Articles

• Catcalls from the Cheap Seats
• Most Important Body Part....Not just the Heart
• Flickering Light

Catcalls from the Cheap Seats
By Luke Kolin

Sir:

Let me take a moment to commend you on your fine publication. Despite its advanced age, you've managed to in your Christmas issue rekindle the fading embers of vicious Fido warfare that have slowly been fading away through inactivity and entropy. A finer gift for Christmas I could not imagine.

I must now confess that your article on the potential problems of eliminating geogrpahic restrictions leaves me somewhat confused. Usually, I can determine the "serious" articles in FidoNews if they make me laugh - and the comedies by the glazing over of my eyes six lines in as I frantically search for my Page Down key. Your article I cannot easily place. Perhaps you are following my earlier suggestion for "retro night" in the Snooze, by reprinting one of the countless "Is the Nodelist getting too big?" articles. I recall that this spurious concern was used by numerous elf-lord co-ordinators in their ruthless zeal to trim out all duplicate and unncessary nodes from the nodelist in times past. Considering their unimaginable success, based on the relentless decline in the nodelist, I am puzzled as to why this is still a concern.

Of course, you may be serious. Getting nodes listed in every single net, region and zone would be an excellent way for FidoNet to confront and reverse its numbers problem. It's not a solution that I had previously thought of, but it is remarkable in its simplicity and ease of accomplishment. I am unfamiliar with the technology (having left FidoNet when there was a limit of 16 or so AKA addresses in an EMSI header) but I am sure the fine folks who wrote the Y2K patches for Fido 12w could be called upon again to raise this arbitrary limit.

Then again, sir, I feel your article may be satire or farce. The part where you attempt to inject some "reality" into the argument by suggesting that there was a vast unsated demand for additional FidoNet addresses only kept in check by the continual vigilance of the co-odinator structure brightened up an otherwise frigid December day. Coupled with your horrified surprise that groups of like-minded individuals may choose to associate together in their own organisational group, a strong case may be made for recategorising your aticle in the 'Jokes in ASCII' section. Let me draw your attention to the circa 1991 saga of Nets 163 and 243 in the Ottawa area, two geographically overlapping networks whose fluid membership was entirely composed on sysops annoyed at the other network's NC. Toronto was but a political backwater at the time, but within four years I am proud to say that our political consciousness had reached Ottawa's level and we had our own overlapping network (2424), which was able to encroach on the geographic area of no fewer than four nets in Region 12.

I would be remiss if I did not seek to horrify Philip Lozier by recounting a vignette from my vacation in Hawaii several months ago. At the time, a colleague of mine called me using a cellular phone (in the 703 area code) from Manhattan (in the 212 area code). He called my cell phone (in the 404 area code, but I really live in the 770 and 678 area codes) when I was on the beach in Maui (God only knows what area code). Let me allow Phil to take some consolation by telling him that this geographic exemption was only temporary, and by no means was I able to make it permanent. You may not want to publish the fact that this call did not cost either one of us a penny, as I am sure it would push Philip over the edge and cause him to picket the FCC in Washington, protesting the continual introduction of overlapping area codes in major metropolitan areas and demanding a federal law prohibiting the transportation of cellular phones across state lines or area code boundaries.

Of course, this behavior is entirely within character for FidoNet. The deep freeze I remarked about a few weeks ago appears not to be limited to Region 12, as Philip seems blissfully unaware of developments in the telecoms industry that make it cheaper to call across the country (or internationally, in some cases) than into the next county. Nevertheless, it seems important for FidoNet to maintan an organisational structure designed in the early 1980s for the simple reason that Ditto-heads like Philip would be unable to decide what to do each morning without the comforting blanket of the old world, the old rules and the old FidoNet to snuggle up with. It reminds me of the time Jim Rysyk told me in late 1995 that this Web thing was just a passing fad, and once it collapsed there'd be a new renaissance for his 1-line 9600 baud TBBS system. Despite the dot-com implosion, I have yet to see masses of unemployed Photoshop designers paying to relearn the lost art of ANSI graphics. Of course, if it turns out that I am incorrect, a network that hasn't willingly accepted a single technical advancement since 1991 will be in perfect shape when the $2 trillion worth of Internet investment gets thrown out the window.

Perhaps I am being unfair to him. I'm sure someone can do a search for my name in the "political database" and come up with some of my rulings as RC that had every bit of the 19-year-old armchair lawyer in them as Philip's article. I am looking forward to his latest legal treatsie, arguing that since US indepndence was granted by an Act of the British Parliament in 1783 after the Treaty of Paris, an aye vote by Tony Blair and 300 of his Labour lapdogs might bring back the colonies and give the United States a true hereditary monarchy, instead of the pale imitation it has today. Rules are, after all, rules.

Sincerely,

Luke Kolin
Roswell, Georgia

PS: Frank, it just occurred to me as I was re-reading the bottom of Philip's article, with his references to "rogues" and "chaos". His article is the retro reprint, from early 1987 when AlterNet was just getting started, and we couldn't have "rogue" FTNs because it would lead to "chaos"? Am I right?

Most Important Body Part....Not just the Heart
Email from: Alan Malmberg
Submitted by: wdbonner@pacbell.net

My mother used to ask me what is the most important part of the body. Through the years I would take a guess at what I thought was the correct answer. When I was younger, I thought sound was very important to us as humans, so I said, 'My ears, Mommy.'

She said, 'No. Many people are deaf. But you keep thinking about it and I will ask you again soon.' Several years passed before she asked me again. Since making my first attempt, I had contemplated the correct answer.

So this time I told her, 'Mommy, sight is very important to everybody, so it must be our eyes'. She looked at me and told me, 'You are learning fast, but the answer is not correct because there are many people who are blind.'

Stumped again, I continued my quest for knowledge and over the years, Mother asked me a couple more times and always her answer was, 'No. But you are getting smarter every year, my child.'

Then last year, my grandpa died. Everybody was hurt. Everybody was crying. Even my father cried. I remember that especially because it was only the second time I saw him cry.

My Mom looked at me when it was our turn to say our final good-bye to Grandpa. She asked me, 'Do you know the most important body part yet, my dear?' I was shocked when she asked me this now. I always thought this was a game between her and me.

She saw the confusion on my face and told me, 'This question is very important. It shows that you have really lived in your life. For every body part you gave me in the past, I have told you was wrong and I have given you an example why. But today is the day you need to learn this important lesson.'

She looked down at me as only a mother can. I saw her eyes well up with tears. She said, 'My darling, the most important body part is your shoulder.' I asked, 'Is it because it holds up your head?' She replied, 'No, it is because it can hold the head of a friend or a loved one when they cry. Everybody needs a shoulder to cry on sometime in life, my girl. I only hope that you have enough love and friends that you will always have a shoulder to cry on when you need it.'

Then and there I knew the most important body part is not a selfish one. It is sympathetic to the pain of others. People will forget what you said.......
People will forget what you did........
But people will NEVER forget how you made them feel.

Flickering Light
By Andrea Santos
asantos@santronics.com

The uprisings seen of late in the Zone admin echos are nothing new. They've been going on since the beginning of Fidonet and will continue on until the final light flickers dim. Proportionately, even today, it's an infintesmal group of nodes who make an incredible amount of noise, sufficient to drown out the majority who never have, and never will, have an interest in anything other than receiving their mail and enjoying their hobby. Over time, the players change, but the motives remain the same.

For the squabbling players, the admin echos, quite simply, provide a reason to hang on to a node number and hence membership in Fidonet. What other explanation can there be for nodes who operate a Mail Only machine and spend 95% of their time in echos where no users are found, arguing over matters of which they have no legitimate technical or administrative concern? These same nodes will complain endlessly that Fidonet is running itself into the ground, but do absolutely nothing, per their actions, to effect change.

There can be no misinterpretation of Policy 4, whether viewed as a guideline, or biblical verse, with regard to multiple listings in more than 1 Region. It does't happen and the reason it doesn't happen is because there isn't a single node in the network who can put forth a "TECHNICAL" reason why it should! Obviously, geography cannot be the rationale because no node can reside in two places simultaneously, so the argument must be based on technical concerns which don't apply. Any other argument would fall outside the bounds of Policy 4, period.

Now, if it is ever determined to toss out technical merit, where multiple listings are granted at will, the end result will mirror the problems seen with the Internet, where address after address "bounces back" as undeliverable. Such events would render the Nodelist address book fairly useless and clearly defeat the smooth operation of any Net, Region, Zone and, hence, Fidonet.

I won't even bother to address the secondary issue of RVIA flags because there are few, if any, nodes who can justify their necessity.

What I will address instead is why Fidonet continues to flounder and it has little to do with who is or isn't the Net, Regional or Zone Coordinator, how many listings a node has, or where, or what flags they fly, but the inordinate amount of time wasted in Admin echos on the above subjects, as well as rehashing previously hashed-to-death incidents, rather than contributing to echos where USERS are on hand and getting more users to participate in the network.

When that last user turns out the lights, there will be no more Fidonet! If you are an active Node in Network, why not ask yourself what you are doing to keep the light on?