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changed username to Rich Drushel Rich Drushel: Hello, Richard. rich-c: hi Rich rich-c: just off doing some cleanup from lunch Rich Drushel: I was just about to send a reminder E-mail to the coladam list. rich-c: by the way, thank you for the kind words on the mailing list Rich Drushel: I could do no less...wish I could do more. rich-c: don't let me stop you from sending it rich-c: well, you've got to remember we're all in this together rich-c: our airspace was violated - we're integrated within NORAD so it's all one Rich Drushel: (just sent reminder E-mail) rich-c: and we're part of NATO - an attack on one is an attack on all Rich Drushel: Well, that's what the treaties say, but you never know... rich-c: I notice they were very quick to affirm it this time round Rich Drushel: I think the big thing that's pulling everyone in line is the fact that the methodology used could knock out anyone's buildings/landmarks. rich-c: of course my viewpoint is coloured - I was born within sight of where the WTC was later built rich-c: and Frances was born in the same city Rich Drushel: No hijacker to my knowledge has ever been audacious enough to actually fly the plane he's hijacked before. Rich Drushel: It's almost surprising that nobody's done it. rich-c: no, but these guys were very thoroughly trained - spent three years some of them at flight schools in Florida Rich Drushel: Your normal airline pilot fraternity is never going to turn his plane into a cruise missile; he'd ditch it first. Rich Drushel: So you need to provide your own zealot pilot. rich-c: absolutely, no question whatever rich-c: the question is, how did they retain their zealotry living five years or more as normal suburban Americans? Rich Drushel: I guess only they can know what rewards they thought they'd win. rich-c: some of these hijackers spent half their lives in the west, Germany and teh U.S. rich-c: one would think that something would come along to shake their faith just a little Rich Drushel: Well, look for instance at the guys who actually have to push the buttons to launch nuclear warheads. rich-c: to me, that monomaniacal fanaticism is one of the scariest parts of the whole afair Rich Drushel: If the President says launch, they're sworn to do it. rich-c: that is true, but there is always the awareness in the background that it will only happen if teh survival of the nation is at stake rich-c: I think even I could be persuaded to shoot back if someone was shooting at me Rich Drushel: These guys might have believed that...and as a belief, it's not really amenable to change due to logic. rich-c: were Rich Drushel: subjunctive :-) Rich Drushel: There being no logs posted recently...did anything happen here Wednesday night? rich-c: somehow given teh time they spent in the West I cannot see how their own observations would allow that rich-c: yes, the chatter was pretty general, family and Adam oriented rich-c: had a newbie on from New Hampshire, name of John rich-c: and Willie B. turned up for a while; james and Ron were there rich-c: the ladies were asking Dale and james about the progress of the various pregnancies Rich Drushel: A colleague gave me a bit of ADAM memorobilia that he found by accident: a 4-page color magazine ad from September 1983 advertizing the ADAM. rich-c: Herman and Howard Pines also came by for a bit rich-c: yes, I have a small trobve of that stuff here rich-c: someday when there's an appropriate site maybe I can scan it and post it Rich Drushel: He was biking home one night and had to dodge a pile of trash at the end of someone's driveway. Rich Drushel: Part of it was a stack of magazines that spilled. rich-c: sounds like he has a quick eye Rich Drushel: He stopped to clear a path, and while picking up magazines at random one fell open to this ad. rich-c: neat! Rich Drushel: He remembered I was an ADAMite and put that issue in his backpack. Rich Drushel: He gave me the 4 pages, which are in great shape. I didn't want the magazine, though. rich-c: obviously, you have a bit of a local reputation Rich Drushel: You probably would never guess what magazine it was in. Rich Drushel: Wanna try? rich-c: Saturday Evening Post? Colliers? Rich Drushel: Wrong generation :-) rich-c: Popular Mechanics? Popular Science? Rich Drushel: Logical, but no. Rich Drushel: It was Penthouse. No lie. rich-c: Playboy? rich-c: well, I was getting close! Rich Drushel: He also said that there was a similar ad for the Kaypro II. rich-c: I am surprised that Coleco would see that as fitting the Adam demogtraphic, though Rich Drushel: I have no idea why they thought that this would be a good place to put microcomputer ads. rich-c: well, computers are a "guy" thing so I guess they wanted teh guys rich-c: though I have a hunch they were a little confused as to which guys they wanted Rich Drushel: I guess it would be worth a bound magazine search at the library to see where else such ads might have been placed. rich-c: after all, it's the "family" computer system Rich Drushel: Assuming libraries still bind up the year's issues of magazines... rich-c: I don't think all of them have moved away from it entirely yet rich-c: but I'm sure it's more cost-effective to have images on CD and print to order rich-c: the cost to maintain a single volume on a shelf for a year is staggering Rich Drushel: I'll scan the pages and put 'em into a PDF file, I guess. rich-c: yes, everyone can read PDFs, but the file sizes are pretty huge, aren't they? Rich Drushel: Well, the guy who PDFed my 64K expander GIF got it down to a couple hundred K, from about 3 MB or so. rich-c: pity Adobe doesn't offer an Acrobat Lite for those who just want to scan in without editing Rich Drushel: And you could still zoom in in Acrobat Reader and it wasn't horribly JPEGed, so I figured it had some super compression algorithms in it. Rich Drushel: Full Acrobat doesn't do quite what you'd think; it isn't a word processor. It just takes PostScript files from whatever source and scrunches them down. rich-c: yes, jpeg files will take quite a bit of compression before bad quality loss is evident Rich Drushel: The only way to "edit" the input is to edit it in whatever program you used to create the PostScript file. rich-c: but doesn't it allow a lot of cut-and-paste and revisions and stuff? rich-c: there's a big multi-page ad for Adobe 5.0 in the Globe this week Rich Drushel: I've used it to add and remove entire pages from a PDF, but not to edit individual pages. rich-c: going by the blurb it does everything but sit up and beg Rich Drushel: Maybe later versions are changing that; I have access to Acrobat 3.0. Rich Drushel: It ought to do everything for $250+ that they charge for it... rich-c: yes, they have to add bells and whistles to justify the new revision rich-c: which reminds me, Dale was talking about a PD PDF file creator rich-c: wonder what happened to it? Have to nag him Rich Drushel: There is such a thing, I think, but it's a UNIX program; not sure if it's been ported to Windows etc. rich-c: the way Dale talked I got the impression there was a Windows version Rich Drushel: There was once something called ghostscript that could do things with PS files. rich-c: not being into such things, I know little about commercial graphics programs Rich Drushel: I still use Canvas 3.5.3 for Mac, (c) 1993 :-) rich-c: again, Mac is something with which I'm excessively unfamiliar Rich Drushel: I have continued to upgrade on the PC side to Canvas 8.0, but it has too many features that I have never needed to learn. Rich Drushel: However, once my paper is done, I have promised that I will throw away all my old tools and try to learn new ones. rich-c: yes, and one of these days I'll learn some of teh programs I have, too rich-c: (just got a probe at my computer) Rich Drushel: It's not me! rich-c: talking to a buddy earlier - he says he gets up to 300 Zone Alarms a day rich-c: but then he's always on on a high-speed line rich-c: no, this was a TCP probe, not a ping rich-c: most of them are web spiders looking for pages to index, I gather rich-c: or other equally innocent queries Rich Drushel: Main reason I want Macs in the robot lab, nobody bothers to hack them, and the various probes won't find anything. rich-c: but some are port scans looking for a place to break in rich-c: yes, the hackers go for volume rich-c: though I supoposed if they're after academic vulnerabilities specifically, Unix might be a good bet Rich Drushel: Students complain about the Macs, but I tell them to lump it. rich-c: why do they complain about them? don't like learning a new interface? Rich Drushel: No, because all they know is a Windows toaster. They have blindly learned where all the buttons to push are, but they don't really know what they *do*. Rich Drushel: So, when confronted with a machine that has the same buttons in different places, they don't know what to do. rich-c: like most people with their cars Rich Drushel: They are "trained", not really knowledgable. rich-c: it's not that I'll use it, or do anything with the knowledge rich-c: but when I'm using a device I still want to know how it works and why Rich Drushel: What we did at ADAMcon with the Macs is all we ask the students to do. Run a word processor, run Interactive C. Rich Drushel: Trivial. rich-c: I'll take your word for it, but I don't know anything about "C" Rich Drushel: Well, there's a difference between running the IC console window and knowing what C program to write. Rich Drushel: But the concept of launching a program by clicking on it is universal :-) Rich Drushel: Well, it looks like nobody else is going to join us today. rich-c: I'm willing to let someone else write the program, though I do like to know globally how he did it rich-c: no, I'd have thought we'd have a fair few on, but no sign Rich Drushel: Didn't you mention a few weeks back that you had some Saturday activity that was going to keep you out of here for a while? Rich Drushel: I was surprised to see you here because of that. rich-c: well, that was intermittent, but no tv I wanted to watch live, and we haven't got ready to go away yet rich-c: mostly I won't be here, but there will be times Rich Drushel: I will have to leave pretty soon to find out what we're doing for supper; we might be going someplace. rich-c: just abdicating the responsibility of regular attendance for a while rich-c: yes, it's getting cool, and my hand muscles are cramping a bit rich-c: have to go soak them in some dishwater soon Rich Drushel: How are Pamela and Russell? I haven't been here when they are for a while. rich-c: oh, Pam was on in full enthusiasm Wednesday - she's doing fine Rich Drushel: Well say hi, and I'll try to catch her some future Wednesday. rich-c: OK will do. Meanwhile, guess we both gotta go Rich Drushel: Yep, go soak your hands...talk to you Wednesday, I hope. Bye. rich-c: Bye now
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changed username to PoopyPants PoopyPants: Hello Coleco chatters PoopyPants: lets talk about memory maps PoopyPants: where did everybody go?
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