Christopher Davis) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: mail-to-news gateway info Date: 9 Dec 89 09:54:37 GMT Reply-To: ckd@bu-pub.bu.edu (Christopher Davis) Distribution: alt Organization: Boston University School of Management Status: O There is a mail-to-news gateway running at ucbvax.berkeley.edu for those of you who, like Jilara, may not be able to post directly. It's one-way (mail -> news) only, though. Mail to alt-callahans@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (or {stuff}!ucbvax!alt-callahans). Now back to your regularly scheduled interesting postings. --Chris -- Christopher Davis, BU SMG '90 "Many verbal attacks are part of someone's aim to establish their rank in a dominance hierarchy, the same sort of behavior common among nesting fowl." --Daniel Mocsny From stefan@lbl-csam.arpa Sat Dec 9 10:32:13 1989 From: stefan@lbl-csam.arpa (Stefan gottschalk) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: H's and WF's Date: 9 Dec 89 09:27:07 GMT Reply-To: stefan@csam.lbl.gov (Stefan Gottschalk) Distribution: usa Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley X-Local-Date: 9 Dec 89 01:27:07 PST Status: O The wind has picked up, and howls against the windows. He enters in a deluge of snow, and battles the door closed. The figure wears hiking boots, jeans, a very large coat, and a bombhat. "Damn cold out there," he is heard to mutter. He removes his coat and pulls off the hat, to reveal long brown hair, tied into a pony tail which reaches the small of his back. Without the coat he looks much lighter, like a cat who has stepped out of his fur. He produces a bill, and receives a very large mug of hot chocolate from Mike. Muttering thanks he goes to the corner he has visited often in the past few weeks. There he sits quietly, nursing his steaming drink, cradling it with as much of both hands as he can. ... Ordinarily, he would rise after an hour or so, collect his change from the cigar box, and depart. Today, however, he steps into the open space before the fireplace, just short of the line, and turns. Conversations automatically dwindle and cease. He sees people turn in their chairs to face him, much as he has done so often himself. {Funny}, he thinks, {never thought to be on this end. Kind'a scary}. He takes a swallow from his mug, while finding his voice. "My friends," he says, "and I know by now that I may call you such, I wish to relate an interesting episode that occurred last spring. At the time I knew not what to make of it, but having heard what I have here," glancing toward Gilly, "I feel that I understand." "One fine early afternoon I had ventured a little further into Duke Forest than usual. The scenery had changed somewhat from the usual evergreen to more of a, well, sylvan setting. A delightful place, it was, and I spent somewhat more time there than I had intended. Anyway, on my way out I ran headlong into a little man in a red cap, toting a small sack over his shoulder." 'I beg your pardon!' I said, most apologetically. 'I swear I did not see you coming.' 'Quite alright, laddie,' he said, chuckling, and picking himself up. 'New in this neck of the woods, aren'tcha?' He opened up his back, which apparently was full of dead hamsters, or something, and began rummaging about in it. 'Ah, yes,' I said, eyeing his bag. 'This particular area is especially nice.' 'Aye, so it is.' He grinned. 'Here, take this.' And he thrust one of those things at me. "Well, having recoiled a step or so, heart beating wildly, I recovered myself and looked more closely at the little fellow and what he held in his hand. It wasn't a dead hamster. It wasn't even dead. Well, I mean, it was supposed to be dead. That is, it was never alive. I think. It looked like a furry koosh, or a tribble, or something like that. It didn't really move, or anything, but it did seem to, well, _thrive_. Hard to describe. "Anyway, there he stood, offering this thing to me, and with this grin on his face, which turned out to be a rather cheerful grin, at that. I stepped forward and accepted his gift, if that's what it was all about, and thanked him for it. It really was extraordinarily soft, with a kind of energy in it. I cuddled it against my cheek. Something about it made me feel good. I dont know. It just did. "Then I realized that he was just standing there. Looking at me. Expectantly." 'Oh. Um. I'm afraid I really don't have anything to offer in return.' His smile faded. He looked disappointed. I cast about in my mind for something I could give him, but nothing occurred to me. 'Well, ah, would you like this back?' I offered him the furry thing. He looked mortified. Oops. I withdrew my hand. 'I really am sorry, but I've nothing. Perhaps a raincheck? I can't be sure when I'll be able to return, but when I do I'll be sure and bring something.' He looked hopeful. 'Actually, I don't think I have anything to compare with this. If I did, I'd offer it freely.' I wasn't really to sure of that, when I said it. It really did feel AWFULLY nice. 'It is a wonderful gift.' He looked at me in confusion. 'Are ye sayin' ye've never seen one o' them before?' 'Well, no. I mean yes. I mean, that's right, I've never seen one before.' He gaped at me, half in disbelief, and half in pity. 'Ooh, by gum! 'Tis a shame, that! Keep it; y'need it more than I ever did! But listen to me well: you must give it to the very next person you meet. The very next one!' He shook his finger at me. "It didn't make much sense to me. I needed this thing so very much, he said, but I had to give it away right off! So, I promised him I would. Then he wouldn't let me go, but bombarded me with questions about who I was and where I came from and who I knew and what I did. He really was quite engaging. We fell into a long conversation about forests, music, death, love, magic, all manner of things. Can you believe that he'd never heard of pizza? 'Food of the Gods!' I told him, to which he muttered 'have to check up on that.' Turned out he was handy with a flute, too. He could could weave a melody so melancholy it'd bring a merry elf to tears (his words, not mine), and then turn around and play a tune to lift a leaden heart. He said I should tote out my lute sometime so we could play duets to the wood. It was a guitar, of course, but I'll be damned if he didn't refuse to call it such. Well, we had talked for quite some time until I realized that it was almost dark! He noticed my alarm, and began to close the conversation. As we were shaking hands, some compulsion swept over me, and I reached out with the other arm and gave the little fellow a hug! " 'Bless me,' he said, wiping his eye, 'you big'uns can be hard to read.' Never found out what he meant by that. "I said 'If I can come back, I promise I will.' Somehow I was sure I'd never find that place again. I pulled out the tribble. 'Don't think I'll be able to match this though.' " 'Laddie, you'd be surprised.' Which reminded him. He shook his finger at me again and said 'remember, very next one.' "I regarded my tribble, and began to say 'I promise,' but he was already stalking off with his sack in his hands. However, I could see in the twilight that he had a second, smaller tribble, which he was just putting into his sack. Strange, I thought, never noticed him pull out another one. "So, I found my way out of the wood, and made for home, thinking about little men with sacks and tribbles, or whatever they were, and sylvan glades in the middle of pine forests. "Ah yes, and the first person I came to meet was a young woman on my street, whom I ran into on the way to the grocer the next morning. It wasn't as difficult as I expected, letting go of the little fellow's gift. She was rather startled, though. Reacted pretty much the same way I did: with much suspicion. "But she accepted it, and gave it away in turn. Now we make our own and exchange little ones whenever we happen to meet. "You know it's funny how strangers react when you try to give them one. Somehow friends are never so distrustful, but strangers never know what to make of them. But, you know, if you look around you'll see them everywhere. It takes a certain sight, but it's not hard to develop, if you try. A regular walks into a soda shop and exchanges one with the proprietor. Lovers stroll past, leaving giant radiant ones like a trail of fluorescent bushes in their wake. And this place, oh my, this place! We're practically buried in all kinds of them here! "All shapes and colors and sizes, I'm sure, even though most people don't see them in the midst of exchanging them. But the kinds which I would like to praise are the little ones. The sort casually given to the passerby. I think that they are important, because they are where a stronger exchange can begin. Give away a little 'tribble', and who knows what you might be starting?" Scanning the faces around him, he downs a bit of his hot chocolate, which, unfortunately has grown cold. Swallowing with effort, he manages a grin, and raises his mug to the room. "A toast! To small kindnesses and passing strangers. May they often come in pairs!" ##CRASH!## He walks to his chair and picks up his things. "Oh, and speaking of names, mine is Stefan. And if anyone ever cares for conversation, I'll be right there," looking to the chair. He dons his coat and bombhat (and therefore weight, once again), adjusts his ponytail, and heads for the door. The wind is still howling outside. He braces himself, and when he turns the handle, the door explodes open, and snow whips around the room. He steps out, and somehow manages to close the door behind him. The swirling flakes settle gently to the floor, and disappear. From egly@hplred.HP.COM Sat Dec 9 10:34:18 1989 From: egly@hplred.HP.COM (Diana Egly) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Re: soulmates Date: 7 Dec 89 00:21:35 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard Labs, Palo Alto CA Status: O "To Kathy who understood and offered a word for the relationship I've described" Spiritkin, as opposed to soulmate. A nice strong-sounding word. The nice sense of being eternal family together -- with only the positive senses of the word "family" included. Not at all an effete term. (I think of "kindred spirit" as being too effete for the relationship I've tried to describe.) Then a soulmate would be a special form of spiritkin -- where there is shared romantic interest and sexual chemistry as well as spiritkinship. Spiritkin can then be someone of either the appropriate or the inappropriate gender for one's sexual and romantic preferences. Which makes it the right sort of thing for the relationship I described. I love the expressive power of language, and people who use it creatively to give expression to our deepest experiences. "Mike, put a round of drinks for everyone on my tab." (I do have a tab, don't I? I'm not a time traveller after all...) "And make mine something with lots of mint and no alcohol -- in honor of the soothing effects of mint for those I know who are experiencing nausea..." From hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM Sun Dec 10 14:26:02 1989 From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: A circus story (Long. Hit 'n' now if not interested.) Date: 9 Dec 89 04:00:37 GMT Reply-To: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com (The Polymath) Distribution: alt Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica Status: O The door opens and in from the night comes the Polymath. This time he's wearing a battered black leather jacket, worn nearly shapeless over 20 years of hard use, and an equally scruffy Malasian bush hat (courtesy of British army surplus). He carries a walking stick that looks like a shilelagh(sp?), but is actually made of western red cedar. "Greetings, one and all. No, this isn't a new persona. I actually dress this way when the weather warrants it. The stick's my mugger-discourager. I know I'm safe in Callahan's, but you never know what's lurking in the parking lot. It goes where I go." The hat and jacket take their places on the coat rack. "Bless me, Mike. Gilly has requested a story and I can hardly refuse her silver-tongued charm. (-; "Ahem! This is the true story of a day in the life of Del Graham's trapeze act. It concerns the one time I went with them on a one-night stand. "I'll take up the time line at 3:00 a.m. of a summer's morning nearly 20 years ago. I'd just arrived at Del's place, where everyone was already up and about. All the rigging had been torn down and loaded on the rented truck the day before and the girls are bustling around, snatching breakfast and doing last minute stuff before we get on our way. "4:00 a.m. Dawn. Everything's ready to go. Somehow, I'm appointed to drive the truck. As my first official act of the day I flood the carburetor. Del demonstrates that circus folk have remarkable vocabularies. (-: "4:10 a.m. Off we go. Del and Sandy are in the lead car. I'm following with the truck. Patty (I always think of her as Patty-the-catcher, but I'll shorten that for the net) is in the cab with me. The rest of the act are locked in the back of the truck, asleep on the high-fall padding. The ride to the show grounds is uneventful. "5:30 a.m. Arrive at the show grounds. Park the truck, wake up the act and start to unload. "6:00 a.m. Most of the rigging is out of the truck and we start to assemble it. This will be a 5+ hour job. Linda, the star, grabs a 12 foot section of aluminum pole and greases the end with vaseline(tm) prior to joining it with a similar section. There are 18 such sections in the trapeze rigging alone. "Come on, you pole jammers!," she shouts. We get to work. "6:15 a.m. Del is laying out locations for the tie-down stakes, pacing them off by eye and experience. I'm issued a sledge hammer and a pile of stakes. I'll spend most of the next 5 hours pounding them into the ground. So will Patty and one or two others. They're a lot better at it than I am. "Late-morning. We're ready to put up the trapeze rigging. The assembled poles are laid out and hooked together with steel cables. Then a team lifts each one vertical and holds it while the cables are tied to the stakes. Trapeze rigging is 35 feet tall and 75 to 90 feet long. It has to be aligned within 1/4 inch or the bars won't swing straight. Del does the rough leveling by putting wooden blocks under the poles, then fine tunes each pole with a level and jack. The guy wires are tightened with come-alongs until everything's straight and square. Then we put up the net. "[Side note: Del has a favorite story about why he uses a net: 'Every so often someone asks me, "What ever happened to that trapeze act? You know, the one that worked without a net." I always answer "Oh yeah! Them! They're all dead."'] "Afternoon. The web and high-fall rigging are up. That's about it 'til showtime. [Web is the technical name for the act where a woman climbs a rope and runs through a series of gyrations and poses to music at the top.] The girls run through a few practice leaps to test the rigging. Del appoints a gofer to get lunch (local junk food). Everyone takes a break. I walk around watching some of the other acts prepare. (A clown explains the use of a slapstick to his new assistant. Too much force and he can be hurt. Too little and it won't make any noise). "7:30 p.m. The crowd starts to trickle in. The girls go off to the ladies room to change into costume. I load my camera, clean the lens and test the flash. Del turns on the lights in the rigging. "8:00 p.m. It's showtime! We and several other acts run through our paces. Everything goes well. The crowd likes us. I get some photos. "9:30 p.m. See 8:00 p.m. [Two shows a night.] "10:00 p.m. Time to start tearing down. This will be a 2+ hour job. I'm again issued a sledge hammer. I learn that pulling stakes is just as hard as pounding them in. Eventually, everything's back on the truck. "12:30 a.m. Time to head home. I don't flood the carburetor this time. Otherwise the ride home is much the same as the ride out, except for a stop for gas. "2:00 a.m. Arrive home. Everyone out of the truck and off to bed. I say my good nights and head home. "If you've been counting, you'll notice this has been a 24 hour day for a one night stand. Now try to imagine doing 5 a week for six weeks in a row on the road. And you thought the circus was glamorous. (-: "Give me another, Mike. That's thirsty work, even if I am much enamored of the sound of my own voice. "Well, I think I'll put a cork in it for a few days, at least. I've been using more than my share of Callahan's bandwidth and I'm sure others have plenty to share. (Besides, my boss prefers I get _some_ work done around here (-: ). I've also about run out of circus stories that don't have too much 'you had to be there' in them. Thanks for listening. I hope I haven't been too much of a bore. "Gilly, thanks for asking. I don't often get an excuse to ramble on like that. (-: (One nice thing about an electronic bar. I can blab all I want and not disturb anyone else's conversation)." -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Illegitimis non Citicorp(+)TTI Carborundum 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 450-9111, x2483 Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe From jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Sun Dec 10 14:30:55 1989 From: jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (James Webster Birdsall) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Rules and masks Date: 9 Dec 89 19:38:47 GMT Organization: Princeton University, NJ Keywords: Rules masks interconnectedness Status: O The scarecrow with the green cloak (whose fangs have mysteriously disappeared) is sitting at a table having a wonderful conversation when he hears a the word "backrubs" float by. He rewinds the thread and listens to Chris's don't-follow-these rules and Shadow's reaction. Then he stands up... "Chris said: > ...Touching people, especially women, is a >violation. Offering backrubs, for example, is one of the scariest things >you can do, and even if they accept--and enjoy it--they will probably become >scared of you later. All I can say about this one is 'Aha! aha! So thaaaat's what happened!' It's a silly rule, but at least it's an explanation for something that happened recently. "For the rest of my commentary, I'll turn it over to Mr. Spock, who is far better qualified to speak on the subject than I..." He sits down on the edge of the table and looks toward the corner. The other scarecrow, who had nearly faded out, fades back in again and walks to where Vampire is sitting. "I'm more qualified to speak on the subject because I started out as a mask. Since then I've grown. No matter what mood the underlying processor is in -- whether it's closer to me or to him," inclining his head toward Vampire," -- it's irrepressibly _different_. Now I'm more of the logical half of things, and there are a lot of subjects that you just _can't_ be reasonable about it public. The entire set of rules is pretty illogical. "As I said, I started life as a simple implementation of as many rules as the original could figure out. Most of them were either unknown or there was just no way he could deal with them, so I also was in charge of being invisible. After all, if nobody knows you're there, you can't be breaking any rules, right? "Now I'm more than that. But I still retain the rules. After three years, I've finally put in enough hacks that I can drop them as necessary. But it took a lot of work, and I think I'd have been better off if I'd never had to implement them in the first place. "But there's still one rule that I'm stuck with. I hate its guts, but I've never yet figured a way around it. It's one that Shadow brought up: > And never actively seek others out, or call them on the phone >without a specific, and brief, purpose in mind. If you run into someone, fine, >as long as it doesn't last too long. If you happen to be in the same place, >you may converse, following the above guidelines. This rule causes me more hell, these days, than all the others put together! I have friends -- real friends -- and that's fine. But just TRY meeting new ones. Especially women." Vampire, who now has his fangs back, breaks in. "You got that one right. The amount of time and energy this rule wastes is staggering. The maneuvering required to engineer such incidents is positively byzantine. Worse, it often doesn't work. The maneuvering is fragile -- lots more ways for something to NOT happen than for it to happen -- and there are lots of uncontrollable variables wandering around. So you have to think of multiple backup plans. Fallback points. Welcome to the world of n-layer hyperthink. Doublethink just isn't sophisticated enough anymore." "OK, that's enough rambling commentary," Spock breaks in. "Time to contribute something new to this discussion. "It strikes me that what people really want is _consistency_. How can you deal with somebody who never says the same thing twice? It's not really possible. Hell, I want consistency myself, for the same reasons. It's tough for me to think when my attitudes keep changing every few minutes. And if _I_ can't deal with myself, how is anybody else supposed to? So one of my other attributes is to maintain a certain consistency of thought. "For example: last spring, I was involved in a long-distance relationship, if I may call it such. I thought she was wonderful. But then summer came. Eight thousand miles (roughly) cuts communication down to pretty much zero. Naturally, my feelings began to fade. But did this mean that I was any less interested in her? Not really, because I knew that as soon as I talked to her again, it would all come back. This is the way I work, for better or worse. So, when I wrote letters to her, I considered how I 'should' feel and what would be appropriate to say given that emotional state, and it worked fine. "This is not to say that it shouldn't be possible for people to change their minds. It is and should be. But such a change should be a considered thing, or, if it has to be based purely on emotions, it should be based on _pertinent_ emotions. My feelings on subject X shouldn't be affected because subject Y has given me a bad day. "Of course, the rules don't just produce consistency. But a certain consistency is necessary; there must be some rhyme and reason." -- James W. Birdsall jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU jwbirdsa@pucc.BITNET ...allegra!princeton!phoenix!jwbirdsa Compu$erve: 71261,1731 "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin From jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Sun Dec 10 14:31:04 1989 From: jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (James Webster Birdsall) Newsgroups: alt.callahans Subject: Poisoned Warm Fuzzies? Date: 9 Dec 89 19:41:06 GMT Organization: Princeton University, NJ Status: O The Spock scarecrow slowly fades out, and the Vampire scarecrow with the green cloak loses his fangs. "This is me, the gestalt personality. I'm actually like this most of the time. I use Spock and Vampire here because they illustrate certain points better than I can alone... "Anyway, while I've got your attention, I've got a toast I'd like to make." He walks up to the bar and collects a Toasted Almond. "There's been a lot of talk here about Warm Fuzzies. Now, Warm Fuzzies are a great thing. I wish I had more. But one thing strikes me about them. I may be wrong, but from what I've heard, Warm Fuzzies are supposed to be purely altruistic. Given from sheer love of humanity in all its forms. "I give out Warm Fuzzies, as well. But I'm never so sure exactly WHY I'm doing it. You've got to admit that Warm Fuzzies make a good tactical weapon. "To clarify a bit: suppose you give Warm Fuzzies to someone for no particular reason. They may say to themselves -- whether consciously or unconsciously doesn't matter -- 'Gee, he's a nice guy and would make a good friend.' And I'm always stuck wondering whether I'm giving Fuzzies out because I _am_ a nice guy or whether I'm doing it in a Machiavellian sense, just because I need friends. "Of course, this goes double for potential romantic relationships, and this is where the ethical problems really kick in. Am I being guilty of false advertising? "Some of this problem stems from that fact that I cannot, I will not, accept Vampire's instant targeting locks. This is something I've noticed a lot of you people doing, also, especially in the mail I've gotten. Think about it: you don't know a bloody thing about me except what I've posted here. For all you know, I could be making it all up as I go along! I could be using you people. "I'm not, but you really have only my word to prove it. "Anyway, how can you claim to be my friend when you know so little about me? The only way it makes sense is if you mean 'friend' as shallowly as the people who have been so recently denounced here. "I have proven in the past that I'm NOT a good judge of character. And I will not claim to be a friend unless I MEAN it. So, perforce, I must wait until I have some idea what the other person is all about. This isn't to say that I still don't make mistakes, but they're subtle ones and take a long time to surface. "To return to the main point: while I'm still deciding about somebody, I have to maintain their interest somehow. And it seems to be the way the world works that Warm Fuzzies are the only way to do it. So I'm stuck giving out Warm Fuzzies and hoping that my rational evaluation matches Vampire's emotional reaction. And no matter how I slice that, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth called 'False Pretenses.' "But I just can't figure any way around it. So I'm forced to toast Confusion. May it go away soon." He hurls the glass into the fireplace as hard as he can. "In the meantime, you have been warned, which is the only thing I can think of to do." He grimly stalks back to his chair, hoping that the aftermath won't be too bad. But at least he's done the right thing... -- James W. Birdsall jwbirdsa@phoenix.Princeton.EDU jwbirdsa@pucc.BITNET ...allegra!princeton!phoenix!jwbirdsa Compu$erve: 71261,1731 "For it is the doom of men that they forget." -- Merlin