Word Search

SUSHI VS. SASHIMI
01:15 PST 16 MAY 1999
Yes, I know that sushi isn't just 'raw fish', but non-fans consider it nothing but that. Myself, I have a definite preference for tuna sashimi, tamago and futomaki. Having been brought up on asian foods of all types, I can safely say that Japanese food is in my top five. Next time I'm at a conference, I'll bring a bit of UF paraphernalia for whoever can show me to a great sushi spot in whichever city I'm in.

MAILING LIST MILESTONE
01:11 PST 16 MAY 1999
Mimick sent this in: On this Day, May 15, 1999, the User Friendly list hosted at Paralynx, at 1142 PST, has reached and passed the 1000 digests mark. That's one helluva lot of conversation -- between the three mailing lists, the newsgroup and the Friendly Forum there's probably enough text to fill a few books. Geeks are a prolific bunch.

TEAM UFIE RC5 AGAIN
01:05 PST 16 MAY 1999
Julian sent in a note saying that Team UFie made it to #19 for the day on the 14th. I'm beyond being blown away. I think I'm just in a perpetual state of surprise. :)

TEAM UFIE RC5
00:05 PST 15 MAY 1999
A last-minute note from Dave Easterly informs me that Team Ufie has made it to position #89 overall in the RC5 distirbuted.net contest. As Dave so eloquently put it, like a phreaking bullet! :)

UFIE SEARCH: PACIFIC NORTHWEST
00:03 PST 15 MAY 1999
This in from Peter: I'm going through the USA until the 24th of May stopping in Twin Falls, ID and Seattle, WA. And it would be cool to meet some UFies while I'm here. Any local UFies interested in getting together with Peter, drop him a line. It looks like we could use a UFie community link-up service on the site for UFies travelling about. Unless someone has a better idea, I'm going to add that feature to the List of Many Things that will be added to the site in the near future.

INTELLIGENT LIFE ABOVE
00:01 PST 15 MAY 1999
The mighty Arcterex sent this in: Basically the idea is that everyone uses the same account and so all the blocks get added togeather. There is a very simple homepage with instructions at www.ufies.org/~seti

Everyone uses the email address setiathome@ufies.org when they set up their clients. The seti@home thing doesn't have teams or similar setup (yet), but this is getting ready for it.

Thanks to Latheos for putting the page and idea together!

QUAKERS == QUAKE PLAYERS
00:03 PST 14 MAY 1999
Yesterday's cartoon featured some members of the Quaker (religious) community. I know that Quakers aren't anti-technology like the Amish, and a few people took the time to point this out. The fact of the matter is that many people do think Quakers walk around wearing funny hats and avoid technology, so it was a dig against social perception. Interestingly enough, I think just about every (religious) Quaker who wrote in (and there seem to be quite a few who read the strip!) didn't seem to care about the issue; they just enjoyed the fact that their religion was mentioned in a weird-ass comic strip.

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN CALLED A CHARACTER
00:01 PST 14 MAY 1999
My eyes bugged out when I first saw this, then I started to laugh. It was amusing to say the least. The naughty Nitrozac decided to feature some dork named Illiad in his May 13th installment of his cartoon After Y2K. Looks like Eric S. Raymond and the Slashdot guys, Rob and Jeff, get the grill as well. Okay, that's it, I'm wearing a paper bag over my head next time I go to one of these public events where people have those devil-boxes known as cameras. Thanks to the eleven or twelve people who sent in the link to the cartoon. You can stop now. :)

TICKETS!!! WE GOT TICKETS!!!
00:08 PST 13 MAY 1999
Yes, I participated in the insane practice of waiting in line for tickets to the May 19th first public showing of The Phantom Menace. Actually, I just pulled a three-hour shift at the line (at 1:00AM I might add) so I could lay claim to a couple tickets. Zoid and his Quake clanmates in BurningChrome did most of the real line-camping. There's even pictures of the adventure at the theatre. If you look carefully there's an obscured picture of me and of Celt within. On top of that, I got a great picture of TikTok, the smart one of the bunch.

IAMBE JOB HUNTING
00:04 PST 13 MAY 1999
No, our beloved Iambe isn't leaving User Friendly. However, in meatspace she needs a Real Life Job, and she's quite possibly found one with a cool company in North Vancouver. My fingers/toes/eyes are crossed for you, hon. Good luck!

TEAM UFIE IN THE TOP 100 OVERALL
00:02 PST 13 MAY 1999
It was bound to happen. Albert Bodenhamer sent in a report on how Team UFies is doing in the RC5 competition: Team UFie just reached number 100 overall on distributed.net. We're screaming up like a rocket. Rocket? Did someone say rocket? Q3test beckons...

ERWIN HOOKED ON CLASSICS
00:01 PST 13 MAY 1999
Erik Mouw and Marc Joosen sent in this amusing proof of Erwin's musical tastes: In the April 11th User Friendly comic we have seen that Erwin knows Dire Straits rather well. We would like you to know that he also adores classical music, and more specific Beethoven's third piano concerto. To prove this, we have attached an image of Erwin listening to his favorite recording. On a side note, we are not in any way affiliated with Wacom or Silicon Graphics, but the combination tends to work out pretty User Friendly :-) Heh. Thanks for the evidence guys. Next time I speak with Erwin I'll make him eat his words; he claims to only listen to light industrial.

QUICK REVIEW: AMERICAN HISTORY X
00:13 PST 12 MAY 1999
Well I just finished watching American History X. I liked Edward Norton in Rounders with Matt Damon, but he really sears in this film. It addresses many of the racial hate issues that plague America, but it does it from ground level where people matter, not from an ivory tower where theory and rhetoric clutter the field of human passion. The performances are good to excellent, the story is fairly tightly woven, and the perspective is about as objective as I've ever seen in a movie. Go rent the video NOW. Caveat: this is one movie which will rip your heart out of your chest and not give it back. The ending nearly did me in.

UFIES AT SD'99
00:11 PST 12 MAY 1999
Michael Hunter sent in this plea to all UFies: I've been proudly sporting my Dust Puppy hat (which arrived the day before I left) here at the Software Development '99 conference, but I have yet to run in to anyone else who recognizes the little guy. No one has even been curious! If there are any UFies here at the conference, we should get together for food or something. I'm at the Grand Hyatt if there's another lonely UFie wandering around.

AUSTRALIA THE NEXT POLICE STATE?
00:07 PST 12 MAY 1999
Anthony Boyd, the Computer Services Officer over at the University of Technology in Sydney sent this in: It may be too late to do anything according to this news item from The Sydney Morning Herald (A daily broadsheet here): http://www.smh.com.au/news/9905/12/pageone/pageone5.html This item says in summary that the person who holds the balance of power in the upper house will vote in favour of the governments bill which means it will be passed if the vote goes along party lines. I think a relevant quote from the article is: "But Senator Harradine, one of the loudest proponents of Net censorship, attacked claims that the Government had introduced the legislation as an inducement to win his support for the GST." The government is trying to pass new tax legislation which will introduce a Goods and Services Tax (GST) and have been trying to persuade Senator Harradine for some time to vote for it. I, in my very cynical view of politics, think the government introduced this legislation EXACTLY for this reason, which is probably why the aren't listening to their own reports and committees. Scary times indeed. I'll say. However, this shouldn't herald the beginning of the end, as long as we continue fighting crap like this.

POWERHOUSE KEYBREAKER
00:04 PST 12 MAY 1999
It seems Team UFie's remarkable climb toward the top 100 spots in the RC5 competition is in part thanks to the efforts of kenj, who had accumulated 700,000+ blocks (!!!) on his own before throwing in with us. Thanks kenj...brings a tear to my eye. :)

UFIE REVIEWS BEOS
00:01 PST 12 MAY 1999
For anyone who's been considering BeOS as an operating system, or even if you're just curious and want more info, check out the review in the Geekstuff section written by channel regular and BeOS grognard Dire Wolf. As someone who's played with BeOS I can vouch for its spiffiness, but I recommend you read the review first then do your own diligence. It'll be worth your time.

AUSSIES UNDER THE THUMB
00:03 PST 11 MAY 1999
This came in from Den Whitton in Australia: SIGN THE EFA PETITION! QUICKLY! The Australian Senate will be voting on the Internet Content Regulation bill some time this week. I fear it might get through despite everything we are doing. Senator Richard Alston (the twonk who proposed the bill) has a loop from his office to the public service and back, which seems almost impossible for 'outsiders' to break into.

Senator Alston commissioned the CSIRO to do a report on the viability of blocking The Internet, which concludes that you can't. It's technically impossible. Yeah, well WE know that! The trouble is, the law makers don't. They will make illegal that which can be bought legally over the newsagent counter.

It makes me want to ask this question: If Alston's office commissioned this report, why is he not only ignoring it but also doing the opposite of what it recommends?

Folks, I urge you to take a few minutes to sign the EFA petition on this issue. It's something that can affect us globally.

UFIES ASCENSION IMMINENT
00:01 PST 11 MAY 1999
Dave Easterly, fearless leader of Team UFies on distributed.net sent this in: I came home from work and checked stats...Team UFies climbed all the way to #109 OVERALL...that means that a team started about 4 months ago is about to break into to the top 100 among teams that have been around for over a year. I am overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and committment the membership has shown. This team totally kicks my ass! Mine too. UFies are awesome. Thank you to everyone who is participating, and special thanks to Dave for organizing all of this!

ALWAYS LISTENING
00:10 PST 10 MAY 1999
Given the massive growth of the site and the UFie community in the last few months, I feel it's about time for some further developments to be made. I've also learned to rely on feedback from UFies in general; there's absolutely no point in me guessing what it is you want when you can just tell me. So, given that, please write me (this time to feedback@userfriendly.org) with ideas on what you'd like to see on the site. Do you want a "talkback" feature so you can respond to the news items? Do you want a polling system in place for all of the cartoons so you can let me know which 'toons you like and which ones suck? Would you like to see a daily newsletter with the cartoon mailed out? Is there a way I can help facilitate or better communications within the global community? Please speak up and let me know -- I'm listening.

THE RANGE OF UFIES
00:08 PST 10 MAY 1999
An interesting tidbit I've been meaning to share for some time now. Based entirely upon mail that I've received personally, I can anecdotally claim that UFies range from an eight year-old girl ("Dear Mr. Illiad, please send me a real live dust pupy [sic], thanks.") to an eighty-one year old woman ("...I'm glad that there's finally something on the net that I can relate to. I still fondly remember my C64.") How cool is that? :-)

REBUTTING THE AIDS ISSUE
00:03 PST 10 MAY 1999
Douglas Adenau sent in this comment regarding the the AIDS news item featured last week: I read the comments about diabetes and AIDS by Anthony Lanni with interest. The problem that i have with his comments is that I don't think that he's broadening the discussion. He's narrowing it to his particular problem. I see this over and over in many different media. The author, or talking head will point out that more people die from [insert your disease here] every year than die from AIDS. This may well be true. What this type of analysis ignores is that the rates of these diseases are constant, or in many cases decreasing, i.e. heart disease. The causes of these diseases are well known and treatments allow the victim to continue living at the same standard as when the disease was contracted. In many cases (Type II diabetes in particular) treatment combined with lifestyle changes will increase the quality of life once treatment begins. Many Type II diabetics become non diabetic if they follow their Doctor's recommendations.

On the other hand AIDS is a disease spread by one of man/woman's strongest survival instincts, sex. Although rates of infection are dropping in the U.S., the rate of infection worldwide is increasing. This fact is blithely ignored by the U.S. populace, who are amazingly myopic when dealing with concerns beyond their TV screens. Thailand's public health system is already overwhelmed by the AIDS epidemic (epidemic is used here in it's medical definition, not as a buzzword). The situation will only get worse in the future as more people cross the line from HIV +, to full blown AIDS. AIDS is also an epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.

That brings us the my main point. Short sighted people who point to mortality statistics to support their prejudices about AIDS ignore the fact that AIDS infection rates are geometric, not arithmetic. If something isn't done NOW it will simply be too late to stop the carnage. Where will the economy of the US be when the third world countries that provide us with raw materials, and markets, are swamped with the costs of dealing with this disease? Do we have to wait until AIDS deaths overtake all other disease deaths before we do something? AIDS is also caused by a virus. Nearly the simplest form of life on earth, viruses are quick to mutate, making the problem of stopping them particularly difficult. Look at the success we've had in stopping the family of rhinoviruses that cause the common cold to see the scope of the problem we face in ending AIDS.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting an education from all of this (Anthony's post as well as Douglas'). Douglas also states: ...by way of showing that there's no ax to grind here, I'm a Type I diabetic who tests his blood and injects insulin 4 x day.

UFIES DESCEND ON LINUX EXPO
00:01 PST 10 MAY 1999
If you happen to be one of the lucky who are going to Linux Expo in Raleigh, NC from May 18 to May 22, please drop ShadowDragon a note with when you'll be there. He's going to arrange a UFie get-together for anyone who's interested in hanging with others who read this weird comic strip. For the record: no, I won't be there. I certainly wish I could go, but my schedule has been nothing short of insane these days.