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THE FRIENDLY TIMES
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Vol. 1, Ed. 1
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Hello everyone!
Well, I'm very glad with the first issue of The Friendly Times.
First, I would really like to thank all the great bunch of people that
participated to this newsletter. It would not have been possible without
your help.
Well, what about that title? I know it sounds a bit generic, but
I thought that it had an underlying theme behind it. First, it's a title
that announces a typical form of information, just as a newspaper. But
it also has another meaning: it's the "actual" time we spend as
friends. This newsletter is information that we'd like to share with
the people that we spend time with, that we share ideas with, that we
enjoy laughing away those minutes in front of our computers. Hope you
like it... Super and Ladee helped me with it. =)
Well, hope you'll enjoy reading the first e-mail issue of our
newsletter...
Have fun!
Cancerian =)
P.S.: Special thanks to Super for being our "e-mail paper boy" for The
Friendly Times... doesn't he do a great job! ;)
THE OP SECTION
Hello #friendlies!
=)
As most of you already know, we now have #friendly op committee up
and running. I'd like to take a few moments to introduce the Op Com to
all of you. :) So, bear with me for a few boring paragraphs
here.
The first and the most important purpose of the op com is to help
Super run #Friendly smoothly. Practically, what Op Com does is the
evaluation of new Op candidates and help Super in dealing with
problems among Ops. It will also evaluate/vote other channel related
things Super has asked to.
The important thing for everyone to realize is, Op Com members
themselves are no different from anyone of you. However, as a collective
voice, Op Com represents the whole Ops. So, it's important for you to give
members of Op Com your feedback about how things are going on #Friendly,
what you think should be changed to make #Friendly better, etc. We need
your input. If there is anything you want to suggest but don't feel comfor-
table talking to Super (or he's not available), talk to one of us, and
we'll make sure your opinion is heard.
Oh, before I forget, let me introduce the op com
members.
IRC Nick e-mail address
-------- --------------
Hiko (coordinator) centihar@mines.edu
Teal friedman@cse.psu.edu
angel111 angel111@snark.wizard.com
ifek ivica@ihug.co.nz
Stever sac76424@saclink.csus.edu
Oh, and while I still have your attention (assuming you're not
asleep by now ;) ) let me go over new procedures for recommending
someone for Ops. Basically, a person needs 3 recommendations before s/he
would be considered/evaluated by the Op Com for auto-Ops. All
recommendations should go to the coordinator of op com (me for now) or to
Super (who will forward it to coordinator). Meanwhile, the recommended
person should be filling out friendly.quiz and send it to the
coordinator. A new Op is on probation for 2 weeks, meaning s/he is not
allowed to give recommendations and that his/her Ops can be taken away if
s/he is not behaving properly. If you have any questions, feel free to
talk to me.
Op Com is just starting up, and there's bound to be some problems
regarding Op Com. We appreciate all of your input to make this
work better, so please don't hesitate to talk to us or e-mail
us.
Thank you very much for your time. Happy IRCing!
:)
-Hiko
THE ENTERTAINMENT SECTION
WWW Sites -- By Stever
Hiya all! This section is devoted to new and cool web sites. Each
month I will list 5 (or more) cool or useful sites on the Web. The sites are
in order from 1 to 5, 1 being the best and 5 being
good.
1) RealAudio -- Real Time audio on the
net This is one of the best things on the web. If you can run netscape
or any WWW browser go to http://www.realaudio.com . Once you're there,
read the directions for downloading and setting up the realaudio player,
available MAC and windows platforms. After you get the player, look in
the realaudio menus. You can now listen to ABC news on the hour, listen
to internet talk radio, or anything in the realaudio site list in
real-time, with no
downloading.
2) Winsock Applications page
For all of you Winsock people, and you know who you are! :), go to
this great page at http://cwsapps.texas.net/ . This page has all of
the latest and greatest applications for winsock. Sorry, nothing for you
MAC users here... This page is updated a lot as new programs are released
or updated. So whether you want the newest version of Mirc or anything
else go here. Definitely worth a visit for you winsock
people.
3) The Today page
At this site it tells you what the date is, what important
events happened on that day. More than that it tells birthdays of famous
people and other information on holidays and events in many countries.
Check this out once a day, so you can sound smart in front of your friends!
;) Great quotes everyday as well. The address:
http://www.uta.fi/~blarku/today.html
4) Webster's Dictionary on-line
If you are like me,many times a word is used that you don't know
the meaning of. Isn't that annoying?! To answer my own question, yes, it
is annoying! Go to this extremely useful
site: http://c.gp.cs.cmu.edu:5103/prog/webster? (no, the question mark isn't
a typo ;)) Enter a word, in English mind you, and a definition will
be given. It works rather well.
5) Adrian's Humor page
This site contains assorted jokes and hilarious text files.
Definitely worth a visit. Many of these made me laugh out loud! :)
The address for this page is:
http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~apowell/humor/humor.html
Well, that's it for this section. Look here next month for more good
web sites, if you know a good site email me!
--Stever(sac76424@saclink.csus.edu)
BIRTHDAYS!!!!!!!!
the Beezer clone, Alex, will be 1 on December 8th.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Happy
birthday Alex!
THE OP PORTRAIT-- Ladee's suggestion
Word from Cancerian: I thought we'd start with Super this week, since
he's the one that started the channel. Just thought it would be
appropriate. =)
1. Nick and how did you get it
Super - I have had this nick since day 1. I got this nick a few
different ways. Back when I was in high school, I was always there to
help my friends out when they needed it (time of crisis type thing), also
I was always ready to go out and party on no sleep, so I was called
Superdave or Super for short. When I started university it started again.
I was up quite a bit doing lots of stuff for people and so the nick Super
sort of popped up again so when I started IRC'ing it just seemed
right.
1.5 How did you start IRCing?
I have been around IRC close to the first day that Undernet was
here. Back in January 1994, Salid and I were bored and we decided to figure
out how this IRC thing worked. We had a devil of a time finding a server
to attach to. Suddenly we found the sanjose server and we never turned
back.
2. Age
Shoot, let me check my driver's licence..
Ahh, here it is. God, I am 22 already!
3. Where you come from, and where you're now
I grew up in the Ottawa area (Canada's Capital) and I go to
school in Waterloo.
4. Occupation
I am a co-op student from the University of Waterloo in my 4th
year. I am presently on Co-op at Digital Equipment corp in Kanata. I swing
back and forth from Ottawa to Waterloo every four months between work and
school.
4.5 What do you do besides IRCing?
Well outside of IRC, I have a girlfriend, a job, and school. Outside
of that, I try and go out a few times a week, at least for dinner. I
hang out a lot with Salid and some other bums here in Ottawa. When I am
in Waterloo, I am normally hanging around Residence and playing
Euchre with Mar21 or heading to the Bombshelter (campus pub). I am also a
regular at Laser Quest which is tons of fun if you have one close by. I
also play sports whenever I find a team and time to play. When I am at
school, I referee Soccer, Hockey and sometimes Basketball.
5. Been an Op since (time)
About a week or so. Wait. no that is not right. Since day one,
before any of the bots existed. Back when there was less than 200 users on
Undernet. Wow, now I am definitely feeling over the
hill!
6. What you like best about #Friendly
The channel is reasonably free of politics, the ops are really neat,
they all get along well with each other. Most of the users come there
and fit in very well.
7. What's the most embarrassing thing you ever did
On IRC? Well, there was the time that I did a /exec rm -rf *
from my client which deleted about 850 Megs of stuff from my
account. The funny part is that I watched it happen. I did the command,
meant to put in a space to say it on the channel. Instead I executed the
command. Then I shelled out to my account went, "phew, I didn't do what I
just thought I did" Then I noticed that directory after directory of
stuff was dissappearing then suddenly everything was gone. I lost a lot
of neat stuff that day
but it helped me clean up my account really well. I laughed for about 2 days
after doing that.
Outside of IRC? Well one word describes it:
JELLO
Fortunately it is on video, so I won't forget. Maybe in about a
year or so, I will let everyone know the full story (though some have
seen the video).
8. What's the funniest thing one of your friends ever
did?
Hmmm, I could tell a Mar21 story here, but I really like
breathing.
9. What's your biggest fantasy? (doesn't have to be
sexual)
To have Buddybot Netsex me. Kidding. Hmm, I don't really
know.
10. If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it? And if
you had to spend it on the #Friendly people, what would you
do?
Have to spend it on #friendly people Ack! If I had a million bucks.
Well if I would allow myself to be frivilous with it. I would first of
all go out to dinner with my girlfriend somewhere and perhaps take her
on a well deserved vacation. Then I would buy myself a DEC Alpha
workstation. Probably get myself a ISDN line to my house and set up a
server in my room that you guys could log into and have accounts on if needed
(1-800 modem lines of course). I would then go out buy a kick ass stereo
and buy the other 400 CDs that I want. Buy a house and install a hottub
and turn on the stereo and sit back in the hottub for a while and relax.
If you guys can find where I live, the beer is on me.
11. Anything else
Well I think this is a great idea doing a profile, sort of gives
everyone a chance to get to know one of the other ops. I am looking forward
to seeing profiles on some of the other ops. I know a little bit about
a lot of the ops but this, though kind of wierd, will allow us a better
chance to get to know one another a bit better.
12. What other stuff do you do on IRC
I am IRCOp for the Vancouver Server. I am also channel administrator for
Cservice. Apart from that, I run #Friendly and #Chatzone,and help run the
Undernet #help channel along with Helpbot. I am part of user-com the
Undernet User Committee.
OTHER CHANNELS ON THE UNDERNET
This week: #Chatzone, by Super
#Chatzone is one of the busiest channels and oldest on Undernet.
Back when I started IRC'ing the main channel was #chat
which was run by an IRCop called Barron. Unfortunately things did
not work out with him and there was a power struggle which resulted in
Barron no longer being welcome to Undernet. During this time period a
new channel arose called #chatzone which was also subject to the power
struggle. During this time was also the creation of #Friendly which was
an escape from the nasty politics. Eventually #chatzone remained and
Barron was banished to Efnet to run #Chat
there.
Two IRCops took control of #chatzone, Mmmm and President, who are still
in control to this day. They have recruited 5 individuals to help out and
also a mailing list exists for the channel. Unfortunately the politics are
not finished, it has just moved down a level so there is a lot of
bitterness between the Ops and a lot of politics on the channel.
#Chatzone also has a firm set of rules that Ops must enforce on the channel
and only Ops on the Bot lists can be Ops on the channel.
#Chatzone remains popular to today since it is a landing site for some of the
telnet clients and also a well know place (it even has its own newsgroup).
During the North American evening hours you will find between 40 and 80 people
on the channel. However, in the wee hours of the morning, you would be
lucky to find more than 15 people.
Since I am actively involved with Chatzone as an administrator, I have learned
a lot of things and tried to implement them on #Friendly. First of all,
I have tried to eliminate the channel politics and tried to create an
environment where the ops will work together and not against each other.
Also I have learned tha an un-moderated mailing list is useless. I get
about 20 mails a day from the #Chatzone mailing list, of which 1 or 2 are
actually useful.
#Friendly still Rules!!!!!!!
MISCELLANIOUS
Alib and Indians are planning a ski trip in the N.Y. or Ontario
(Canada) area. For more information, e-mail
Alib (amblunde@mailbox.syr.edu) or Indians (indians@en.com). They would
like to have this final or close to that by Thanksgiving so we can
make reservations.
THAT'S ALL FOLKS! =)
Note: I did not change any of the newsletter to put it up here.. This is exactly the same as what was emailed with only a few exceptions.. One being that I made links so that you could email the people who's email addresses were given in the newsletter and links were made to the WWW sites. Some of the opcom member email addresses have changed as well, I have changed that as well.